1 Corinthians 12: 1What I want to talk about now is the various ways God's Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. 2Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. 3For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say "Jesus be damned!" Nor would anyone be inclined to say "Jesus is Master!" without the insight of the Holy Spirit.4God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. 5God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. 6God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all.
I have copied the above passages for a comparison. Please note verses 4-6 in 1 Corinthians 12.
We see 1. various gifts 2. various ministries and 3. various expressions of power. The various expressions of power are the Gifts of Manifestations. The various ministries are the Works that God has provided for us to do from the foundations of the world. The various gifts are the motivations that God has put inside us to motivate us to do His ministries. Please do not let anyone confuse these very separate types of gifts but they all work together like well-oiled machinery.
Our study is only on the Motivational Gifts of the Spirit. These gifts are what make us who we are in Christ. These gifts drive our personality and define our souls so that we may all work together to make a whole. One body, one Spirit, one Baptism formulate the unity of Jesus. This is something that I believe Christ’s church is forgetting. We are so caught up in political correctness that we forget Christ’s Correctness.
In order to understand the difference in the gifts, we must compare the Ministry Gifts (Eph 4:11-16) with the Manifestation Gifts with the Motivational Gifts. The Manifestation gifts are listed by Paul in 1 Cor 12:7-10
7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
a. wisdom through the Spirit
b. knowledge through the Spirit
c. faith through the Spirit
d. healing through the Spirit
e miracles through the Spirit
f. prophecy through the Spirit
g. discernment of spirits
h. various tongues
i. interpretation of tongues
That's a lot of gifts of the Spirit which prove the Holy Spirit and express the Holy Spirit's power. These gifts can be likened to a super nova because they will just explode from us and spread out covering those around us. That is basically what manifestation means. It is the Greek word
φανερωσις phanerōsis (fan-er'-o-sis)
exhibition, that is, (figuratively) expression, (by extension) a bestowment: - manifestation.
Gifts are God's way of drawing us closer to Himself. He will use us to be bridges for others. He will give us booster shots of what we need in order to show others Who God is. He has such amazing power. He raised Jesus from the dead and that same power is available to us to get His work done.
When we understand our gifts and how they work, we understand God's Work better and then we will work with God rather than against Him in all things. When we understand our own gifts, we then understand why we do what we do; why we say what we say and why we have so much energy for some things and such dread in our hearts for other things. We also understand why some Christians are stumbling blocks for other Christians without even knowing they are blocking the progress of a sister or brother! Continue Study...
You can get a book from:
http://www.heart2heart.org/ Katy and Don Fortune
You can hear Charles Stanley's sermons:
http://ww2.intouch.org/site/pp.aspx?c=7nKFISNvEqG&b=1013839 Charles Stanley
1 comment:
I love how the Lord uses the different gifts to bind us all together. How cool is that?
The motivational gift thing from a few days ago took me on a trip down memory lane to the early 70’s when I took the motivations-gift test for the first time. This one is clearly set up different. I’ll have to give it a try.
Keep up the teaching sister!
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