filled with the Spirit (pt. 3)
Something I’ve been noticing about this area over the past few years: the enemy has worked really hard to leverage abuses and mistakes in the church in order to marginalize the Spirit’s involvement in our gatherings, both small and large. Why? Because he knows the Holy Spirit is our source of power as followers of Christ. Our character comes from his fruit in our lives (Galatians 5), he reveals the truth and connects us to the Father (John 14 and 16:5-15), he gives us power over sin (Romans 8), he gives us divine guidance (Acts 13:1-4), and he gives the signs, wonders and gifts that the world can’t refute, confirming the truth of the Gospel (Mark 16:15-18; Acts 6:8-10; 13:6-12). No wonder he works so hard to separate us from our source. If he can do that, then we’re just doing this thing in our own understanding, with lots of hard work and planning and Excel spreadsheets and fundraising. The scary thing is that we can do some pretty impressive things, naturally speaking, with creative ideas, hard work and some cash. But there are some things we can’t accomplish, Kingdom-wise, no matter what our resources are if we don’t have the full manifestation and operation of the Spirit’s power in our lives.
Every aspect of the Spirit’s involvement is critical, but I want to focus on his gifts in this post. When it comes to these gifts, which I believe are under attack right now in the body, we need to ask ourselves a few basic questions about our lives as believers individually and as corporate bodies that gather weekly:
1. Are we “eagerly desiring” spiritual gifts, especially the “greater” gifts as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12:31? If not, is there a fear of the potential messes of abuse, disorderliness, or manipulation? Is that enough of a reason to ignore the manifestation of the Spirit in the church that’s intended to heal, grow and encourage the body?
2. Are we providing an environment somewhere/somehow in our homes and our churches where sick people can be healed by the laying on of hands? Is this something that we look forward to and expect to happen in our gatherings on a regular basis? When was the last time someone was miraculously healed at a gathering of some kind?
3. Is there an environment somewhere/somehow in our church where the normal Christ-follower can learn about, exercise and be mentored in the use of spiritual gifts such as discerning of spirits, a word of knowledge or wisdom, prophecy, the public manifestation of tongues and the interpretation of tongues?
4. Are we OK with 80% of our church spectating as 20% do the work, or are we expecting as Paul did that every believer attending our church will participate in the encouragement of the body through the use of the spiritual gifts they’ve been given for administration, helps, showing mercy, teaching, working miracles, healing the sick, prophesying or speaking publicly in tongues for someone to interpret (see every and each one in 1 Corinthians 12:6,7,11).
