What exactly are “Spiritual Gifts” and how do we receive them?

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.” 1 Corinthians 12:1

Spiritual gifts are non-carnal, or divinely supernatural gifts, and the giver of them is God through the Holy Spirit. In a natural state or carnal state people are in a state of powerlessness when dealing with God in any way. In a natural state people have fallen into a bondage to sin and cannot overcome it. You might say, they are under the mastership of sin, and they have “zero” ability to not sin. God said in the fall people died, that death included their spirit. The human being consists of a tri-being, body, soul, and spirit, and it is the dead spirit that prevents any relationship with God. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24. The first process of salvation is for the Holy Spirit to enter the person and quickening their dead spirit. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” Ephesians 2:1 This is first because a sinner cannot be saved without this gift from God, salvation is spiritual and if your spirit is dead then it has zero ability to do anything good. This is called “total depravity”, meaning without this quickening, people are incapable of choosing God or achieving salvation without the Power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we must consider our quickening a spiritual gift from God, non-carnal, and divinely supernaturally given. This means without God’s gift of our quickening people are totally without power to please God or to serve Him in any compacity, even in salvation. “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Romans 8:8

A lost sinner with a dead spirit is incapable of repentance, because we’re are all born in sin. Because of the fall were cursed by that sin and more so we are born at enmity with God, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God…” Rom. 8:7a and Jesus Christ must have abolish that enmity the sinner is born with. “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity…” Eph. 2:15a. Therefore, since sin has been abolished by Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit enters the lost sinner, quickens their dead spirit, and calls them to come to Jesus Christ. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…” John 6:44a. And “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Rom. 8:14. Salvation, in its totality is the plan, work, power, and gift of God by the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23.

Everything we do for God is a spiritual gift, God’s Spirit working within us giving us spiritual gift after spiritual gift. As God reminds us, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26, 27.

Paul reminds in  Galatians 5:22 & 23 of many more spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit gives us, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Once we are saved by the power and giving of the Holy Spirit, all of our spiritual life is a gift from God. Paul recognized this in 1 Cor. 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” He recognized his unworthiness to ever serve God because he was a sinner against God, but God gave him countless spiritual gifts in life just as He has us, if we are serving Him. We cannot serve God in spirit and Truth if we fail to recognize God’s spiritual gifts in our Christian life, no matter what way we serve Him, it is by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Praise God for His Gifts to us!   

God’s Warning About Deception

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (14) But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;” 2 Timothy 3:13 - 14

God’s warnings must be heard, remembered, and steadfast held to our hearts. Christians, no matter how strong we are in the Lord and God’s word of Truth, we are still subject to falling. As Paul wrote “by the grace of God I am what I am” 1 Cor. 15:10 we are only as strong as God’s grace. We must pray for God’s grace everyday because it is only His grace that keeps us strong in the Lord. Paul spoke of his strength in the Lord and then ended verse 10 with these words, “yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” It is God’s Holy Spirit that delivered us to the point of being a good servant and it is God’s grace that must keep us. God teaches us His word; He controls so much of our ability to be Godly in Christ all by the amount of grace given. Humility is our understanding our variability in this flesh and that the slightest amount of pride only destroys us. We must constantly be aware of the very fact that if God allows us to fall into heresy we will fall. You may wonder why would God allow such a thing, it is because we brought it upon our self. We ought not put ourselves in a fire if we do not want to be burned, and we should not partner with deceivers if we do not want to be deceived. God has warned us over and over not to be associated with unbeliever’s or deceivers, because we are variable to seduction. 2 Corinthians 6:14, 17 “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (17) Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,” Deceivers are Satan’s servants on this earth and God said they are so powerful that they can deceive each other which is very clear in time we are in. We may ask, “why would God allow us to fall by their deception”? In all of history God has allowed His people to fall, why did Adam and Eve sin, God allowed it, and it is the same reason God allowed so many other servants to fall into sin. I knew a Pastor in my younger ministry, I do not remember his name nor will I say from where he lived. But I spent much time on the internet reading his work because he was a 5 point Sovereign Grace, Landmark pastor with a lot of great writings. Then I received a notice that he had fallen from the truth, he had been deceived, and was no longer believing what he spent so many years teaching. I found his email address and sent him an email asking why he no longer believed what he once wrote, he replied that he had met a preacher that used some scripture in Matthew (I do not remember the verse exactly) but this preacher totally changed his thinking. Many of men I talked to about him just wrote him off as not truly saved and therefore he fell. But it made me think how easily we can be deceived by deceivers. Imagine if he had never associated himself with that deceiver he may have never fallen. God warned us in 2 John 7-11 “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.  He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” Paul wrote in verse 14 of our text, “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;” Deceivers are very powerful, so much so that they can bring down some of the greatest men we know. If we disobey God who is to say that God will not allow us to fall to their deception. We are responsible for our actions in this life, and as Ministers, Pastors, and Teachers, we are responsible to lead and be examples and not put ourselves in variable positions to be deceived. The power of deceivers is as strong as God allows Satan to make them, and sometimes God allows to play in Satan’s dens of deception and even fall from the truth, and it is us that will answer in judgment. We all need to know our limits, and understand that we live, move, and have our being by God’s grace. Our strength in only in the grace of God, and we must pray as David did many of time in the Psalms “Lord keep me from sin” because only He can. Disobeying God will never go good for any of us, therefore, we need to “come out from among them, and be ye separate”. God help us!         

 

For in Him…

Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

We are in Him, God, because God is in us. God must have entered us first because we were corpse dead without Him. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” He must have entered our bodies before He quickened us. We were as lost souls like unto the earth when God created it, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:2 Lost souls are dark inside and they are void of any good just as the earth was before the Holy Spirit entered it. God called us “dead” which means inside we are as dead and void as a corpse. When God created man, he was just a void body, void of a soul and a spirit, just as a dead corpse laying on the ground. It is when God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7b. In the same manor God enters into our bodies, quickens our dead spirits and we become alive inside, He turns on the lights and causes us to see, hear, and believe the gospel, giving us life. He brings a new nature into us and begins to teach us and lead us, and giving us knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. We are never alone again, because God is in us, the whole Trinity wow lives within us. God is a Spirit there for He is like unto a breeze or a breath of air inside of us. We are now beings of God, called sons of God, our spirits are alive, our new natures are active, and God is now leading our walk on the earth. If you are saved you can feel God inside of you, you can feel Him working in your heart and causing wonderful things to develop inside of you. You will never be the same as you were because you are a new creature. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17. You have a new thought process, you began to think about God and His will for you, you have a heart willing to read, study and learn God’s word. You look at the word differently, and because you are different. Your friends will notice you are acting differently, because old things are passed away, just as God said they would. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17 God told us that the things of this world are passed and no longer our desires, they are in our past all things are new. “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (3) Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Ephesians 2:2 As Christians, as God’s children, we no longer live in the past, all has changed, God is now guiding our learning, thoughts, our walk, and our actions. Then we desire to serve the Lord, why, because we are fulfilling God’s ordained will for us ordained before the world was ever created. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10. We no longer are our own to do as we please, we no longer seek pride, or boast, or are selfish, or any of those past things. Oh no, we just seek to please God and His blessed will for us. It is all because we live, move, and have our being in Christ Jesus. God will from this moment on bless you so much it will make you cry inside. What will your new life be, a church member, a singer or song leader, a prayer warrior, a teacher, a minister, a missionary, or maybe a Pastor, or maybe just a great Christian and servant of God in many ways. But whatever your life is as a Christian it is by the grace of God and because God is in us directing our new life. And when your life is over and you have spent your new life serving the very God that blessed you so much, we to can gladly say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:10. Amen!!!

Knowing that we are God’s Son’s

John 1:12 - 13 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (13) Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Knowing that we are “the sons of God” is knowing that we are saved, we do not think, suppose, hope, nor do we wait till we die and see. When We “receive” Jesus Christ as our Saviour we then know that we are God’s child. This means that we have “Sonship” and that we are “Heirs” of God and “Joint-Heirs” with His True Son Jesus. God said in Eph. 1:6b “…wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” We did not make ourselves acceptable but God mad us acceptable as sons. We are not acceptable because of our own doing but because He made us acceptable in His own Son, Jesus. The only way we can “know” our sonship is that by Him making us acceptable in Jesus means that we are preserved in Jesus. God preservation of us is described in John 10:28 - 29 “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (29) My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” This passage falls in line with Romans 8:28 – 39 when God ask, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” V. 31, and in verse 33 “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.”. Then God went on to ask in verse 34 “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died…” and in verse 35 it is asked “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Then Paul summed it all up in verses 38 - 39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Our sonship created in Jesus Christ by the very God and Father that made us such is not temporal but it is eternal. This is why God said in Eph. 4:30b “…whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Sealed by Him, the Holy Spirit, whom can lose nothing. As Sons of God, we are not our own, we do not control our life not our eternal standing in Christ. Paul wrote in Col. 3:3 “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” The word “dead” means dead to sin, dead to the things of this world, we are protected in Jesus Christ, who profoundly said in Joh. 6:39 “And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” We were “born” into the family of God as His elected children, we did not choose it, it was not a decision, it is not something we worked for, it was a gift of God by His grace. God is not going to dismiss us as His children, none of us are perfect except in Jesus Christ. We have our commends in the word of God but in reality, some will fail a little and some will fail a lot, but we are God’s and God has us protected by the blood of our Saviour. We must be reminded of the Prodigal Son, God reminds us that if we fall into sinfulness, we are still His sons, He will not just cast us away. The Blood of Jesus is all the power we need to never fall from sonship. About the worse thing a believer can do is to be disobedient to their Father, but if it happens Jesus has promised that He will lose none. We are “born of the Spirit” and that not of the flesh, therefore, we are not subject to condemning ourselves. John 3:5 “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”