Supernatural Faith
.jpg)
Did
you know that you have God given strengths or have you been so busy focused on
your shortcomings to even notice?
God is,
and will always be, supremely seated on His Heavenly Throne. We are to be
humbled by that fact and live a life knowing that He is God..and we are not.
Yet…
in His undeniable sovereignty and strength is His desire to impart and bless us
with gifts through the power of The Holy Spirit.
Last
week I spoke about the importance of humility in our faith walk. It’s important
that we don’t get too caught up in the things that we deem as strengths, while
forgetting that we live by the Grace of God.
But there’s
a balance going on. God gives us His gifts of strength and asks us to
allow those strengths to move through us in order to bless those around us.
Another word for these strengths is the “Gifts of the Spirit”
We too
often skip over the spiritual and sometimes supernatural aspects of our faith
because we don’t know what to do with them.
We’re
ok with the understanding that miraculous supernatural events occurred through
the presence of Jesus in the bible….but we’re not sure they do today, through
the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s
open up a bit of scripture to see if that holds true.
“For
by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more
highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in
accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each
of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the
same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member
belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace
given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance
with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach;
if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give
generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it
cheerfully.”- Romans 12:3-8
“To
one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message
of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit,
to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers,
to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another
speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation
of tongues.”-1 Corinthians 12:8-10
“But
to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it
says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his
people.” (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the
lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher
than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) So, Christ himself
gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to
equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built
up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God
and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”-Ephesians
4:7-13
“The
Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the
LORD— and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he
sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears;” - Isaiah
11:2-3
Let’s
break down those gifts that Paul mentioned.
·
The Gift of
Wisdom - the gift to make choices and give
leadership that is according to God's will.
·
The Gift of
Knowledge - the gift to comprehensively
understand a spiritual issue or circumstance.
·
The Gift of
Faith - the gift to trust God and inspire
others to trust God, no matter the conditions.
·
The Gift of
Healing - the wondrous gift to use God's
healing power to cure a person who is ill, wounded or suffering.
·
The Gift of
Miracles - the gift to display signs and
miracles that give credibility to God's Word and the Gospel message.
·
The Gift of
Prophecy - the gift to declare a message from
God.
·
The Gift of
Discerning Spirits - the gift to recognize whether or not
something is truly from God or in accordance with righteousness.
·
The Gift of
Tongues - the gift to communicate in a foreign
language you do not have experience with, to converse with those who speak that
language.
·
The Gift of
Interpreting Tongues - the gift to interpret the speech and
writings of a different language and translate it back to others in your own.
·
The Gift of
Administration - the gift to keep things ordered and
in agreement with God's principles.
·
The Gift of
Helps - the gift of a desire and capacity to
always help others and do whatever it takes to achieve a task.
Maybe you’ve
been aware of some of these gifts in your own life. Maybe you’ve functioned in
some of these gifts without even knowing they were gifts.
Perhaps you’re
the person that’s always good at encouraging others in their faith, when they
are going through difficulty. You have the gift of faith.
Maybe you
have always been good at discerning situations and circumstances in a faith
filled way for yourself and others. You have the gift of wisdom or discernment.
Those seem
pretty reasonable right? I can think of a few people I know whom I believe
function this way in their faith.
But maybe you’re
the person that has prayed over someone and saw improvement…or perhaps even
complete healing. You may have the gift of healing….but you called it a
coincidence.
Maybe you’re
someone who has felt God speak to your heart at times; giving you guidance and
direction….You might have the gift of prophesy, but you brushed it off as your
imagination.
Perhaps you’re
someone who in a moment of prayer found yourself praying in a language you were
unfamiliar with. You might have the gift of tongues, but have just brushed it
off as an odd occurrence.
Before you
say “I’m not important enough for God to use me in those incredible ways” think
again.
You are
actually perfect for God to use you in those ways, because you belong to Him.
How do we
discover the gifts God has given us? We prayerfully ask God to reveal them to
us.
The Bible
encourages us to pray for guidance. Jesus emphasized this in the Sermon on the
Mount. He said…
“Ask, and it
will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches
finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7)
Ask the Lord
to put the desire in your heart to discover your own particular gift and then
learn how to use it for His glory. The Bible says “Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the LORD.
Trust him, and he will help you” (Psalm 37:4)
We discover
these God-given desires by prayer, confession of sin, studying and meditating
on God’s Word, and finally submitting to His will.
Like anything,
when we discover these gifts we have to exercise them. As muscles become
stronger the more we work with them, so do our gifts.
He is God…and
we are not…but we also have to remember…We are His. Belonging to the Lord comes
with responsibility and faithfulness. The responsibility to function to the
best of His ability not ours, while being faithful to what God calls us
to. He calls us to be a blessing to those around us and He equips us in that call.
Maybe you haven’t
looked in your tool case. Maybe you’ve put it into the trunk of your life and
forgotten that it’s even there.
Go open it up,
dust off what you find inside, and ask God to use you in mighty ways. Then
watch in amazement the things He will do through you. Yes YOU! You are His!
-Pastor Patti
Really excellent! I’m going to share this with some greetings!!!
ReplyDelete