Desire Spiritual Gifts . . .

I Corinthians 14:1  Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye prophesy.

As God sends us out to minister in various cities and churches, we see God move in various and different ways.  However, we have noticed that many church bodies are not moving fluently in their Spiritual Gifts.  There seems to be a lack of experience and teaching where Spiritual Gifts are concerned.  The following study was designed to help you understand Spiritual Gifts, discern your Spiritual Gifts, and learn to flow in what God has gifted you with for the sake of the body of Christ.

(If you need additional information or have questions concerning Spiritual Gifts, please contact this ministry and we will help you individually.)

First of all, it is impossible for you to flow in any Spiritual Gift unless you are baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit.  This is a separate event than when you became born again and confessed Jesus as your Savior.  There may be some who received the Holy Spirit when they confessed Jesus, but the question is, do you speak in other tongues?  When you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, there will be evidence of His indwelling by you speaking in unknown tongues, or some may call it your prayer language.

When you were filled with the Holy Spirit, God bestowed gifts upon you.  These are Spiritual Gifts.  Do you know what gifts He gave you?  Have you felt an unction to move in these gifts but held back because you were uncertain what to do?  Hopefully this study will help guide you.  Grab your bible, and read on.

What are Spiritual Gifts?   I Corinthians 12:1-11  

There are a variety of gifts given and divided severally as he will (v. 11), so the Holy Spirit in his infinite wisdom, knows which gifts to give to each believer.  For instance, Pastor Joe operates strongly in Word of Knowledge, Prophecy, and Discerning of Spirits.  My strong gifts are Prophecy and Interpretation of message in Tongues (this is different than the tongues of your prayer language).  Now we have the ability to operate in any of the 9 gifts, however, we have strong gifts where God uses us regularly.  It will be the same for you.  There might be one or two gifts that operate through you strongly, but if God has a different need some day and you are a yielded vessel, He can cause any of the 9 gifts to operate through you for His Glory!

 v4: Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

1.      Word of Wisdom - A supernatural solution or answer to a problem or situation

2.      Word of Knowledge - The supernatural knowledge of a fact about a person or situation

3.      Gift of Faith - A supernatural endowment of faith for a particular problem or situation

4.      Gifts of Healing - Supernatural dispersement of instant healing

5.      Working of Miracles - A Supernatural empowerment for an impossible feat

6.      Prophecy - the Holy Spirit speaking through a vessel to edify, exhort, and comfort 

7.      Discerning of Spirits - A supernatural discernment of evil spirits present

8.      Divers kinds of tongues - A message from the Holy Spirit delivered in another tongue

9.      Interpretation of tongues - A supernatural interpretation of the message in tongues

Purpose of Spiritual Gifts:  I Corinthians 12:7

v7:  But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

Spiritual Gifts are definitely for body ministry, they profit (edify and minister to) the body of Christ. 

I Corin 14: 1-6, 12  For the edification of the body, or church.

I Corin 12:31  Covet earnestly the best gifts.

Do you know that every time you gather together with other believers, God is in your midst.  God is speaking to us all of the time.  Unfortunately, we just miss it and only hear a fraction of what He is speaking to us.  Just imagine, if we heard everything that He spoke to us, where we would be spiritually!  We would be so edified and uplifted, that the lies and attacks of the devil would be of no affect!  It's time for us to listen up and hear the voice of our Father!

How to use Spiritual Gifts at the Altar: 

I Cor 13:2  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith , so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

Romans 1:11 Impartation of spiritual gifts

I Tim 4:14  Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given by prophecy, with the laying on of hands.

If you have attended one of our services, you will have seen the gifts in action during altar ministry time.  However, let's talk about the gifts in action during a worship service since this is where the gifts will manifest for most people.  If you have not moved in the gifts before, but you believe the Holy Spirit is prompting you and you are sensing an unction in the spirit, please talk to your pastor or worship leader before launching out.  This is proper church order, because you need the direction of the leadership as to how the gifts are administered in your church.  Your pastor will direct you and encourage you and pray for you because it truly takes faith to step out and let the Holy Spirit use you.  But don't hold back!  There is nothing more frustrating than the Holy Spirit pressing you to speak something and then holding back out of fear or disobedience - believe me I know.  When the gifts first manifested in me, I was so scared to speak up that I stubbornly resisted.  After this happened numerous times, an Evangelist called me out during a service and stopped the service until I would speak what the Holy Spirit was saying to me.  Talk about getting over fear quickly!  Don't do what I did!!!  Be obedient and trust God.  Your brothers and sisters in Christ will understand that this is new territory for you and they will be supportive. 

Let me tell you about a move of the Spirit, but please keep in mind that God moves in many ways, this is just from my personal experience in prophetic utterance and interpretation of message in tongues.  Let's talk about prophetic utterance first.  During praise and worship, when there is an atmosphere of worship and the presence of the Holy Spirit, several words or a phrase will run through your spirit, or for some people the whole word becomes evident.  You sense the anointing on you (for me there is a strong stirring in my spirit and sometimes I will feel warmth), the very next thing you should do is begin to pray and test the spirit.  See I John 4, I always pray and ask the Lord if it is His will for me to speak the words, or if the words are not from him I ask him to remove them from my mind and spirit.  If the words remain, then I prepare myself to speak them. For churches that are moving in the gifts, the worship team will be sensitive to the Spirit and will pause between songs and wait on the Holy Spirit.  During this pause, begin to speak the words or phrase that the Lord has given you.  Some churches will ask you to come to the platform or a microphone, others may have you speak from your place in the audience, it is good to know in advance how the church you are in handles the flow of spiritual gifts.  I always have my eyes closed so that I can completely concentrate on what I am hearing in my spirit.  As you speak the words you have, wait, and the Lord will give you more words, just follow him.  When the words stop and the anointing lifts, the message is complete.  As you are speaking the message, you should judge it to confirm that it lines up with the nature of God.  For instance, the Holy Spirit would never speak anything harsh, unkind, perverse, or ugly in any way.  Even a word that is corrective in nature would come forth in the gentle and loving nature of God.  Your pastor will also judge the word spoken.  Sometimes the Lord will speak a brief message and sometimes a longer one.  When I first started in the gifts, the Lord only gave me several sentences to speak.  As I grew in experience, and as I grew in the Word, the messages expanded and became longer and came with more intensity.

Now for Message in Tongues and the Interpretation, if you are praising God in your prayer language and a strong unction comes over you to speak up and bring a message in Tongues forth, do it.  Just wait for the right timing in the service.  God will always make room for your gift.  Be sensitive to the anointing, and when it lifts stop the tongue, and begin to pray asking God to bring forth the interpretation.  He may bring the interpretation through you, or someone else in the congregation.  The interpretation will come in the same way as the prophetic utterance, except it will follow the message in tongues.  Many times, I have received an interpretation before the Message in Tongues comes forth, but as I am waiting on the Lord, the Tongue comes forth and I can then speak the interpretation.

Again, let me say that it does flow differently for different people.  I have been told by someone that the words to a prophetic utterance actually appear in their mind and run by like on a script and they just read them.  I know that God moves in many ways, the important thing is that you let him use YOU!  If you aren't flowing in the gifts yet, ask the Lord!  He will stir them up in you and train you.

If you are on a ministry team, God may anoint you to flow in the gifts during altar ministry time.  If you have seen Pastor Joe minister at the altar, you have seen the Word of Knowledge gift for sure!  He will sometimes see (in his spirit) a fact about a person, for instance, I saw him ministering to a woman in Centralia, IL and he said to her that he was seeing her nightstand full of books, and stacks of books around her room, all about children (the Lord was speaking to her about her calling to children's ministry).  This was indeed true, but he could not have any natural knowledge of this because he had never seen or met this woman before.  The Holy Spirit provided this fact so that Pastor Joe could minister to her about her work with children and her love for children.  We found out later from her daughter that she owned and ran a daycare, and had recently taken over the Sunday School department at her church!  God is always right on!  The Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom gifts can manifest in a variety of ways.  The same is true with healings, miracles, faith, discernment, etc.  The key is to be submitted to God, and be prayerful over ever unction and submit yourself to the leadership and guidance of your pastor.  Having a spiritual covering that provides teaching, training, and support about spiritual gifts is an incredible help!

The difference between Gifts and the Office

Eph 4:11-12 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Spiritual gifts are given to every spirit filled believer, however, not every spirit filled believer is called to be a prophet, or an evangelist, or pastor.  These are offices that God will set certain people into.  When a believer has been used heavily in a certain gift or area, God may increase their anointing and set them into an office to oversee the saints in a particular area.  For instance, Pastor Joe has operated in the offices of pastor, teacher, evangelist, and prophet.  Sometimes during a set of services, you will see him minister out of several offices, like evangelist and prophet.  If you believe God is calling you into an office, discuss it with your pastor and prayerfully seek God about it, he will lead you and guide you into all truth!

Activation Exercises and Stirring up the Gifts

II Tim 1:6  -that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and altar exercises and impartation of gifts.

Part of Prophetic Ministries function is to stir up the gift of God that is lying dormant in believers.  Many times during altar ministry time, we will impart gifts and activate gifts that God has already given.  If your ministry team would like a private meeting with us, just let us know.  We are flexible and it is just a great desire of ours to see the gifts functioning and flowing through the body of Christ as God designed.

In closing I would like to remind you that this is just a brief snapshot of spiritual gifts.  In fact, as we continue to grow and flow in our gifts, God shows us something new every time.  He is so incredible!  Just know that Jesus loves you and that He will surely complete the good work He started in you!  Just listen for His voice (and I have learned over the years that He speaks to us in many ways), and learn how his voice sounds compared to all of the others in the world.  It is that still, small voice that will lead you in your gifts and callings, and lead you through life.  Seek Him, be still and listen, He wants to talk to you today!
-edited and updated 10/12/07

Stay tuned...I am going to get Pastor Joe to write about his experiences with Word of Knowledge, Prophecy, and many other things.....