The Thing About the Spiritual Gifts…
…is they are spiritual.
There. I said it.
Why is this important, you ask? Because most of the time when people start looking at the gifts of the Spirit, they start looking at their natural talents. Someone who is wise will quickly argue that they have a gift of wisdom. Someone who likes to make people feel good will say they have the gift of encouragement. This isn’t how things work.
The gifts of the Spirit are radically different than our own human abilities. They are gifts that can only be achieved by the Spirit. So if an unbeliever with no presence of the Holy Spirit can do what you do, it’s probably not a gift from the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is also known as the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead (Romans 8:11). Think about how incredibly unable you are to raise someone from the dead on your own. You know unless the Holy Spirit works through you, there is no way you can raise the next dead person you come across. The same is true with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Every time you manifest one, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is operating through you. Every gift is miraculous.
I’m not trying to discourage you. I want to encourage you to turn to Jesus and ask Him to truly allow the Holy Spirit to flow through you, beyond what you are capable of on your own. Don’t look to your abilities to do what only God can do. Instead, allow the Holy Spirit to do the heavy lifting and transform the world around you. One of these gifts operating in your life could change you, your church, or the world around you.
“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
Building On Jesus
You and I will disagree.
Most people think this is a problem. I disagree.
First of all, I disagree with myself sometimes. You may think that’s impossible, but as a growing human being, I change my mind sometimes. I think that’s healthy.
Other times, Future Me disagrees with Present Me. Or, sometimes Present Me disagrees with Past Me. So if I argue with myself, I’m bound to disagree with a completely different human being from time to time.
The question isn’t whether we disagree. The question is what we do with the disagreement.
Some disagreement comes from one or more of us not being submitted to Jesus. The fix for that is for both of us to submit to Christ in whatever area.
But a lot of disagreements come from the fact that we’re human. We’ll approach things differently. It’s bound to happen. In those places, the fix is for us to accept one another as Christ has accepted us. Remember: God has accepted Communists, Trump supporters, terrorists, homosexuals, and housewives when they’ve repented and turned to Jesus. His very first disciples contained a tax collector and a zealot who wanted to overthrow the Romans because of taxation!
The point is that Christ calls men and women from different backgrounds. He also calls us to accept believers who agree with us on Jesus but disagree with us on other issues. This requires us to sacrifice and put others before ourselves. The only way a body can continue in this very diverse situation is if the unity that they have is in Jesus.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:11
And if you and I disagree about something, even about spiritual matters, but we are both following the real Jesus and seeking to understand and obey the Bible, then I can put up with you disagreeing with me. I hope you can put up with me disagreeing with you.
I write these words about you and me. But if you’ve been paying attention, they’re not just about you and me. They’re about how much we are all willing to lay down our lives in order to build the body of Christ on its one foundation—Jesus.
The Cloister, The Harvest, and Where the Laborers Are (Part 3)
In the West, we have an interesting problem. The Church is cloistered. But because of that cloistering we believe no one wants to hear the Gospel. The opposite is true. The harvest is great, but the workers are few. And that sets up an interesting problem.
Jesus’ answer to a great harvest and a shortage of laborers is simple and yet very different than ours. We start Bible colleges, seminaries, training programs and apprenticeships. Jesus starts with the Father.
He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.
-Matthew 9:37-38
So Jesus’ first response is to pray. We look for strategies, but God is looking for people to pray. The raising up of laborers is a divine act that requires us to go to God in prayer. Have you been doing this? What does your prayer life look like in regards to God raising up laborers? I would suggest this is a good litmus test for how connected you are to God’s heart for the lost.
Now, a lot of people are familiar with this verse and some people actually practice it. This isn’t just Jesus’ being impractical. He expected God to answer and He did. But how?
Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave to them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness…Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions: “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel—God’s lost sheep. Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!
-Matthew 10:1, 5-8
Did you catch that? God answers the prayers of the disciples by raising up laborers among the very people Jesus told to pray. The people who prayed for laborers became the laborers themselves!
We can’t miss either of these two ideas. For the believer who sees a need for laborers, we need to spend time asking the Father to raise up laborers for the harvest. God is the source of true laborers for the Kingdom and if we ask Him for them in faith, He will give them. But the other idea is equally as important: If we pray for God to raise up laborers for the harvest, we shouldn’t be surprised if we ourselves are some of the very people that God raises up as a laborer.
This idea is crucial. So many people see the need for laborers, see the situation of the harvest, and may even pray. But few are willing to step out and be the very thing that they’ve been asking God for.
But we’re going to need more than just you in the harvest field, we’ll need others as well. God will raise up laborers from the church in much the same way as He did with the disciples. But one of the places we significantly underestimate finding laborers is among the lost.
Why the lost? Well, as we make disciples of lost men and women, we should be teaching them that they have a responsibility to make disciples as well. The teaching and modeling of this responsibility cannot be underestimated. New believers who are amazed about their new relationship with Jesus are often the best at convincing unbelievers that Jesus is real, and often are better at it and more motivated than long term Christians. As a ministry that I know of is fond of saying “The resources for the harvest are found in the harvest.” God has actually stored up laborers for the harvest in the harvest field. We should expect this and teach this as a normal thing, and quickly we will find the number of laborers dramatically increasing.
Friends, the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. Have you prayed to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field? Are you prepared not just to pray that prayer, but also to be an answer to that prayer?
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 