Thursday, April 18, 2013

I WANT THAT GIFT

Good morning, Mighty Woman of God.  I pray that this message will bless you.

(1 Cor. 7:7), I wish that all men were as I am.  But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. (1Tim. 4:14-16), Do not neglect your gift which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.  Watch your life and doctrine closely. persevere in them, because of you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.  (1Peter 4:10), Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

I tried to delete one of those scriptures, but the Holy Spirit says, each one is for your knowledge as well as my own.  As I was led to those scriptures, I learned something for myself.  I will try to cover what we need today, as short as I possibly can, but know this, I am always led by the Holy Spirit when doing my blogs.

A lot of Christians desire to have gifts in the church.  What I am concerned about that is WHY?  The scripture states that God gives gifts, according to how He see fits.  And a lot of people don't want the gift that God has given to them, because they can't show it off.  So instead they will neglect the gift and wait for God to give them something more flashy.  Something that the whole world will see that they have.  Those people with that type of mindset will not do what (1 Peter 4:10) states (Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms). 

God gives you the gift that He knows will glorify Him, not you.  The gift that God gives to you is not so that you will be glorified and marveled by others in the church or Body of Christ.  The gift is to serve others and if you do that, you will notice that you are also blessed and drawn closer to God.
Here's my story.  The church that I come from had a large congregation.  One bible study night, the Pastor mentioned that the congregation look over the 52 different ministries, pray about it and become a part of that ministry, that God lead you to.  I looked over the list and the Holy Spirit told me to join the prayer ministry.  I love to pray, I prayed all the time, so I thought it was a perfect fit for me.  What I didn't know was that the prayer ministry was more than just praying for people.  You will eventually be taking on the ministry of a prayer warrior, which meant spiritual warfare.  I was not knowledgeable about any of that but I keep going further in the Prayer Ministry. First, I received the gifts of speaking in tongues.  I thought that was good.  I didn't know why I needed that gift, but it was soon revealed to me that in order to do spiritual warfare, I needed that gift.  I fixed up a small space in my attic and I begin to pray all the time.  That was my special place to meet God and get direction from Him.  I learned how to listen to God and be obedient to Him.  No matter how crazy I thought His instructions were, I followed them.
I went to a number of classes that were offered in the church.  One day while learning more about spiritual warfare, the elder that was teaching the class told us what I thought then to be a scary situation that had actually happened to him.  He told the class that one night as he was sleeping he felt something holding him down, by his feet.  He looked up and saw a dark figure and he immediately prayed and it left.  He went back to sleep.  Needless to say, my mouth was wide open and I said to myself, "I didn't sign up for this".

Anyway, the next gift that I received from God was the gift of knowledge (a prophetic gift).  Because I was faithful and obedient, God began to trust me with more.  The gift of speaking in tongues and the prophetic gift are very much needed in the ministry that God has called me to do.  That didn't happen overnight.  I never asked for any of those gifts, but I accepted what the Holy Spirit began to do in my life.  What I realized is that each of my gifts are needed as a whole to complete the task that the Lord has set before me.  Some people observe my spiritual gift and think it's so great to have, but are you willing to pay the price.  Are you willing to lay on your face before the Lord for hours at a time.  The gifts I have are for the church and the edification of the Body of Christ.  When people would say thank you or try to give me the praise, my answer is, "Thank God for your blessing, not me".  Because of my ministry, spiritual warfare is a big part of my life.  Whatever gift you have, you will need to do spiritual warfare, there is no way around it.
My prayer for you today, is that you not only read those scriptures, but accept them as the Word of God and realize that the gifts given by the Spirit of the Lord, are not so that you will be glorified or praised.  The gift is not for you to be next to the pastor.  Don't desire to have someone else's gift because you think it's so great.  Accept whatever gift God has given to you and use it for the Body of Christ.  PRAISE GOD!
Heavenly Father, I pray that each one that reads your message is both blessed and warned concerning the gifts that YOU have chosen for them.  I pray that each one use their spiritual gifts for the Body of Christ and not just their body.  I pray Lord that YOU are glorified through each of us as we begin to we mature in the gifts that YOU have given to us.  In Jesus name, Amen.