THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT

GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT

                In order for me to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit I had some big hurdles to cross. I had grown up in an environment that warned against speaking in tongues as the work of the devil. I was taught that there was no such thing as praying in an unknown tongue, but rather that it was a gift of known languages. In other words, if you were sent as a missionary to China, the Lord might give you the gift of Chinese so the Chinese people could understand you.

                But when I read my Bible it said: “For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.” 1 Cor. 14:2

                Well, this one statement opened up a whole can of worms for me because it outright tells me that the gift of tongues is primarily  the gift of an unknown language ( hence the reason for the gift of interpretation of tongues when spoken in public) but it also said something about the spirit of a man.

                When a person is born again, the Holy Spirit quickens our dead spirit and comes in and dwells in that spirit. IN other words, Jesus came here to earth. He was born into a human body for the express purpose of recreating in man an abode for His Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit does not dwell in our body, but in our born again spirit. This is and was the purpose of coming here and dying for us the death that we deserved and when He died on the cross the veil in the temple was torn in two to show us something very important.

                The tearing of the veil signified that Jesus, in His own body had broken down the dividing wall. HE had removed the cherubim that stood guard at Eden blocking Adam and Eve’s way to the tree of life. This is what the veil in the temple stood for. We know this because when Adam and Eve sinned, God stationed Cherubim at the gate of the garden and why did HE do that?

                Genesis 3:22 says: Then the Lord God said, “ Behold the man has become like one of Us knowing good and evil; and now lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever-“ And we know why God said and did what He did. It was the infinite grace of God that caused Him to shut the way to the tree of life. If we had become immortal as fallen sinners there could be no redemption for us and we would have lived forever in this fallen state. This is the plight of the fallen angels. They cannot die, but neither can they be saved since they have no soul to save. Their loss is an eternal loss.

                But as Jesus hung on the cross and as He died, the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and it was telling mankind that the flaming angel had been removed and the gate had been opened once again to the tree of life. JESUS IS THAT TREE OF AND NOW BECAUSE OF HIS BLOOD AND SACRIFICE, WE CAN ENTER WITHIN THE VEIL AND WE CAN NOW HAVE ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. HALLELUJAH!

                He who has the Son has the life!!!! When we receive Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we receive eternal life.

“He that believeth in Me shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

“But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. John 4:14

“Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me, HAS eternal life and does not come into judgment but has passed from death into life.” John 5:25

“Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes HAS eternal life.” John 6:27

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” John 6:63

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me SHALL NEVER DIE.” John 11:25

Jesus is saying here that when we believe in Him even through the body dies and goes back to the ground, our born again spirit can never die and it goes back to God who gave it… and it has our identity stamped upon it and the whole essence of who we are is in that spirit because we see the souls of them beneath the altar in heaven who had been beheaded for their faith asking “how long.” Rev.6:9 And in Hebrews 12:23 we see the church of the first born in heaven along with the spirits of righteous men made perfect.

                The truth is in the Bible if we can take time to read what it actually says instead of placing our traditions in front of God’s Word.

Paul said in 1 Cor. 5:5: “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

                So the point is that when we are born again we receive a new spirit from God so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in us. And this is precisely why Jesus told His disciples after His resurrection saying:

“I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you FOREVER; that is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides WITH YOU AND WILL BE IN YOU.”

                At this point Jesus had already died and risen from the dead. The veil had been removed and in His statement Jesus shows us the difference between the Old and New Covenants. In the Old Covenant the Holy Spirit could be WITH them, but not IN them and even with the anointing of a priest or a king or a prophet, the Holy Spirit came UPON them but not IN them. The way back to the tree of life literally had to be made by Jesus through His own body on the cross.

                So Jesus, having done all of that, now told His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem and to wait for the promise of the Father. He would send down to us the same Spirit that dwelt in Jesus so that we could follow in His footsteps.

                First in being born again, God creates a new spirit in us and then He sends down His own Spirit to dwell in our newly created human spirit and it is in that union with the Spirit of Christ that we are saved and given eternal life.

                As we approach the end of time we have got to get this right my friends. If we are not operating in the Holy Spirit then we are only playing church. We have a form of godliness, but we deny the power thereof. We need our blinders taken off so that we can see and embrace the full truth of the Gospel.

                So Paul in 1 Cor. 14 is dealing with a problem in misunderstanding. The whole church was coming together to speak in tongues and so the Gospel was not being preached and Paul asks them,      “How are the ungifted going to understand the Gospel if you are all speaking in tongues? He tells us right there that this is a language that nobody understands. So that begs the question: What is it for if nobody understands it?

                So Paul concludes this by saying: “Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind also; I shall sing with the spirit and I shall sing with the mind also.”

                Friends, there is a very important doctrine being taught here that many just gloss over and pretend to know what Paul is talking about. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF TONGUES IF IT DOESN’T PROVE PROFITABLE TO OUR MINDS?

                What this is telling us is that intellectual religion is not enough. We have been given a new spirit when we were born again and we must feed that spirit with the word and with prayer and we must build it up by praying in the spirit… BUT WHY?

                It is because before the fall, Adam was first of all a spirit that dwelt in a body of clay and he had a soul by which he may choose whether to live by the spirit or by the flesh. In this makeup mankind is totally unique. Angels don’t have souls. Angels don’t have physical bodies. They are spirits. So Adam was spirit controlled. He was filled with the Spirit of God. He had face to face communion with God. So when he sinned, a veil was pulled over his spirit and it went dormant and so Adam began to live by his soul, (or mind) and as such he had very little defense against the carnal desires of the flesh.

                This then is the whole point of Romans chapter 8. THE SPIRIT THAT ADAM LOST IN THE FALL HAS BEEN RESTORED TO US THROUGH JESUS CHRIST AND WITH IT A RENEWED ACCESS TO THE TREE OF LIFE WHICH IS JESUS. This is what Jesus came to bring us. Jesus came here to reverse the fall. So what is the key point of the born again, Spirit filled life then? It is to build up that new spirit that God has placed within us and to learn to live by it rather than by our flesh.

                While intellectual knowledge can build up our mind, we desperately need to build up our spirit so that that spirit in union with the Spirit of Christ may gain dominion over our flesh so that we may be spirit controlled beings once again. We need this in order to overcome the world the flesh and the devil.

                This is why Paul said: “ I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all, however in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind, that I may instruct others also, rather than a thousand words in a tongue.” 1n Cor. 14:18, 19.

                My friends, we benefit from the words that Paul preached to us, but they came forth from His spirit because he prayed in tongues more than any of them. Today we still benefit from the words that Paul gave us because they are infused with the Spirit of God and so being much more than mere information, they can bring life giving transformation and His words can activate our spirit as well.

                Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.” John 6: 63

                When you read the writings of those who are merely intellectual, they can be oh so scholarly and big worded, but there is something dry and dead about their thoughts and more often than not they begin to pick apart the scriptures because spiritual things are only spiritually understood.

                Every morning I pray in the spirit and I pray that my words will be infused with the Spirit of God so that they may impart life to you and not mere information. Does the Spirit speak to you through my words? I hope and pray that this is so, for this would be a colossal waste of time if I am not imparting the life of Christ to you.

                My flesh has nothing to offer to you and my intellect, without the grace and almighty power of God is vain and full of weakness. It is from my innermost being that rivers of living water must flow. It is from my spirit that I must minister to you. The flesh profits nothing.

                There is a mixture of both Spirit and flesh in my writings and this is why I must pray in the Spirit and to build up my spirit in the Lord so that the Spirit will take over the flesh and my words will become purer  and more powerful to the saving of souls. I owe it to you to be strong in my spirit. After all, do you want only to hear my opinions or do you want to be infused with the life of Jesus?

                So I must speak according to His Word and I must operate in His Spirit. It is the combination of Spirit and truth that saves us. Jesus is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE. IF I am not imparting Jesus to you, all of my words are in vain. I have only tickled your intellect.

                As writers and preachers and teachers then, we must be humble above all others. Our cleverness and intellect we must lie at the foot of the cross and count it all as rubbish for the sake of Christ. Phil. 3:7-11

                In 1 Cor. 1:21 Paul tells us that by the wisdom of this world they did not come to know God, but by the foolishness of preaching. The intellectual Greeks thought it was foolishness, all this talk about the cross and death and rebirth in Christ. Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness.”  Cor. 1:23

                All of our foolish pride must be laid in the dust in order that the life of Christ may be imparted which is first of all spiritual. Jesus ministers to our spirit. He sends His Spirit into our spirit and makes us into temples of the living God. As such we will begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit and we will begin to operate in the gifts of the Spirit.

                Do you want to receive the latter rain? Do you want to be a part of the final revival and harvest? Then you had better begin building up your spirit. You do this by choosing to live by the Spirit and by the Word of God and you do it by praying in the Spirit for as Jude said in Jude 20: “But you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

                After having come into a living relationship with Jesus through His Holy Spirit and having fellowshipped in the living Body of Christ, I could never be satisfied to return to dead intellectualism and spiritless religion. Our fellowship is with the Holy Spirit. We can argue doctrines all day long and still go to hell. If we don’t have the same Spirit in us that raised Him from the dead, then we shall not be raised from the dead. Did you ever stop to think of the fact that the very Holy Spirit that dwells in you now is the same Spirit that will either raise you from the dead or change you in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump?

                Should we not them place a much higher value on the Spirit of Christ that dwells in us? And don’t you think it might be a good idea to stop telling people that the gifts of the Spirit are of the devil? Is that not blasphemy? As long as we are walking in obedience to Christ and His Word, we never need to worry about receiving the wrong spirit. It is only when you depart from His Word and begin living in the flesh and in the world that the devil can have any access to you. “Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.” 1 John 4:4

                This is what is happening in the great falling away that is now happening in parts of the church. They have begun to abandon the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, the crucified life, obedience to the Word, and repentance from dead works. Through false grace they have abandoned the goal of being conformed into the image of Christ. They have begun to ignore most of the Bible only using a biblical sound bite here and there and they are allowing New Age spirits into their midst..  Many have abandoned their Protestant faith and have decided to rejoin the mother of harlots… papal Rome. As such they will eventually embrace the man of sin, the son of perdition, the antichrist as their hope.

                We need the Spirit of God and the Word of God and we need to enter into the fullness of it and I will tell you this: The fullness of the Gospel and the Spirit filled, Word teaching Pentecostal faith is becoming very unpopular right now as people everywhere flock to the mega churches often to hear a very watered down version of truth. They are looking for times of ease and the more prophecy we see being fulfilled in the world, the more tenaciously they will hide from it, placing their faith in the feel good messages of the imposters rather than those who are filled with the Spirit of God and the Word of God. The end time message is a call out of Babylon, not a call to join Babylon.

                Come to the fountain of Jesus. Drink and be satisfied. Jesus is calling to some of you right now saying: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in Him.”  John 6:55. And how does He abide in us and us in Him? Through His Holy Spirit whom He sent down to bring to us everything for which He lived and died and rose again.

                Do we think that the true church of Jesus Christ can exist for even one moment without the life and presence of the Holy Spirit? So why is it then that many a church may invoke the Holy Spirit as a distant name that they use for baptizing people, while in fact they studiously avoid any evidence of His presence. We have literally programmed Him out of our services and called His gifts the works of the devil. But having tasted of the transforming power of Christ and of His Holy Spirit I can never return again to the works and religion of the flesh. Jesus died to give us this. Let us walk in it.  

                “And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not6 in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you HE who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Romans 8:8-11, 14