Practicing the Power: Welcoming the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Your Life

by Sam Storms

One word in two texts should help to answer that question. In 1 Corinthians 12:6 Paul says this about spiritual gifts: “. . . and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” A bit later, in verse 11, he reminds us that “all these [spiritual gifts] are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”

Two texts pointing toward how we experience divine power through the spiritual gifts in the Christian life. 1 Corinthians 12:6 and 1 Corinthians 12:11

We can render them this way: “. . . and there are varieties of energizings, but it is the same God who energizes them all in everyone.” And these gifts are “energized by one and the same Spirit.” This is Paul’s way of telling us that spiritual gifts, whether gifts of tongues or teaching, whether exhortation or evangelism, whether prophesying or pastoring, are the effect or result of divine power. Spiritual gifts are the concrete, tangible manifestations of divine energy in and through followers of Jesus. Paul is writing that this energizing power from the Spirit is essential to the church as a whole and in the lives of individual church members to enable them to reach maturity.

"Energizings" is a good term to use for this. It highlights the potential of a gift from being not in use, to in use by the energizing of the Spirit and of faith. Somewhat like having the capacity to to have a light on in every house is determined by the wiring being present, and the power source being connected. In the Holy Spirit, we have both the wiring and the power source connected. Unlike electricity which power our homes, we don't have switches to turn whatever gifts we would like to have (like we have the ability to choose which light in a home to turn on), but the potential for them to be turned on at the Holy Spirit's discretion is possible. And this is possible by prayer. Storms says, "Spiritual gifts are the the contrete tangible manifestations of divne energy in and through follwers of Jesus." Tangible? I assume he means able to be observed by some of the congregation. Not necessarily able to be touch or felt, or known by the senses. Storms also says, "Paul is writing that this energizing power form the Spirit is essential to the church as a whole and in the lives of individual church members to enable them to reach maturity." So is someone not participating in the use of the spiritual gifts immature?

But only the Spirit can make the wind blow! Whether or not the sails fill with a breeze, whether or not the boat moves an inch in the water, is dependent on the will of the sovereign Spirit who blows when and where and however much he pleases. You and I cannot force him to move. Not even our obedience guarantees that the Spirit will do what we have hoped and prayed that he will do. We cannot compel the presence of the Spirit. We cannot create the operation of a spiritual gift in accordance with biblical standards of conduct. We can obey and pray that the Spirit will be pleased to blow in and through our acts of obedience. If the Spirit chooses not to move, we cannot, indeed we must not, attempt to coerce him. And we should not give up ever trying to sail again because of a calm day when the wind wasn’t blowing. Most important of all, don’t try to blow into the sail yourself or forget the wind and use paddles instead. That’s not sailing.

This means that the Holy Spirit is the one who decides who gets what. We don’t. But we are told to “earnestly desire” spiritual gifts. Isn’t it reasonable to think that if we are responsible for desiring spiritual gifts and the Spirit is responsible for distributing them, we should ask that he fulfill our desire by granting us the gifts we want to see manifest in our lives? I would suggest that the “desire” we feel for certain gifts is likely itself the fruit of the Spirit’s work in our hearts. He desires (or wills) to grant us a gift (or gifts), which awakens in us a desire for the very thing he is determined to impart.

Now this is interesting. Storms points to our very desiring of a spiritual gift to be "...likelt itself the fruit of the Spirit's work in our hearts." So the Spirit gives us the desire for spiritual gifts in general, and sometimes for specific ones, so that He can answer and give us what He put in us to desire. So does that mean that if we DON'T desire the spiritual gifts, or certain ones, that it's because God hasn't given us the desire for them yet? What if we never feel a desire to ask God for the spiritual gifts? Or what if we never ask God for a particular gift because we don't have the desire for it? Is this an issue of disobedience? Or, since it is the Spirit's decision to give or not give us the desire to desire spiritual gifts, it doesn't matter? Either we will desire it because He wills so, or we won't because He doesn't?

These are men and women who have already been born again and already possess at least one spiritual gift. Paul is exhorting believers, in whom the Spirit already permanently dwells and to whom the Spirit has already granted at least one gift, to “earnestly desire” yet more gifts.

Does a Christian need to be able to identify what their current spiritual gift is in order to be able to pursue other ones? What if they are unable to identify one?

Here Paul writes, “Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.”

It JUST NOW occured to me that the person who speaks a tongue, can also be the one to interpret it. I've never seen it, but it seems clear that it's not only possible but that if I have the gift of speaking in tongues that I have a commandment to seek the gift of interpretation as well!

First of all, we are told that those present on the Day of Pentecost were there in obedience to the command of Jesus:

Spiritual energizing a result of obedience to previous instruction and devotion to those instructions.

There is no reason to believe that if those listening had disbelieved Jesus’ promise or disobeyed his command, refusing to wait with the others in Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Spirit, that they would have received tongues, irrespective of their response to him.

Why was faith so important to Jesus? The simple answer is that faith magnifies the mercy and power of God.

Faith is a confession of our personal inability and of God’s limitless power. When we relate to God with genuine faith, the focus is not on the person who believes but on God to whom we look and in whose promises and power we place our confident trust. Faith is an act of self-denial, a renunciation of one’s ability to do anything. Faith itself carries no power; but it is instrumental, deriving its significance from the role it plays in relating us to the God who answers our prayers.

In Matthew 9:28–29 Jesus asks the two blind men one question—“Do you believe I am able to heal you?”

Compared with Matthew 8:3 concerning Jesus desire or WILL to heal someone. The leper was concerned with not if Jesus COULD heal him, but if He WOULD. This is often a doubt I struggle against. Especially if it is a repeated prayer for healing that is not answered positively. The doubt increases every time I am not healed.

The leper in Matthew 8 said to Jesus, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (v. 2). The leper had no reservations when it came to Christ’s ability. But he was reluctant to presume upon Christ’s will. Notice that Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for his doubts, as if it were a shortcoming in his faith that might jeopardize his healing. He healed him because of his confidence that he could do it.

When I pray for people to be healed, I typically ask them to confess out loud their belief that God is able to heal them. I suggest you do the same.

Interesting! I wonder what other people’s experience with this is!

This relates primarily to our trust in God’s goodness and his commitment to build up and to restore. God is overflowing in compassion, and healing is a window into his heart for the welfare and blessing of his people (see Luke 11:11–13).

I also struggle to consistently believe that this is God’s character precisely because of the disproportionate way God seems to answer prayers prayed with faith in His ability and His will to heal to all the times that despite these positive types of faith. Perhaps we don’t see healing as often because we lack one or more of the other types of faith. But it’s made more difficult every time God doesn’t seem to affirm His heart to see His children healed with an actual healing.

What this tells us is that God has chosen to suspend healing mercy, making it dependent on the repentance of his people.

Unrepentant sin is a well-known and commonly pointed to reason why prayers, especially healing prayers, aren’t answered. Some use this as a way to bludgeon those they feel more righteous than. And some, while well-meaning, have added guilt to an already guilt or shame-laden conscience and have put an answered prayer for healing further out of reach. At the same time, we can’t just assume that unrepentant sin ISNT the reason why a prayer doesn’t get answered. But I don’t think it’s right to ASSUME that is the reason right out of the gate. It has on occasion turned out that while in prayer (especially in a group context that I have or others have stumbled upon previously unknown or unrecognized sin that I believe the Spirit CHOOSES TO REVEAL AT THAT TIME.

The only place where a “gift” of healing is explicitly mentioned is in 1 Corinthians 12:9 and 28.

It suggests that Paul did not envision a person being endowed with one healing gift that is operative at all times for all diseases. His language suggests many different gifts or powers of healing, each appropriate to and effective for its related illness, or it may suggest that each occurrence of healing constitutes a distinct gift in its own right.

So don’t accept the erroneous idea that if anyone could ever heal, he could always heal.

But his prayers for Epaphroditus weren’t answered, at least not at first (see Philippians 2:25–30). Clearly, Paul could not heal at will. And aside from Jesus, no one else could either!

Even Jesus had limitations from the Father on how and when he could heal (read John 5:19; Mark 6:5–6).

Investigate passage. Is this accurate?

Paul apparently healed everyone on the island of Malta who came to him).

This is similar to how Jesus healed “everyone of disease and affliction”. Was this kind of healing only intended for Jesus and the 1st century church? I see no Scriptural evidence to think so.

The fact that healing is an expression of divine mercy (Philippians 2:27) means that it should never be viewed as a right.

God does not owe us healing.

God’s motive for healing hasn’t changed! The primary reason God healed through Jesus prior to Pentecost was because he is a merciful, compassionate God. And the primary reason God continues to heal after Pentecost is because he is a merciful, compassionate God. God is no less merciful, no less compassionate, no less caring when it comes to the physical condition of his people after Pentecost than he was before Pentecost.

Then, apart from the most common explanation, which is that that person has un-admitted or unconfessed sin, why is it that so few people are actually healed if God’s heart for healing hasn’t changed? I sincerely doubt that so many faith-filled believers lack the faith to be healed. God’s will or desire to heal or not heal seems to be the one common denominator in whether a person is healed. If a person has no faith then of course no healing should be expected. If a person believes but also at times struggles to believe maybe perhaps they shouldn’t expect to receive. But a person who doesn’t waiver in the faith to be healed and yet isn’t… (which seems to be the experience of far too many)? “Expect” might convey the idea of certainty and wherever healing or prayer is concerned I don’t know if we can ever EXPECT any particular healing in a certain circumstance or with a certain outlook— only God determines when and how a healing happens. So how can anyone pray with any real strong faith, if the number of times or the requests that are answered are few or rarely granted? How can anyone build faith in such strong and multitudinous examples of when God DOESN’T choose to heal? This is especially problematic since JESUS (one person of the TRINITY) seems ambitious to heal, while the other two persons seem disinterested or unconcerned with it.

There is not only prayer to God but also prayer from God as well. What I have in mind is the confident, Spirit-empowered command of faith in which you are led to declare: “In the name of Jesus, be healed!” Notice that I did not say, and neither should you, “In the name of Jesus, I declare that you are healed.”

I’m a little scared to pray those kinds of prayers even when I feel like I might be being led by the Holy Spirit to do so.

In all this, avoid thinking that God will not heal unless you say it just right or with perfect grammar or in a theologically sophisticated way. God is primarily concerned with the attitude of your heart and your compassion for the hurting and your dependence on him, not the style or sophistication with which you pray.

I will add that I don’t think it is especially important to differentiate among the revelatory gifts, the distinctions between prophecy and word of knowledge, for example.

Again, prophecy is the speaking forth in merely human words of something God has spontaneously brought to mind.1

What this text clearly indicates is that prophecy is based on or flows out of a spontaneous revelation from God to the believer. The difference is that teaching is based on a written text. Prophecy is based on the revelatory activity of the Spirit that coincides with Scripture but goes beyond scripture with specific application to an individual.

(Acts 13:9–11) How did Paul come by this discernment, this insight into the nature and motivation of the magician? Since the text explicitly says that before speaking he was “filled with the Holy Spirit,” it only stands to reason that the Spirit revealed this to him spontaneously, in response to which Paul spoke (prophesied).

Storms points to this as a form of prophecy, whereas some might point to this as an example of word of knowledge. But as he said earlier, it’s probably not important to distinguish what is what here. One way or another it is the Holy Spirit spontaneously providing previously unknown and unknowable information about a person.

How did Paul see this? We don’t know. Perhaps the Spirit revealed something about the man in a vision to Paul. Perhaps he impressed on Paul’s heart the knowledge of the man’s faith to be healed. In any case, it would appear that again Paul spoke what the Spirit spontaneously revealed. Whether or not this was a case of prophecy is hard to tell. It may be more akin to a word of knowledge, but we simply aren’t told.

Look for ways to learn from others who are already operating in revelatory gifts. Identify who they are, seek them out, ask them questions, listen to their stories, learn from their mistakes, and be encouraged by their success. In a word, hang out with people of similar passion and who have a track record of accuracy in this gifting. You can also begin learning about the many ways in which God communicates: in dreams, visions, impressions, internal audible voice, symbols, sympathetic pains, providential occurrences, etc. Don’t be surprised or put off if what you hear seems weird, but don’t be weird just for the sake of being weird!