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

by Sam Storms

If you wish to pursue deeper spiritual experiences, it will require commitment and sacrifice.

Obedience must matter more to you than success or your image.

The Holy Spirit wants to be pursued but refuses to be pushed.

So, if you find yourself lacking a specific spiritual gift, notwithstanding your persistent and passionate prayers that it might be granted to you, the time may come when you should pause and thank God for whatever gifts he has been pleased to bestow and move on in the ministry he has already granted you.

These verses tell us that it is not only permissible to seek the spiritual gifts—it is mandatory.

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.

Expectant prayer flows from the recognition that Jesus healed people because he loved them and felt compassion for them

We must allow room in our theological framework for a redemptive purpose in suffering as well.

God often grants insights and understanding into his will and purpose, or perhaps new applications of his Word to our lives as we fast.

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.

It’s also important that we have faith that God actually does heal in our day and time. To say “God, I don’t know if this is something you still do today, but just in case it is, I’m going to ask you to heal me” is not an expression of the sort of faith that God delights to honor with the impartation of his power. If you are a cessationist of some degree or if you question the presence of the miraculous in the present church age, it is unlikely you will pray with much expectancy or anticipation of God saying yes to your request.

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.

Cry out to God daily that he would bless you with this gifting (1 Corinthians 14:1).

Be sure to monitor your heart’s motivation. In other words, be certain that your longing for this sort of gifting is your love for the welfare of others and not the notoriety or attention that such a gift might bring to you. The Lord gives his gifts to serve the body of Christ, as an expression of his love for his people. We minister in accord with his purposes.

Be attentive to the revelatory language that God might choose to utilize for you. He doesn’t always make himself known to everyone in the same way.

When God uses me to prophesy, it rarely feels supernatural. It strikes me as profoundly routine.

God may use the supernatural in an entirely natural way, as a regular and routine part of our daily interaction with him and with other believers. This isn’t to dismiss that it is spectacular or

amazing or to minimize its glory. It’s only to say that the Spirit of God often works in and through us in the mundane affairs and relationships of life, no less so than in the more overtly miraculous circumstances we encounter.

perhaps the best and most biblical course of action in our church services and prayer meetings is neither to produce, prevent, nor perpetuate the manifestations. We are to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” and be confident that he will, whether or not manifestations follow. If they do, we should not prevent them from occurring. But neither should we take steps to artificially induce them.