Spiritual Focus // SPIRITUAL GIFTS
By Isaac Hovet
On Sunday, we learned that rather than being prone to extremes, our Pentecostal expression is “Middle of the Road.” When it comes to expressing our Spiritual Gifts, we are guided by the Middle of the Road Way: Love.
Read:
8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
1 Corinthians 12:8–11 (NLT)
Paul is not giving an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts. But, he is listing several gifts.
- Wise Advice
- Special Knowledge
- Faith
- Healing
- Miracles
- Discernment
- Speaking in unknown (spiritual) languages.
- Interpretation of spiritual languages
So, guided by the middle way, middle of the road way of love, how might we express these gifts? With love! With no shame, with no condemnation, with no pressure and certainly without great fanfare.
Critical Thinking:
Take some time to write out how the “middle of the road” approach might affect how you express one of the gifts listed above.
Conclude by saying this prayer out loud: