FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP
THE GIFTS
OF THE SPIRIT – V
1 Corinthians 12:15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of
the body; is it therefore not of the body?
Last week, we concluded with this thought:
How can we not
fear when we contemplate the gift of IAUE?
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of IAUE. IAUE has indwelled us with Himself, through the
agency of His own Spirit. His
Spirit is “holy”,
which means “so pure and chaste as
to invoke reverence or veneration
out of fear
produced by or awareness of the contrast of His nature versus our nature.”
I have been a new creature in Messiah for nearly
45 years. I have been a grateful recipient
of the “Gift of the Holy Spirit” for 43 of those years. I have experienced all nine of the
manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit repeatedly during that time. I know from
an abundance of personal experience that, despite the Pentecostal and
Charismatic movements that have worked to restore the active ministry of the
Holy Spirit in the church throughout the 20th century, for the most part, the church
is still ill prepared to receive the Spirit of IAUE. It is for this reason, we
have not just “jumped in” to a study of each of the named gifts of the Holy
Spirit. A proper foundation has been needed in order to make a difference in
the resulting experience of those who read this blog.
We began this blog by recognizing the need to
honor IAUE Elohim and the Master Yahushua Messiah, by their correct names and
titles rather than to continue to use the names and titles that are of demonic
origins which are so popular in the Christian world, today. We established the truth of the Scriptural
claim that the Fear of IAUE is both the beginning of wisdom and the beginning
of knowledge. Then we spent the better
part of a year defining the attributes of a “Kingdom Heart,” and recognizing
that the divine purpose of our creation is simply to do the will of IAUE. The contemporary Christian church possesses
none of this. These truths, values and
virtues are, for the most part, not taught, not preached, not experienced, and
not sought by contemporary Christianity.
It is little wonder, therefore, that when believers, today, receive the
Holy Spirit, that the application of His manifestation in their lives tends to
be for acquiring gain… gain in climbing the church’s spiritual ladder, gain in
the estimation of their fellow brothers and sisters; and gain in their wallets
as they merchandise their gifts from church to church and conference to
conference to make a living off of the gawking masses who are willing to
pay to see a good act.
I stated in the last post, “If we do not
possess the fear of IAUE, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives
will become subjected to human pride and ego, rendering the gifts of no profit
to the church or to the world around us.” I ask you, when, aside from perhaps Kathryn
Kuhlman, have you ever witnessed a “Spirit-filled” minister in such fear of IAUE
and honor of His Holy Spirit that the prospect of saying the wrong word or
doing the wrong thing literally subjected them to terror? The church treats the Holy Spirit as a parlor
trick more than the living breathing Spirit of the living IAUE Elohim. He is treated as something to be used for
personal gain, just like Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8, who wanted the ability
to bestow the Spirit upon whomsoever he wished.
The prospect of mishandling the Gift of IAUE
does not even occur to the church, today. Men and women create “prophetic words”
in order to get more money in the offering plate. They push people backwards in a prayer line
in order to make it appear they are succumbing to the intense anointing of the
Holy Spirit in order to impress the audience/congregation that the anointing of
the Holy Spirit is upon them. They affect their speech with groans and they shake
their arms and legs in a way so as to suggest that the power of the Holy Spirit
is all over them. They burst out in a blast of speaking in tongues as if to
suggest not doing so would cause them to explode because of how great is the
stirring of the Holy Spirit is within them.
All the while, the church is just eating up the act and sitting in stupefied
wonder, the same wonder a child expresses when someone produces a quarter from
behind their ear.
I attended a church, once, where the minister
of music had a very responsive organist and choir. During the “praise and worship service,” the music
minister moved from song to song until he found the one that got the effect
from the congregation he desired. He
then repeated the chorus, did key changes, repeated more choruses, all the
while watching the congregation become emotionally charged. Finally, a young man, I would guess to be
about 17 years of age, began marching mechanically across the front of the
church making grunting noises like an animal.
The music minister, the choir, the pastor, the congregation, all of them
thought this young man was in the throes of the anointing of the Holy
Spirit. I was astonished. Being a visitor in the church, I did not want
to draw attention to myself, so I looked at this young man from where I was
sitting near the back of the church, and whispered, “Shut up and come out of
him, now.” The demon left the boy
instantly, and he literally collapsed to the ground. No one in the church even had a clue what had
happened.
In another church, there was a move of the Holy
Spirit in the service, and several people spoke “prophetic words.” I, too, spoke aloud a message given by the
Holy Spirit. After the service, I was
walking out with one of the leaders of the church who said to me, “Man! The
Spirit really spoke to us, today!” To
which I responded, “Really? What did He
say?” This church leader looked at me
with a dumbfounded expression and could not answer the question. To him, the experience was the
objective. What the Spirit said took a
back seat to the emotional experience of simply witnessing the gifts of the
Spirit in operation.
I know of another church where, no matter what
happens within the fellowship or the worship service, the pastor’s wife ALWAYS
finds the opportunity to speak out a “prophetic word” during the service, endeavoring
to maintain her sense of self-worth, and her significance and the respect of
the church. It does not matter that she
makes up every word she speaks.
Why do these things happen over and over
again? One obvious reason is because
there is no fear of IAUE in the church, resulting in no appreciation for the
nature of His gift to us. Another reason
is the lack of awareness that we are parts and members of a single body…the
body of Messiah.
1 Corinthians 12:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing
to every man individually as he will.
12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Messiah.
The distribution of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit is made on the basis of each member’s role in the Body of Messiah; such
that each member providing to the Body what he/she has been given causes increase
and benefit to the Body. Congregational
Christianity makes this impossible to be realized because it dissects the Body
of Messiah. Consider this. In some
cities, you can find two, even three churches located on the same street
corner. Facing each other at that intersection
may a Baptist church, a Methodist Church and maybe an independent charismatic
fellowship. Or it might be a Pentecostal
church, an Assembly of God church, and a Seventh Day Adventist church (whose
congregation is not even there on Sunday morning). If the role the Father has given to a member
of one of those churches is actually to members of the Body of Messiah who are
attending one of the other churches, his/her function to the Body is wasted. They are useless.
It is the height of pride to think that the
members of one congregation are gifted by the Holy Spirit for the express
purpose of exclusively benefiting their own congregation. At what time did the
Father of Creation recognize any one congregation as the Body of Messiah in the
earth? Until we understand that we are
members of the Body, and not members of a congregation, the purpose of the
manifestations of the Holy Spirit will not be realized. They will remain in the
realm of parlor tricks and the manipulation of the congregation. (Do not think
that I am suggesting that all who minister in the gifts of the Holy Spirit have
prideful or self-serving motives. What I
am saying is that their motives are irrelevant until the expression of those
gifts is made within the roles bestowed upon the individual relative to his/her
function in the Body of Messiah, and not to the congregation where the
individual holds membership.)
1 Corinthians 12:15 If the foot shall
say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of
the body?
Look at your foot. Look at your hand.
They do not look like each other.
They are found at different places in your body. They have different functions; and without
the proper functioning of one, the function of the other is jeopardized; and
yet, the church fusses and complains that they are just a foot; and they want
to be a hand. They do not realize that
the hand is not really all that great a body part without the foot. The glory attributed to the hand is, in part,
caused by what the foot contributes to the Body, so that the whole body receives
the glory of what the hand does.
We cannot benefit from a study of the gifts of
the Holy Spirit until we realize we are connected to something much larger and
much greater than a local congregation…a structure that by its very definition
is NOT the Body, but rather, interferes with the formation and function of the
Body. The members of the Body must recognize that IAUE personally placed them in
the Body as He chose to do so; and He has equipped each member for the role
they are to play as members of the Body of Messiah.
Remember, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not
about us. They are about IAUE; and our purpose
as a new creature in Messiah Yahushua is to do the will of IAUE. We cannot afford to get bogged down in
jealousy of others who have more glamorous giftings. There would be no glamour without the
functioning of the unglamorous. What
does it matter who does what as long as the will of IAUE is obeyed and His
kingdom is advanced?
Kingdom
heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the
performance of the will of IAUE.
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