Gifts for Forever ...

With the recognition of the work of Jesus Christ in our lives, recreating us from the inside out, comes additional gifts borne of the Holy Spirit that are poured out in our lives.  People in the world around us often subscribe to the idea that there are many paths to God.  This is true where it comes to approaching God, but finding Him, is finding Jesus Christ and joining the singular body of Christ.  Christians then define a body from the unique and multiple viewpoints of our perspectives.  And the same Holy Spirit pours out His gifts across the body as He sees fit for the edification of the church body.  Our destiny is not to simply utilize what we were born with, but to utilize what we are re-born with, the additional gifts provided by the Holy Spirit.  The apostle Paul writes extensively about these gifts in his first letter to the Corinthians beginning in chapter 12.  It is good to note that his letter was to an actual church that existed in his time, which was largely divided among the brethren, and addressing its need for unity, Paul points out to them how the gifts of the Spirit can help address these concerns.  These gifts then are designed more for the building of the church than they are to address the needs of unbelievers.

Surrender to Christ is the precursor that leads not only to our re-creation, but to an outpouring of gifts designed for the strengthening and building of the body of Christ.  It would be impossible to prophecy in truth without Christ.  Without first having come to acknowledge Christ as our savior from evil, the act of prophecy is nothing but prognostication based on logic, intuition, and history.  Everyone from sports analysts, to market analysts, to weathermen tend to make these kinds of predictions, and their work is merely informational, not transformational.  An unbeliever would not accept the prophecies wrought by Holy Spirit through the surrendered life of a Christian, simply because they do not accept the source, the divinity of the God we serve.  So the message of a prophet would be ineffectual on the obstinate heart.  But on the life of one who is willing to be remade, on the life of one who now seeks the word of the Lord in their own lives on a daily basis as the greatest aspiration they can receive, the words of the prophet of God are most prized and most treasured.  It is for this member of the body who longs to hear from the Lord, that the gift of prophecy is poured out.  And it stands to reason the message of the true prophet of Christ would guide the church into more unity, and a better understanding of the God of love. 

Prophecy however is merely one of the gifts of the Spirit that may be poured out on those who have surrendered their will to Christ.  The wider list starting in 1^st Corinthians chapter 12 verse 8 includes: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, the ability to speak in other languages, the ability to interpret other languages.  It appears this was a general list Paul felt were all considered valuable and needed in order to build up the church.  Later starting in verse 28 Paul discusses the various roles within the church that appear to correlate to the gifts he listed above, these roles are decidedly listed in order of importance were: 1.) apostles, 2.) prophets, 3.) teachers, 4.) miracles, 5.) healings, 6.) helpers, 7.) administrators (governments), and 8.) linguists (diversities of tongues).  As we examine where we might fit in the list above, there is yet another gift that appears to be even more important than anything we have listed so far.  It is unfortunate that often our study of the gifts of the Spirit ends with chapter 12 instead of continuing on into chapter 13 where Paul continues the topic.

Love is a gift of the Spirit that is MORE important than anything else Paul has listed.  In point of fact he explicitly states the value of love against the ability to “speak in tongues of men or of angels”, or “to have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries”, or “to have all knowledge”, or “to have all faith such that you could remove mountains”.  Paul decries all these abilities if one does not have love first and foremost.  An apostle, or prophet, or miracle worker, or healer, or anyone who is richly blessed by the Holy Spirit should seek first to be blessed in love.  Perhaps the most profound change that occurs when one surrenders the will to Christ is in “how” we begin to love others.  The traces that mark obedience are defined in our selfless actions of love expressed to others.  It is this love expressed that truly identifies us as followers of our Lord who set our example and defined what love is to a needing world.  Christ did not come to the world primarily to prophecy.  While He did prophecy at times, the vast preponderance of His ministry was a life of love expressed to all He came in contact with.  The priorities of Christ were clear – Love first – prophecy when appropriate (or perhaps better stated, Love always, other actions as required).  Christ lived what Paul espouses in his epistle to our Corinthian forefathers. 

Paul continues in chapter 13 to further illustrate the characteristics of love so that those who think love to be merely a romantic notion, or a parental one, or even a fraternal one see love from a wider viewpoint.  If I were to summarize I would say the expression of love is found in the absence of self, and self-focused concerns in favor of another.  In so doing Paul reiterates the priorities that Christ lived by example.  The true edification of the church body is first and foremost achieved in the selfless expression of love to others (including our brethren with which we may have differences).  It is perhaps even more interesting to see that doctrinal purity itself is not as important as the complete embrace of love to all.  Paul states in verse 2 of chapter 13 that even having “all knowledge”, “understanding all mysteries”, and “having all faith” without love is again meaningless.  It is not the ideals of doctrinal purity that Paul espouses.  It is not a sermon of depth on the proper observance of the Sabbath, or on exactly what part of our income should be considered increase and thus tithed against; no these things are not the key to unity among the body.  Instead it is love that will unite us.  And while we surrender and begin to love as our Lord loved, we begin to experience the gifts the Spirit pours out on us.

One fanciful notion Christians sometimes embrace is the idea that we can do the “right things” no matter what our motives are and by embracing “right actions” achieve positive results for ourselves and for our body.  Paul sets this idea aside as he writes in verse 3 of chapter 13 … “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”  Remembering that the goal of every gift of the Spirit is to edify the church.  When we lack love, our “right actions” are often done from a sense of obligation, or guilt, or reluctance.  We miss the blessing of giving because we care not for those we are giving to.  We do nothing to provide a witness to love expressed as it is not our love we share, merely our means.  Other hearts, even those in great need, cannot find their true needs met in our efforts because it is often evident we have no “real” interest in them.  We do what we do, often in haste, looking forward only to when our obligations will have been met and we can return to what we would really rather be doing.  This is why the body “profits nothing” from deeds that appear self-less but come from hearts that have not surrendered to Christ, and know not what it really means to love.  Doing the “right” thing for the wrong reason is yet another self-deception or empty gesture.

Love emanates from the surrendered life, the life where the believer gives over every desire, every decision, and every thought to the Lord to recreate.  And the witness is reflected in the lives that surrendered believer encounters.  When someone loves you, truly loves you, and then brings you the word of the Lord – your inclination to listen is far greater than to a stranger in the street who appears to care nothing for you personally.  Even acts of miraculous healing that come from the surrendered life of a believer to Christ tend to eliminate doubt as the source of the miracles.  The sick desire healing, but many would reject healing if they thought it be coming from master of evil.  But when the believer granted the gift of healing is a devout follower of Christ as evidenced by “how” he loves, and “how greatly” his love can be seen by others – the source of the healing is known.  Satan may have the power to heal, but his interests lie only in promoting himself, his cause, and his agenda – those things clearly against the best interest of others.  The surrendered believer seeks no fame, no fortune, and will not accept acclaim for what gifts they relay from the Lord of Love.  Instead the believer is content to be a servant of the Most High.  Their entire gratification comes from the being a tool of healing, a vessel of miracles, a speaker of His truth.  The surrendered believer knows for a fact that “they” can do none of these things, but are overwhelmed at the idea that the Lord would choose to work through them to achieve His goals.  It takes a surrender to see this occur.  Our natural inclinations will seek fame and fortune if we attempted to engage in such things before we surrendered our will to Christ.

We should also not get too absorbed in the expression of the gifts of the Spirit and instead focus on the goal of the gifts.  Paul gives a rather lengthy discussion in chapter 14 of the utility of speaking in other languages.  Having the ability to speak in a language so that others can understand your words, and your meaning is truly a gift of God.  But speaking a foreign tongue that no one in the area understands accomplished little.  Paul puts the emphasis on clear communication.  If someone is speaking another language, then someone else should be interpreting, or the meaning and the blessing is lost.  In this discussion Paul reminds us that even gifts of the Holy Spirit are designed with a purpose – not to simply demonstrate that we have them.  If I were to guess, I would imagine that speaking in other languages was the predominant gift poured out in the early church, in order to spread the gospel to those who traveled the roads to Rome and would not easily understand the gospel from the lips of a foreigner.  But those early Christians who were able to speak and be heard in the native languages of their listeners did much to spread the word.  Paul reminds the Corinthian brethren of the reason why this gift was given, and further stipulates it is the least of the gifts he has been discussing.  

It may be that in the eons of time that are to come in the perfection of heaven, that the final righteous body of Christ will not need the edification of prophecy, or healing, or apostles, or miracle workers, or efficient administrators, and decidedly not linguistic specialists.  However one gift will remain; the gift of love.  The one that Paul identifies as superseding all the others is love, and it will be love that remains a gift that lasts forever.  Our destiny was not to prophecy in part or see through a glass darkly, but it was and remains our destiny to love for all eternity.  Our human weakness requires the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to compensate for our desperate addiction to self.  We need the Holy Spirit to remind us of our need, to convict us of our errors, to bring us in humility back to the throne of grace, and to heal the wounds we inflict on each other – even those we purport to love.  Our body is wounded today by the lack of love we show to each other, and by our refusal to surrender all of ourselves to Christ.  It is these wounds that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are intended to heal.  Paul reminds us that the greatest healing of our divisions begins and ends with love.  And once love has been given its proper place in our priorities through our surrender to Christ, the remaining gifts for the edification of our collective body can be poured out.  Yet again, in the here and now, the Lord wishes us to be so much more than we are.  To be a surrendered servant of Christ, is to begin to experience the supernatural as the vehicle His Spirit intends for us to be, whatever those gifts or roles may include.  Re-creation is not reserved for the hereafter, it is employed in the here and now.