Make sure that your motivation is always tobuild up God and His people. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are always to edify, exhort and comfort people ( 1 Corinthians 14:1-3). To minister effectively in the gifts one needs to love people, have good relationships with people, have an acceptance by the people – otherwise somuch of what we have to share with them will be rejected. To flow inthe Gift of the Word ofKnowledge (or any other spiritual gift) does not make us a prophet of God – we cannot demand that the people accept whatwe say or else it will be "Thus saith the Lord, brimstone and judgment will fall upon thee . . . shund a barunda!!" LEARN FROM THE POSTMAN - WE ARE GOD’S MESSENGERS: In exercising the Gift of the Word of Knowledge we are passing on to others information from the Holy Spirit that He wants them to know atthis time in their life. A natural illustration thatmight be helpful to your understanding is that of the postman. He is employed to deliver a message to pre-appointed people. His job is to take the message to the person whose name ison the envelope. It is not the postman’s message — that comesfrom the sender. The postman doesn’t haveto know or understandthe lifestyle of the person who the letter is addressed to. His job is simply to deliverthe message (whether he understands it or not). If the postman gets careless or outside his realm of authority, then there is every possibility that the message will be delayed — or even delivered to the wrongperson! (That breeds confusion). Likewise in the Holy Spirit ministry. Our"employer" the Holy Spirit asks us to deliver a message to a certain person. It is not "our" message and the message is not for us. We are simply the delivery person. When we do just as the Holy Spirit asks us — no more and no less — then the message (the Word of Knowledge) will be delivered to theright person in the right place at the righttime. Remember, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth ( John 14:15-17; John 15:26; John 16:13-15). It is when we try to interfere with that process that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit fall into disrepute. Once that happens repeatedly people will"switch-off" to the messenger and not receive any "words" from them in their hearts, even if they show otherwise outwardly at the time of reception. SUMMING UP THUS FAR: In summing up this section, then, to operate in the Word ofKnowledge (in an ongoing and acceptable way) one needs to have: A GOOD DEVOTIONAL LIFE: That is, building a personal relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in prayer and the studying of the Word of God. It is through taking time to be with God that we learn to recognize His voice and when He is speaking to us. If we do not know His voice we will never be able to respond to Him or exercise the gifts. A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP IN A DOCTRINALLY SOUND, SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH: The importance of being established into the life of a church cannot be overemphasized. If wewant to be effective inthe Word of Knowledge we must be"rooted into" a church home where our gifts can be exercised, developed and proventhat they are indeed the Holy Spirit and not some human ego trip. It is vital that our giftscan be "judged" by the Body of Christ ( 1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:19-26). A TEACHABLE SPIRIT: In matters of the Holy Spirit Gifts there are many things to learn. Ifwe do not have a humble, teachable spirit, then we are going to finish up in real trouble. I thank God for those who have spoken into my life, both to give correction and encouragement. The result of that is that I have grown in confidence and faith toexercise the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as I recognize His promptings. Some marvelous things have happened over the years! If we are not teachableand we begin to develop "gifts" on a wrong understanding or in error, we will certainly self-destructfurther down the track— the tragedy being that many lives can also be ruined in the process as well. Don’t be too proud to receive loving instruction! A SENSITIVE SPIRIT: The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are usually for exercising in a public manner. Therefore we need to cultivate a sensitive spirit towards God — and also towards the meeting or environment we are in.God is not a God of disorder or chaos and, if we are sensitive to Him, He will show us how to deliver a Word of Knowledge in a way that is beautiful. Sensitivity will also help give us the right timing and the right way to go about things. A GENUINE LOVE FOR PEOPLE: In 1 Corinthians 13we are told that it is possible to develop great gifts of God in our life, yet still not love! We can separateour gifts, develop them to a tremendous degree, and still be impersonal and unloving towards people. The Bible saysif we do that, then we areNOTHING! We have missed God somewhere, even though we can use Hisgifts. That is a great tragedy and, far too often, is the testimonyof too many Christiansover the years ( John 13:34-35; John 15:7; 1 John 4:7-21)
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 06:06:12 +0000
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