The Gifts of the Spirit are listed in First Corinthians 12:1-11. Verse 1 says Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren,I would not have you ignorant. God starts off this passage by saying He does not want us to be ignorant of His gifts. When I read this verse I ask believers can you name all the gifts and define them? Most believers cannot name or define them. Which means we need to study the Gifts more.
God is so orderly and we will see this regarding the Gifts of the Spirit. Three of the Gifts are called the Revelation Gifts because they reveal something. They are the Word of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge and Discerning of Spirits. The Word of Wisdom is God revealing to you the future. The Word of Knowledge is God revealing to you the past or the present. Discerning of Spirits is God allowing you to see in the spiritual realm. This gift will allow you to see human spirits, angelic spirits and or demonic spirits.
Three of the Gifts are called the Power Gifts because they do something. The Gift of Faith is a special level of faith that allows you to do the impossible because it is God working through you! The Gifts of Healings are Gifts that can heal any sickness or disease. The Working of Miracles allows you to work miracles.
Three of the Gifts are called the Utterance Gifts because they say something. The Gift of Prophecy is when God boils up a word from deep inside of you and He wants you to speak it out. The entire Bible was written through the Gift of Prophecy which shows how Valuable this Gift is. The Gift of Tongues is when God wants you to speak in Tongues in a public assembly. The Gift of Interpretation of Tongues is when God wants you to Interpret the Gift of Tongues that was spoken in public assembly.
Every thing God does in the earth He does through the Gifts of the Spirit.
Verse 7 says the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit. So God manifest the Gifts of the Spirit for our profit.
Verse 11 says all these Gifts work as the Spirit wills. The Gifts will not work as we will but as the Spirit wills. So we cannot turn on or turn off the Gifts of the Spirit.
However, there are some things we can do prepare the atmosphere for the Holy Spirit to manifest the Gifts.
First Corinthians 12:31 says Covet earnestly the best Gifts. So we can and should Covet and Desire that the Gifts of the Spirit operate. Then this verse says yet I show unto you a more excellent way. What is a more excellent way than Coveting or Desiring the Gifts? After this verse is First Corinthians Chapter 13. We call it the Love Chapter because that is what Paul is talking about. So walking in Love is the more excellent way to get the Holy Spirit to manifest the Gifts.
ANYTHING is possible when the Gifts of the Spirit are in manifestation because it is God himself manifesting Himself through us! So let’s Covet, Desire and walk in Love and expect the Holy Spirit to manifest His Gifts.
The whole purpose of the Gifts of Spirit is to help us fulfill God’s will and be a blessing to others!
Here are some biblical examples of one of the Gifts. The Word of Knowledge is defined as God revealing to you the past or present.
In Second Samuel 12:1-14 is the story of Nathan the Prophet telling King David a parable about a Rich Man who took the lamb of a Poor Man to entertain his guest.
In verse 5 it says “David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man that has done this thing shall surely die.” In verse 7 Nathan said to David you are the man.” Nathan said this because David had killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and had sex with his wife.
Nathan knew this through the Gift of the Spirit the Word of Knowledge that David had committed murder and adultery. This revelation brought David to repentance.
In First Kings Chapter 18 Elijah had just conquered the false prophets. However, in First Kings 19:1-18 Jezebel said, she was going to kill Elijah. So he ran away and was very discouraged. He was so discouraged he asked God to take his life because he thought no one else was serving God and he was the only one left. However, God encouraged him through a Word of Knowledge and revealed to him that he was not the only one serving God. God said, in verse 18 he had 7000 others that had not bowed their knee to the false god baal.
In John 4:5-19 Jesus was talking to the woman of Samaria at the well. She was getting water. Jesus said if she knew who she was talking to He would give her living water. Then Jesus revealed to her that he knew she was not married at the time and had been with five other men before. The woman was shocked and wondered how he knew this! Jesus knew it through the Gift of Spirit the Word of Knowledge.The Woman told everyone in her village what had happened and the Word of God spread.