“Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts.” 1Corinthians 14:1
The world needs more than what you’re good at; it needs what only God is good at. God has placed each of us in His body (1Corinthians 12:18) just as He pleased. We don’t choose our part; we can only, at best, discover and embrace it. This is called our ministry. Paul said there were a variety of ministries (1Corinthians 12:5) and a variety of expressions of similar ministries. (1Corinthians 12:6) God loves to reveal Himself through our differing, unique contributions to His body, so we must accept our part and learn to honor everyone else’s part.
But the supernatural gifts are different from our ministries. These work “as the Spirit wills” (1Corinthians 12:11) and are dependent on His moving, not ours. Whereas your ministry has already been set, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are dynamic. Every believer has the potential of being used in any one of the nine supernatural gifts Paul lists. We are to pursue loving people so much that we want more for them than what we can do. While loving them, we are to “earnestly desire spiritual gifts,” those things that require the supernatural.
Paul gives nine gifts and each is powerful when meeting the needs of the person we’re ministering to. The gifts can be divided into three general categories:
The revelation gifts: Word of knowledge, word of wisdom, and discerning of spirits. (1Corinthians 12:8, 10)
The power gifts: the gift of faith, gifts of healings, and the working of miracles. (1Corinthians 12:9-10)
The oral gifts: prophecy, diversity of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. (1Corinthians 12:10)
When we cease to love people, we grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30), and when we don’t make a place for the manifestation of God’s power, we quench the Holy Spirit. (1Thessalonians 5:19) God wants both His beauty and His power revealed through the church.
Jesus is so great that He can use flawed, normal people to do His amazing works through. This was His plan! We can’t do His works without Him, and He won’t do them without us. He’s calling us into an adventure of walking with Him. Let’s say “yes” to the beauty of His character and to His desire to use us in power.
One Thing 