(Ver 1.0) This is “Part 2” in a study series concerning God’s Spiritual Gifts. This series was initiated to answer a reader’s question on the subject of describing and understanding the 9 “Spiritual Gifts” found and defined to us primarily in 1 Corinthians 12. But in order to understand this subject we discovered in the introduction we all have the basic need to obtain the fundamentals of the subject first. If you have not already studied this lesson, it is strongly recommended that you please go to “Part 1” first before continuing with today’s lesson. Those concepts will largely not be repeated in this lesson. Thank you.

In the first introduction lesson on Gifts natural or spiritual, we discovered God’s ultimate gift given to all of humanity was Jesus Christ. The key verse was John 3:16 which everyone should know by now. However, today we will begin to understand what kind of other spiritual gifts that God has given to humans and why? Normally many Christians only focus upon studying 1 Corinthians 12 to learn about 9 spiritual gifts that God gave to His church body. These 9 gifts are listed in the order of their mention as follows:

1. The Word of Wisdom (1 Cor 12:8)
2. The Word of Knowledge (1 Cor 12:8)
3. Faith (1 Cor 12:9)
4. The Gift of Healing (1 Cor 12:9)
5. The Working of Miracles (1 Cor 12:10)
6. Prophecy (1 Cor 12:10)
7. The Discerning of Spirits (1 Cor 12:10)
8. Divers Kinds of Tongues (1 Cor 12:10)
9. Interpretation of Tongues (1 Cor 12:10)

This is an incredibly misunderstood and abused list of spiritual gifts. Many times, Bible teachers take only certain verses out of context to prove their erroneous doctrines and this list is used by many for several different hidden motivated reasons to direct us away from us desiring to receive or participate in these gifts. This my friend is deception of our enemy working through people appearing as clergy, preachers, pastors or teachers. And most of these people do not even know they are deceived or are preaching the doctrines of devils (1 Tim 4:1). This is exactly why each believer in Christ is responsible to know the Bible for themselves. We are ALL instructed to be “Berean” types of readers and hearers of the Bible and verify everything we read or have heard with our own personal Bible studies (Acts 17:11).

However, just know that most of these reasons of these teachers leading sheep astray, are either ignorant on Bible topics because they have brought into their denominational doctrines or seminary based human reasonings, and do not knowingly understand what they were taught that was being demonically inspired to bring confusion into the body of Christ. Remember, the Works of Almighty God are always intended bring Truth and to Unify the Body (1 Cor 12:7). God’s purpose is always to edify and Build-up the church body (1 Cor 14:3-4, 1 Ths 5:11).

God be willing, we will plan to go into each of these 9 gifts in more detail in the future, but for now we should focus on some of the key points made by the Holy Spirit found in the contextual verses. These points must not be overlooked, misunderstood or even ignored. These are listed as follows:

1. God does not want us to be ignorant of any Spiritual things like His Gifts (1 Cor 12:1).
2. People not knowing about Spiritual things are easily led astray by devils into worshipping natural things like idols (1 Cor 12:2).
3. There are many Spiritual Gifts, but they all come from the same True and Living God (1 Cor 12:5).
4. There are many different timings and effects (purposes) of the operation of these Spiritual Gifts but God is operating them all as He pleases since He knows who needs help even when we don’t (1 Cor 12:6).
5. But when the Spirit of God chooses to manifest these Spiritual Gifts to someone, they are given to profit (benefit) the one who it is directed to, as well as everyone that is present in the church (1 Cor 12:7).
6. Not everyone has these gifts operating through them. In fact, it would be very rare for just one person to be used by God in the operation of all 9 Spiritual Gifts, by God’s design and purpose (1 Cor 12:30). Even Jesus Christ appears to not operate in all 9 gifts of the Spirit. We will plan to examine this later as God wills.
7. These 9 gifts are manifested only as the Spirit of God wills (1 Cor 12:11). This simply means no human can stand up and turn on these gifts and operate in them as they will, independent of His leading.
8. God instructs the church body to “covet” earnestly the best spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:31). This show us that it is up to the individual believer if they want to participate or not in every spiritual gift. We can logically deduce this by seeing it is up to the believer in the gifts, to desire to want to be used in them. It also strongly teaches that not all gifts are of same purpose or value as the other spiritual gifts. There are definitely some gifts that are better than others, but the gift needed by God to minister to someone at any given moment is still the best for that situation.

It is also very interesting to see how God connects Spiritual Gifts to the church being the body of Christ in diverse roles and purposes, having the same Spirit, but all having great need of each of the other body parts. Think about this analogy in the description of a human’s body. For example, some of the most least visible organs and parts of the body are typically some of the most essential. These are taken for granted by many people up until they fail or get attacked and causes their entire life to change.

Ever think of the pancreas, lungs, stomach or colon? These are all unseen body parts yet essential for corporate life of the body. Ever think about these body parts? Probably not, unless they fail to operate. This is what God is teaching in the middle part of the chapter.

Therefore we are learning how one highly visible and gifted person in the body of Christ must not look at themselves as being better or more important than some other unseen part of the Body of Christ. No part of the body is less important to God’s operation in the earth. This causes us to make sure we remain humble in every role of the body of Christ and utilizing each and every gift.

Finally, at the end of chapter 12 God lists some new spiritual gifts and intentionally joins them to the chapters’ previous 9 gifts. That simply means there are a potentially lot more spiritual gifts given to humans in the church than those first listed 9 spiritual gifts. We should have learned this concept in the opening introduction where Jesus was described to be the ultimate spiritual Gift. Let’s list these gifts found at the end of the chapter in 1 Corinthians 12:28:

1. Apostles
2. Prophets
3. Teachers
4. Miracles
5. Gifts of Healings
6. Helps
7. Government
8. Diversities of Tongues

Notice the overlapping new gifts with the previous gifts of the Spirit. The new 5 gifts appear as 1) Apostles, 2) Prophets, 3) Teachers, 6) Helps, and 7) Government. These were combined with the previous gifts 4) Miracles, 5) Gifts of Healings and 8) Diversities of Tongues. This is your first clue that God is telling us that there are potentially many more gifts that have yet to be included in the total number of the complete list. So far, we have 14 total spiritual gifts found. No let us join this list with the obvious verses containing Apostles, Prophets and Teachers. We can find this in Ephesians 4:11;

1. Apostles
2. Prophets
3. Evangelists
4. Pastors
5. Teachers

This list is often called the 5-fold ministry gifts. But notice the overlap again between the previous gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 and here in Ephesians 4. What we can see immediately in Ephesians 4:11 is the statement saying, “He Gave”. This simply means God is confirming to us that these are spiritually gifted people and these gifts came from Him. We can call these “anointings” which just so happens to be the Greek word “Christos” which is normally translated as “Christ” but literally means “anointed one”.

The subject of the anointing of God, might be something new to many Christians. However, this describes the Spirit of God enabling the Gifts of God. An anointing from God is simply a portion of the Spirit of God that rests upon an individual to enable them to do things by faith, supernaturally that they normally would “not” be able to accomplish in their own individual abilities. I firmly believe that every Christian is anointed to do something for God.

I am a good example of someone having an anointing. Without the Spirit of God, I am not a normal type of person that likes to teach, especially before a large crowd. Yet God’s ability through His anointing supersedes my personal abilities, and this causes Him to get the Glory for everything I do to bless His people. I do not take the credit for anything that is taught by me. I am not that smart to be able to understand the Bible in-depth like is published here.

Therefore, know and learn from this lesson that God has gifted everyone and each Christian must find out what they were called to do and how He gifted them to fulfill it. Then seek Him and unite with Him in unity to cooperate in Faith to work with God to cause it to come to pass. Just because someone is anointed does not mean it will automatically happen. We all must take a step of faith and move in the direction that He is leading us to go, step by step!

Jesus God’s Gift and Gifted Anointed Servant

Here is another shocker for many Christians. The Bible clearly teaches us that Jesus Christ was anointed by God for His 3 and half year ministry time here on the earth. Jesus proves this in Luke 4:18 when He was reading from the book of Isaiah. He began to read the words in the scroll which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me…” (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18) and this is followed by a key list of items that Jesus was anointed by His Father God to accomplish on earth. Also, in Acts 10:38 God further confirms this truth by saying “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and Power, who went about doing good, healing all those oppressed by the devil”. Wow, what amazing information of Truth.

It might also be important for you to see when God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit. We can find this in Matthew 3:13-16. In this passage, Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized of him in water. After John baptizes him in the water and while Jesus is coming up out of the water, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus and abides. This was the anointing of the man Jesus of Nazareth. This is when Jesus begins His supernatural ministry on the earth performing countless miracles. But we should ask ourselves, why was it necessary for the Son of God who was the Almighty God in the flesh to be baptized and anointed?

Why didn’t Jesus the omnipotent God just heal everyone and do everything the same way He did when He created the world? Here is the short answer why God chose to anoint the man Jesus rather than to operate in His deity power. Philippians chapter 2 confirms God laid aside His Supernatural Omnipotent powers to be made like men. He did this to legally counter the devil’s works on the earth. Satan had exalted himself by his pride and God chose to humble himself and die on a cross to save us concurrently destroying the evil works of the devil.

Another part of this answer, is that Jesus chose to become a natural human laying aside His deity power in order to set an example for how humans are supposed to live and operate in this life. Do you remember what Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1:8? He told them to wait in Jerusalem so that they would receive “Power” when the Holy Spirit came upon them. This simply means the disciples were being anointed with the same Spirit power that Jesus had and this is still available for us today! This brings us to another Key Spiritual Gift from God.

Gal 3:14  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 

Notice this verse does not directly mention a gift, but if you recall from lesson one a gift is always offered by the giver and it must be subserquently received (taken) by the recipient. This verse shows us that the Holy Spirit was a promised “Gift” that must be received by humans. Therefore, we are finding another reference to a Spiritual Gift from God. God’s Holy Spirit is the same Spirit that indwells and joins with our human spirit at the new birth which Jesus called being “Born-Again” in John 3.

But now we are seeing new work of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ (Anointed One) to anoint each of the members in His church body. This is what Jesus told the disciples to receive on the day of Pentecost in the upper room in Acts 2. This experience occurs after the new spiritual birthing process and God’s purpose is to empower us to become witnesses to other humans that have not been born-again.

Conclusion

We have just barely begun to cover an introduction to Spiritual Gifts that come from God. These are all more awesome that you can imagine. Each Spiritual Gift has a specific purpose and usage to give God glory and to edify His church body. Hopefully, you are enjoying this series. If you have time, please like, comment and ask any question that you may have about Spiritual Gifts.

God Bless you exceedingly and abundantly above all you can ask or think. Because most of us don’t have much of a clue what God has prepared for them that “Love” Him. I can’t wait to find out! Always remember Jesus Christ is coming sooner than most people think. It could be today! Are you ready to meet Him in the air?

If you would like to continue study in the series, please go to “Part 3“.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!