Harmonizing the Flock: The Symphony of Spiritual Gifts in the Church

Have you ever considered the true essence of spiritual endowments and how they knit the New Testament church into one cohesive body? Together, let's embark on a journey of discovery through the often misunderstood gifts of the Spirit and how they transcend mere individual acclaim to serve God's kingdom. I'm your host, JJ, and I'm thrilled to share insights about the necessity of interpreting Scripture in its full context, avoiding the pitfalls of isolating verses that can lead to misinterpretation. We delve into the humility required to embrace God's transcendent thoughts and ways, setting the stage for an enriching exploration of the spiritual gifts that glorify the divine rather than our own achievements.

In our second segment, prepare to uncover the crucial role of spiritual gifts within the church community and the importance of responsible stewardship. Just as the tongue works in harmony with the teeth, we reveal how each member and their unique gifts contribute indispensably to the church's mission. Reflecting on the lessons from the Corinthian church's experiences, I'll guide you through the understanding that these gifts from the Holy Spirit are designed with a divine purpose in mind, fostering unity and interdependence among believers. Join us for this deep dive into the spiritual realm, and let's learn together how to navigate our gifts in alignment with the ultimate goal of salvation and an eternal life in the presence of the Almighty.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Hello everybody, welcome to today's episode of walk with me. I am your host, jj. It's so good to have each and every one of you. Thank you so much for liking and downloading this podcast. We'll be listening to any other podcast in the world a lot of Bible podcasts out there, a lot of Christian channels out there but you're taking a moment, listen to this one. I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much, I think God, for having you here. Thank God for allowing me an opportunity opportunity to have a podcast, and thank you, god, for the Strength to go through and keep doing it. That's not something that I am naturally prone to do, but thank God for allowing me an opportunity and basically have me to do it Today.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Oh, before we get into that gotta talk, give special shout out to our sponsors. Walk with me and sponsored by exquisite creations as well as true bars lyricist. He's got some new Christian songs out, christian rap out there, and if you're into that, if you're into the rap, you're into stuff like that. You have younger kids and stuff like that Go ahead and have a, give them a listen. I he's the one that made the book music for the show and I guess just watching some of his progression, living for God has been absolutely amazing. I'm thankful for that. I really think.

Speaker 1: 1:45

If you have any questions or comments, want to talk about a certain set of scripture, email us at. Walk with me Bible study at gmailcom. Walk with me Bible study at gmailcom. I did get your questions about the wise men. We will talk about that. Yes, we will, but I'm gonna let the holidays go by and so that we have time to fully delve into it. But we did get your questions about the wise men. All right.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Today we, though, we are going to talk about the gifts of the spirit. Now, I get it. A lot of people will talk about the gifts of the spirit and really, when they're talking about the gifts of the spirit, they're talking about gifts of discernment, or they're talking about gifts of preaching, or they're talking about something they're talking about some sort of external sort of Look at me, I can do this sort of thing, kind of a gift, and it's not exactly Only about that, that that whole, that it's kind of a commercialization of the Holy Ghost and what people do, and If I was God, I guess I'd be a little upset about it. No, I'm just being honest with you. But there are a lot of gifts of the spirit that we don't really talk about and it makes me wonder if we really have the Holy Ghost. If we're not talking about these things, I will go go into it.

Speaker 1: 3:19

But first of all, the outpouring of God's spirit molded together a whole spiritual body. And by that molded together, it took a lot of people with different Viewpoints and different aspirations and different likes and dislikes and it put us all into a body together and we call that body the New Testament trick. Now, it just depends on how you feel about it. But in Ephesians One in 22 it says and have put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things of the church, which is his body, the fullness of him, that filleth all in all. So what does that really mean?

Speaker 1: 4:08

It also means that spiritual manifestations or supernatural manifestations of the spirit occurred, and we commonly refer to these manifestations as gifts of the spirit, not by supernatural. I'm not talking about pulling fire out of your hands or something like that, or casting spells on people or getting people chicken balls. We're not talking about that. You mean something that cannot be explained or understood by human reasoning, but it glorifies the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of you, the kingdom of I, or the legend of JJ or anything like that. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift of God.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Now, one of the things that we have a problem with is sometimes we limit God to our realm of understanding, and this is where, you know, I'm always talking about false doctors and things like that. I believe this is where a lot of our false doctors come from. Isaiah 55, 8, and 9,. God said For my thoughts are not your thoughts, these are your ways, my ways, sayeth the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are in your thoughts. Now, oh, you know what I forgot to do, yo. So here's the thing. I know. I know I say it every single session, every single podcast, every single episode but when we go through our scripture, we have a verse of 2 above, the verse of 2 below, or preferably the whole chapter, because context is key. Y'all will just repeat it with me Context is key.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Now, similarly, the same book, the Bible, that teaches about the use of spiritual gifts states in Corinthians 2 and 11, or 1 Corinthians, 2 and 11,. What man knoweth, the things of man, sayeth the spirit of man which is in him. Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God. Now, if you just read that without understanding, it sort of sounds like God doesn't know man. But that's not exactly what that scripture is saying, and I've actually used this well, not I, but people have used this as sort of contradictory when you say, hey, you know, the Bible says that God don't know anybody. That's not what it said at all. It's showing that God, the spirit of God, is going to put you in a position to where you understand the reasoning of God in a better situation than you were, the reasoning of man.

Speaker 1: 7:09

And why is that important? Because you and I, we could be sitting right across the table. It could be five of us, six of us, seven of us can be sitting right across the table and have one thing in common we just want to go across the street. Well, I'm sorry, we just want to get some gummy bears from the store. And we can come up with two, five, eight, 12, 15 different ways to get that done. We could even come up with the reason why we want the strawberry gummy bears and not the cherry ones, or why we want, you know, gummy worms instead of gummy bears, why we want cherry, the gummy cherries other than the gummy worms. We could come up with all these different things.

Speaker 1: 7:56

That's what the spirit of God will avoid and when it says, god, you know the things of God, north, no man, this is what the spirit is for. It will actually put us all in the same body, towards get on the same core that hey, we gotta get up out of these. We gotta push the chair back. Get up, put the chair under the table, open the door, walk out to our proper street, take some money with us. Don't forget to take any money with us. Go into the store, pick up the gummy, whatever the gummy packets, go to the counter, smile, say hello, pay for the gummy bears and walk out the door and avoid all that previous confusion that we had trying to debate on when or where or why we should go get gummy bears. This is the difference between having the spirit of God and the spirit of man, and I hope that really explains that a little bit clearer. But these gifts are also made to bring profitability to the church and in that, saying I can say, okay, you guys here and ching-ching money, money, no, no, no. We're not talking about, you know, having a billion dollars or flashing suit, or having 12,000 members sitting in a congregation of a $15 million complex or having a plane with the name on the side. We're not talking about that.

Speaker 1: 9:32

The prophet of the church is about growing the kingdom of God. First Corinthians, 12 and 7, but the manifestation of the spirit has given to every man the prophet with all. Now I get it. You know a lot of people sitting in. Going back to this round table discussion sort of scenario we talked about earlier, some people will literally sit there and tell you that the church doesn't experience this thing today. There are no gifts. You know that the church no longer experiences miracles.

Speaker 1: 10:09

The scripture doesn't say that. In fact, there are scriptures that tell us that the gifts will remain in the church prevalent until Jesus comes back. First Corinthians one and two. Until the church of God, which is at Corinth, tells them well, to them that are sanctified in Christ, jesus called to be saved With all that, in every place. Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours, and jump down to verse seven, so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the gifts will precede you and they will announce you and you will be exemplified in that, the fact that you have the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Speaker 1: 11:01

And just the same way we were talking earlier about this gift of God molding everybody into one body, you gotta think about a body, the church body, and the same way you figure out the human body, because this is the only way to really justify or explain it. But just like the human body has a lot of different parts, you have a heart, you have a liver and you got a stomach and you have a toe and you have a foot and you have a hand, you have an elbow, you have an eyeball, the same way, and in the same way that each one of those things I mentioned has a specific task, it has a specific goal, it has a specific place in the body. You, once you have the Holy Ghost and you're in the church I'm not talking about whatever your building says on the front door, I'm talking about in the church. Once you are in that position, whatever position God puts you in, I don't care if it's picking up peppermint wrappers off the pew at the end of service, that has a purpose. That has a purpose and it is just as important as the preacher that's standing behind the pulpit. Now I'm telling you, I can't really explain it any other, any planer than that there's no big eyes, a little used in a congregation and there shouldn't be. And if you have a view in a situation where you feel like you know the preacher puts himself above you in some kind of way, guys, I can't really explain to any planer that he needs to find a different place to go, need to find different places to go, because that's exactly antithetical to what Jesus wanted.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Jesus walked among his disciples and sometimes he walked in front of his disciples, but generally he walked among his disciples. And if Jesus was God manifesting the flesh and God being who he is, can actually snap his fingers and or speak entire universes into existence. But yet he saw fit. He didn't think it was crazy for him to walk among us and talk to us. Like you know, he loved us. What, what grounds is the pastor having to say he's above anyone else in the church?

Speaker 1: 13:35

Now, I know, I know some of you guys probably some of you guys probably take that and run off the window with, run off the ledge with it. But that's between. You got to know. That is to say, everyone in the body is important. The singers are important, the people who are sitting there, listen and attentively are important. Listen, think about the human body. When you're sitting there eating, right, let's just say you sitting there eating the hamper, eating the pigmen, the mouth is doing the work and then the esophagus is doing the work and then the stomach is doing the work. What does the toe do? But without the toe, it makes it difficult to go get the next walk. If the foot is gone, it makes it even more difficult. If your hands are missing, then it makes it even more difficult to eat the big mac. And I'm saying this to say that all of it works together. All of it is important.

Speaker 1: 14:41

Now let's stop right here, because when I was talking about the gifts of the spirit, people like to say, ok, this is my gift and that's that's my gift. That's my gift. No, no, no. There is a huge difference between the gifts of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit. The gifts of the spirit are not to be confused with the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is is grace in the character of the believer. Now, what does that mean? This is like a, like a divine enablement to strengthen and encourage us. In other words, having the Holy Ghost will allow us to manifest our faith in a in ways that people who don't have the Holy Ghost are not able to do, and people who have their gifts also have to use their fruit of the spirit to manifest their gifts. Does that make sense? It's not. You know, send me an email and I'll be more than happy to go into more detail.

Speaker 1: 15:52

But one of the things that's very important right now is that we have to make sure we take great care in their operation. Don't jump out there, and if God didn't tell you to say this thing, don't say it. Don't jump out there like you saw the great wizard and say stuff and that people believe you and that they're believing God because of you and not because you said something that was crazy. Now, of a sudden, they're questioning their faith in God. The Corinthian church had a really bad issue with operation of the more spectacular. They were really out of balance with it, and so we're going to talk about that today and if we get, if we get to have time, we'll be able to go into knowing supernaturally, but nine gifts of the spirit, was this?

Speaker 1: 16:51

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, friends, I'm not happy to be ignorant. We're talking about verse Korea is 12 and one and we're going to go all the way to verse 12. And we're going to probably spend the rest of the podcast on Know. You would know that you were Gentiles carried away Onto these dumb idols which you were led Wherefore I gave you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God, paul, jesus, occurs, and no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now, what they're saying there is that these idols, these people, were worshiping idols, and so they were cursing people and they were portal blessing people. And I'm using that term specifically because this is what we do today we curse people, we bless people, but we're. And then, when these people started living for God, they started doing the same thing that they were doing when they were worshiping idols cursing and blessing. But these are the. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And the problem is go back to verse three. No man can say that Jesus is God except if the Holy Ghost allows him to say it. You can't. You're not blessing anyone. God is blessing them and it's using you as the tool to do it.

Speaker 1: 18:20

It's very important that we don't get out of our position because then there's more of a kind of idol worship. Now, going back to verse five, there are differences of administration, but the same Lord. There are differences of operation, but it's the same God was working all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man. The prophet was all. We just read that, for it. To one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom, to other the word of knowledge by the same spirit to another. Faith by the same spirit to another gifts with a feeling by the same spirit To another. Work from the miracle to another, prophecy to another, discerning of spirits to another diverse kind of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. But all these work, that one and the self, same spirit dividing to every man servefully as he will. For as the body is, one has many members and all the members have that one body. Being many or one body, so also is Christ. I get it.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Somebody might get a confused about what I just read Basically, just because you have a gift of this doesn't put you any more important than anyone who has a gift of that in the body of Christ. This Bible study, this podcast, doesn't make me any better or any worse than any person who just who's looking? Who just got the Holy Ghost. This Bible study doesn't make me, or anyone else that is involved in the creation of the podcast, any better or any worse than someone who is just looking for answers while living for God. I know I said that twice, but it's very important Because I could be in a situation where and we talked about situations before where somebody could listen to this Bible study podcast, you know, get a revelation of God, get on their path to live for God and then come back and help me later on. So and then I would be just glad and happy to accept their health, because we are all one body. The elbow doesn't work without the arm.

Speaker 1: 21:00

We were talking in church the other night, last night, about, you know, tongue-in-teeth falling out. If your tongue is, no matter how much your tongue-in-teeth argue, they can't get away from each other, and that's the kind of continuity that the body of Christ should have. And by the body of Christ we're talking about the church and we use these terms. We sort of use these terms similarly, but then we use them in different contexts and then it gets confusing. And then, because it gets confusing, because you a we're not searching it out and bringing it on ourselves, we allow the devil to into the confusion. And then there you go. And so this is what we have. So these nine gifts of the spirit are it's just allowing the, it's to allow the church to become stronger in its general. You know it's their general mission and it's general mission to get people saved and get people on the way to heaven.

Speaker 1: 22:13

And again, I know you said with JJ, you don't use that turn. Say like that I know, I know I just try to get to use that turn that people can understand what I mean by being born again, because it is what it is. We all have to be born again and we all have to start that life. We all have to start that life. If you want to go to heaven now, you don't have to start the life. You can make your choice. What you choose to do, it's really up to you, friend, but I do.

Speaker 1: 22:43

Thank you for joining us. I do think you're listening. Yeah, I know about the time we're gonna continue this, because the next thing we're going to know we're gonna start breaking down what these gifts are like, the power of those supernatural. That's gonna be our next one. God tells us to choose up another one. In other words, guys, thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining us. I'll see you on the next one. Tell somebody love them and don't forget to like and share, and if you have any questions, send me an email. They welcome me by the study at peoplecom. Thank you, love you. Bye.