Desire the Greater Gifts

Week of Prayer and Fasting
JANUARY 2010

The past two years, during the month of January, I have practiced the spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting. Spending one week in fervent prayer and fasting on only liquids, I seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit in developing our mission strategy for the coming year. This year the week from Sunday 10 January through Saturday 16 January proved to be most fruitful for me in both the spiritual and physical realms. Simply, the physical stress of fasting on liquids alone for a week proved to be much easier the second time around. Much of the suspense was gone as to how my body would respond. Spiritually, I was blessed with a profound answer to a question that has been nagging at my soul for several years. My purpose in writing this article is to provide readers with similar questions the encouragement to remain faithful in asking the Lord for answers to life’s most difficult questions. Our weak flesh nature, especially customized by the western influence of immediate gratification, is strongly tempted to give up quickly if an answer isn’t provided in a way and in a short period of time that satisfies our desire. This is not conducive to receiving answers from God because the consistent teaching of Scripture is that patience is a virtue and waiting upon the Lord is a command not a recommendation. Some wise person in my past taught me that if you ask the wrong question you will always get the wrong answer. Another application of this same principle is that if you ask the right question in the wrong way you are most likely going to misinterpret God’s response.

During the time I was undergoing training to become a strategy coordinator with our company we studied the Book of Acts as a textbook for facilitating a Church Planting Movement (CPM). It was a particular passage of this Scripture that formed the basis for my CPM strategy to reach the lost blue-collar workers of Jeju Island. However, I have always battled an issue that derives from this same Scripture and that created the burning questions which became the focus of my January 2010 “Week of Prayer and Fasting.” As a traditional, conservative Southern Baptist, I have been raised to believe in “cessation theology” when it comes to the “sign gifts.” My roots tell me that signs and wonders are a manifestation of the Holy Spirit primarily limited to the 1st Century’s “Apostolic Age” which concluded with the death of John, the last of Jesus’ original 12 anointed apostles. However, many of my missionary colleagues, based on personal experience and alternative interpretations of Scripture, strongly disagree with “cessation theology.”

The passage of Scripture to which I’ve been referring is Chapter Two of the Book of Acts. The questions that stirred my heart to spend a week in prayer and fasting for answers was: Are the Spiritual Gifts which we’ve designated as the “sign gifts” present and/or prevalent in the body of Christ today? If the answer is yes: What, if any, role does the believer have in the acquisition and use of these special Spiritual Gifts?

To begin our discussion of these questions and the answers I received from the Holy Spirit let’s look at Acts Chapter 2 in overview. We see first God’s blessing of Pentecost in verses 1-13, this is followed by Peter’s bold message to the crowd in Jerusalem in verses 14-40, and then finally, in verses 41-47 we see the positive results of power-filled proclamation. My strategy to reach the lost natives of Jeju-do through a CPM is derived specifically from Acts 2:41-43, which reads: “So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.” I firmly believe that my people group will only be reached for Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit demonstrated by powerful preaching of the gospel message of Jesus Christ, accompanied by signs and wonders.

Please bear with me for a moment as I digress to a subject that will prove useful to help you understand the illustration I use to discuss the insight I was provided by God’s Spirit during my week of prayer and fasting. In my past life as a Baptist Church Pastor I used several Bible study programs produced by LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), to conduct discipleship training for my congregation. Three of these were of particular significance: Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby; The Mind of Christ by T.W. Hunt; and Life in the Spirit by Robertson McQuilkin. I found these in-depth studies to be very useful in presenting a well-rounded presentation of the triune Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Collectively, I feel these three study programs offer the most practical theological discipleship training available outside of a full three-year or more seminary education. Unfortunately, most churches only offered the highly popular Experiencing God, while a few found time to study The Mind of Christ, but very few are even aware of the existence of Life in the Spirit. As a lifelong Southern Baptist I’ve noticed that we tend to shy away from any emphasis on the Holy Spirit due to our historical concerns over the liberal excesses of Pentecostal movements. Combine this with our cessation theology concerning the spiritual gifts and we have a “black hole” of knowledge when it comes to questions such as those that troubled my heart and mind.

Now, back to the main thing! After one intense week of prayer and fasting focused on the questions that burned within my soul I was blessed with the following revelation:
Life in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26) is an assurance and total awareness of the presence, power, and purpose of God for our individual lives. It involves our emotions but is more than a feeling. It includes our mind but is much more than intellectual assent. It is manifested by the fruit of the Spirit and is therefore visible to us and others. It has practical application in at least one spiritual gift (1 Corinthians 12:7) given to each believer to produce good results.
The Mind of Christ (Philippians 2:1-5) is the sum of surrendering absolute control of our life to the Holy Spirit’s process of sanctification [beginning at our justification and completed at our glorification] combined with our active and passionate pursuit of holiness for the purpose of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7). The result is a radical transformation by the renewing of our mind, so that we may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1-2).
Experiencing God (Matthew 22:37-38) is not an option but a privilege, indeed a proper human response to His loving initiative (1 John 4:7-19). As born again believers in Jesus Christ we must worship the Father in spirit and in truth. This requires an intimate, accurate and full knowledge of the Father as revealed in the Son and manifested in the Spirit. God is Trinity! We do Him an injustice if we love Him as Savior but don’t obey and serve Him as Lord. We have a weak or even faulty view of God if it only includes the grace of the New Testament and not the holiness of the Old Testament. Southern Baptists often short change the work of the Holy Spirit.
You may reasonably ask at this point how any of this resolves my questions? If you will stay with me just a little longer I promise to bring this to a sensible conclusion. I was convinced that my questions were legitimate; however, I began to understand that the way I was asking them needed some work. Preconceptions, theological baggage and little faith had created a box in my mind which I had always operated out of when asking God to answer my questions. I’ve always taught others not to put God in a box but this of course is ridiculous. The creation has no ability to place the creator into any sort of box. The problem is that we tend to operate out of boxes that make us feel confident, comfortable and in complete control of our situation. So, once I was able to break free of my self-imposed barriers to the truth I became aware that my position before the Lord was proper for asking the right questions in the right way: HUMBLY!

A verse from Paul’s epistle to the Corinthian Church captured my thoughts: 1 Corinthian 12:31, “But desire the greater gifts.” The Amplified Bible reads, “But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). Doing a word study of this verse in the original Greek we discover the root word is zelotes and in this context it is used in the active and continuous voice which adds the nuance of “seek and keep on seeking” the greater gifts. Why is Paul so strongly encouraging the Church to zealously and actively seek these greater gifts if not for the greater glory of God the giver of all spiritual gifts?

This verse of Scripture was used by the Holy Spirit to enlighten my dull wits. The answers to my deep theologically significant questions were as simple as Paul’s instruction to the believers at Corinth. Inspired by the Holy Spirit to correct these early disciples, Paul was telling them that the sign gift (tongues) they took so much pride in was good but not great! Primarily, it edified the individual Christian by drawing them closer in relationship to God which is a good thing. But Paul is pointing out that greater gifts exist which bring greater glory to God and edifies the body of Christ corporately. Paul is exhorting us here to earnestly desire [seek and keep on seeking] the greater gifts without disparaging the gift you already possess. What lessons can we learn from this teaching? Spiritual Gifts have degrees of greatness and are ranked proportionate to the amount of glory that God receives not us. We are never to be content with the degree of glory that we shower on Christ Jesus through the sanctified use of our spiritual gift, but rather we should zealously cultivate a desire for even greater gifts to produce greater glory to give to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What result can we impact with our spiritual gift that provides the most glory to God? Jesus said in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.” Again in John 17:4, “I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do.” And finally, in Luke 19:10, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” I have been asking the wrong question and therefore I consistently got the wrong answer. It is not for me to ask God [who is the same yesterday, today and forever] whether or not His “sign gifts” are still present and/or prevalent in the church today. This is a presumptuous and ill-conceived desire on my part to ask God the giver of all good gifts what He has placed in His gift packages even before I’ve received mine! My proper perspective towards all spiritual gifts is to understand that the Father in His infinite wisdom is ready and willing to give each one of us the gift or gifts that we are to use to bring Him the maximum glory. The first question I had became irrelevant.
In conclusion however, I still have to deal with the second question concerning the role, if any, of the believer in the spiritual gifting process. Paul’s inspired instruction to the born again believers at Corinth is sufficient to answer at least in part that we are to zealously desire the greater gifts without concern on our part what is in the package. We can trust God to make the right decision as to which gifts we need to accomplish the task He has set for us, but I do think that our availability to serve in any place and in any capacity at any time is a response of our human will. Our value to God is largely measured by this availability rather than our capability. Yet, I think there is a final issue germane to this discussion of human responsibility. The adage that practice makes perfect may not be biblical but it certainly proves to be practical in almost every situation. I believe that God’s Spirit provides the perfect spiritual gift for the assignment but we are required to exercise this gift through practice in order to maximize its effectiveness in a given time and place. Any student of a language beyond their own native tongue will agree that if you don’t use it you will lose it! I affirm that a significant portion of Southern Baptists are guilty of neglect with regard to using the spiritual “sign gifts” that God provided to bring great glory to Himself through the evangelical expansion of His Kingdom. We Southern Baptist, as a denomination, have accomplished much that is good and some that is great; however, due to atrophy our greatest gifts are weak to the point of impotence or in some cases totally absent! Fortunately, it’s not too late to reverse this spiritual deficiency. All we must do is eliminate the box from which we operate and allow our heavenly Father free reign in our lives to gift us as He sees fit and not as we feel comfortable. Combine this with a rigorous spiritual exercise program in which we daily use our God given gifts to bring great glory to Christ by producing much fruit. And finally, as our brother Paul has encouraged, “desire the greater gifts.”