1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian Spiritual Gifts | Page 2

Hi everybody,
Let me begin this week’s devotions by reminding you of what we spoke about last week.
We have been speaking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.We began by saying that the Holy
Spirit is the agent through which God brings TRANSFORMATION.
Transformation comes as an INVASION and through the ILLUMINATION that the Holy Spirit
brings to the word of God.
REGENERATON is the fundamental function of the Holy Spirit as he brings those souls that
were once dead in trespass and sin, back to life again. The Holy Spirit then takes on the role
of SANCTIFICATION whereby his purpose in our lives is to make us more like Christ. The
evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is done through his work of IMPARTATIONwhere we
evidence the presence of the Holy Spirit working in us through the Fruit of the Spirit and
through the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit brings with him. We said too that the Holy
Spirit has a beautiful role in the area of SUPPLICATION whereby he takes our prayers and
interprets them to God the Father on our behalf.
Today I would like to speak about one final role that the Holy Spirit has to do and that is the
role of GLORIFICATION.
Let me explain. We all know that God’s glory is seen in creation, but we also know, and the
scripture teaches, that we are His church, His glory here on the earth. The Holy Spirit, it
must be noted, is not given to you so that you can get goose bumps and feel good, but he is
given to you so that you can have the power to bring glory to God.
Our key passages for this study are found in 1 Corinthians 12 v 4 – 11, 1 Peter 4 v 11,
Ephesians 4 v 11 – 13 and Romans 12 v 6 – 8.
BUT, according to the apostle Paul, there is one thing greater than spiritual gifts and that is
the fruit of LOVE. Two passages in 1 Corinthians that speak specifically of the gifts are 1
Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, sets for us the context to which these gifts need to operate and
that context is LOVE. If we operate in the area of these gifts without love, we do not
impress God and in fact, we bring distain to the name of Christ and to the work of the
Church.
In 1 Peter 4 v 10 – 11, Peter gives us two general sub-divisions as it relates to the gifts of the
spirit. He talks firstly about the gifts that speak and then about the gifts that serve. All of
the 23 named gifts in the passages above will fall into one of these two categories. Let me
outline for you, individually these gifts in no particular order of importance, as they are all