Your spiritual gifts NEEDED ASAP!

 

WED Evening Prayer Reflection 091620 (Acts 16:16-24; John 12: 20-26)

After reading the story featured in the book of Acts, I realized how the gift of discernment is a rare gift to have in the church and a vital one indeed. The Bible tells us in 1 Cor. 12 that: “The Holy Spirit is given to each of us in a special way. To some people the Spirit gives a message of wisdom… to others he gives the ability to tell the spirits apart.” Paul encouraged Corinthians to aspire these gifts of the Holy Spirit, that they should want the more important gifts (v.31). After a few days, this particular girl kept crying out loud: “These are slaves of the Most-High God, who proclaim Salvation, and Paul was annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.” That’s a life lived on the offensive line! What fascinates me in this story, is that while Paul and the other disciples were doing their normal business of preaching and her presence and her proclamation, eventually were shown to be in opposition to their ministry. It required a keen spiritual vision: a special gift to see it.

We all get annoyed by certain things in life, but it doesn’t mean that those things come from the evil one. Paul was annoyed because, deep down in his spiritual life, he had discerned that this girl was erratic and was possessed by an unclean spirit. Growing up in Africa, I have heard stories of people who prophesied/foretold the future, some of them were asking money so they can reveal your future and at times, they would suggest what to do to reverse the situation. My gut says that these were using unclean spirits. When money is involved, like in the case of this girl in Acts, we have reason to doubt the origins of these spirits. Other stories reported people who could tell the future without caring for money or sympathy, and usually they would single you out from a crowd and tell you everything and disappear into the crowd.  I am convinced that this can be a natural gift from God. However, foretelling the future and discerning the spirits are not the same thing. The one who discern the spirits can tell if the person foretelling the future is indeed from God or not.

The Old testament has examples where God forbids spirits of divination or consulting Mediums or the use of Witchcraft. The famous example is the Witch of En Dor in the 2^nd book of Samuel. Now Samuel had died, the army of the Philistines had gathered to fight against Israel. Seeing the vast army of the enemy, Saul became afraid. Since God had turned His back on Saul, the king decided to resort to spiritism. Saul had previously put all the witches out of the land. However, the witch in the city of En Dor was still there.  So, Saul disguised himself to get information about the future. He didn’t remember that the Lord prohibited it: “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God (Leviticus 19:26,31).” Eventually the spirit of the prophet Samuel was summoned from the dead and he told Saul that he would be killed. He did find out the future, but it was not good news he got. Saul was indeed killed later on as Samuel had told him.

I am convinced that we need the Holy Spirit’s gifts as the church of Christ. This particular gift is vital especially where the church has been more on the defensive instead of being on the offensive. What I mean is that we need this gift to discern spirits. We are bombarded with loads of information every day, and the need to swift through it as disciples of Christ and discard what is not of God is paramount. Is this your gift? Sharpen it even more because the church needs it more than ever.

The Gospel message today tells us of the need for the grain to die so that new life can sprout. To me this parable tells us that we need to be genuine believers, who have died to their old lives (or put it to death) and who live their new lives in Christ. We are invited to live on the offensive line, use the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us. If you don’t know what gift God has given you, please contact your priest, your spiritual director and explore it. We are all called to function in God’s Kingdom with these gifts. If your gift is to tell spirits apart, I want to tell you, you are needed in the Church today more than ever.

Be blessed today and forever! Amen.