February 20, 2012

today’s meditation verse:

i corinthians 12:9a
9) to another faith by the same spirit…

we’ve been discussing the gifts of the spirit and this week i’ll be writing about the gift of faith.

in i corinthians 12 paul is teaching the church about the ministerial gifts of the spirit. the ministerial gifts are the gifts of the spirit used for the ‘common good’ as paul states in verse 7.

i corinthians 12:7
but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

there are gifts of the spirit that are universal and for everyone. faith is one of those as it says in romans 12:3.

romans 12:3
for through the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as god has allotted to each a measure of faith.

but for use in the ministry some are given a special dispensation of faith which benefits the common good.

one such example is the pastor of a church. he is in such a ministerial position where it is for the common good of the congregation which he is in charge of to have a special ministerial gift of faith. in order to help his congregation and meet their challenges head on, he must be able to have a measure of faith which surpasses most others.

we discussed several weeks ago about faith and that our measure of faith is given to us as a seed. for us as we open our hearts to the holy spirit and believe and receive with our faith, it will grow and each time we have faith for more and more challenges.

but there are times when someone in the ministry needs an extra large portion of faith for the benefit of those they are ministering to.

it does not just apply to a pastor. let’s say that a friend comes to you and they are in dire need of prayer from you. their faith is small and what they need, they just don’t have the faith for.

in the natural your faith may not have grown to that level either, but because they have a need for faith saving prayer you can draw from the holy spirit the ministerial gift of faith for that time in order to pray a faith filled prayer for that person.

i’ve experienced this and prior to the prayer i felt no more faith than any other time, but while praying i could feel the holy spirit energize my faith and i did believe for that which i was praying. then once i was through praying with that person i fell back to my normal level of faith.

you might be able to use this analogy. on a normal day from routine exercise you can lift about 120 lbs. but in a dire emergency your body will have a rush of adrenaline and you can lift a much greater weight to save a life or something similar. when the need arises, that rush of holy spirit faith adrenaline will surge through you and you can believe with them.

we all have been given the gift of faith, but in times of need we can draw on the ministerial gift of faith for others.

 

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