I remember my wife - we had a whole group of babies in a crèche crying, and she said: oh my one's crying. I said: really? I could just hear babies crying; but she could hear: that's my child crying, because her ear was tuned, in the midst of the noise, to pick up the sound of someone she recognised.
There is a lot of noise that we have going on in our head and in our lives. We need to learn how to calm down and quiet down, and just recognise when God is talking to you - we want to help you with that, and demonstrate that.
“The gifts of the spirit are given to everyone, to profit all” - notice here: it's not an indication you're mature.
God will give the gifts of the spirit to any person. It does not make them spiritual. It means: they're just listening and responding to God, that's all.
So a person can flow in the gifts of the spirit; but have perhaps other areas of their life where they're very immature. It does not make you a very ‘spiritual person’, being able to flow in the gifts of the spirit or the power of God. It just means you've learned how to operate by faith in that dimension - but the rest of your life you may have many issues, and many problems.
We tend to put people that can move in the gifts of the spirit on this pedestal, as though they're something special and unusual, because we've got this idea that only special people will God use.
We also have this wrong idea that: you have to get your life together, and get your act together, before God can use you. I challenge you to find that anywhere in the Bible - it's just a religious concept. If you think: I've got to get my life together before God can use me, then you'll spend all your life focussed on trying to make your life better; rather than focussing on walking with God, enjoying Him, and letting Him work through you.
4) God wants to work through everyone; and the gifts are given to profit others.
When God gives you a gift - it's not for you; it's for someone else - you're just the delivery boy!
It's like I'm connected to God, so I can receive something from Him, and then I pass it on to someone else. That's what the gifts of the spirit are, and I'm just the channel through which this flows. I'm the gate through which God interacts with the person.
You are described in the Bible as: you are a temple, or a house, in which God dwells; and you are a gate for the supernatural to come into the earth.
5) Now let's have a look at the different categories of gifts. It's in your notes under Section 2.3, and it says:
“In the manifestation of spirits, given to each one, for the profit of all; for to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same spirit, to another working in miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. The one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”
There are 9 distinct operations of the spirit there; but it helps if we list them under 3 headings.
First of all, 3 of the gifts are ‘gifts of revelation’. That means: God reveals to you something you didn't know.
If I talk to someone, and they tell me, then I've learned it from them. If I've read it in a book, then I've studied it and learned it; but if someone just tells me a secret, it reveals something to me.
So in 3 of the gifts of the spirit, God just reveals something, which you couldn't have worked it out. You just couldn't have known.
For example, I prophesied over a woman the other night, and said that at the age of between 10 and 14 she'd gone through these particular crises in her life, and this is how it affected her, and God now wanted to set her free from what had happened. We had some ministry for her. Afterwards she told me that there were two crises in her family: one when she was 10; and one when she was 14. There's no way I could have known that. All I'm doing is sharing what God is showing me; but for her, it was like her whole life was opened up to God.
Remember the woman at the well (in John 4) - when Jesus spoke to her, Jesus asked her a little bit, interacted with her, and then He said: why don't you bring your husband? She said: I haven't got a husband; and He said to her: that's true, you've had 5 husbands - and now you're living with a man.
When she went away, she said: I met someone who told me everything about my whole life. Now why did she say ‘everything about her whole life’, when actually He'd only said one thing about her life? The impact of that supernatural revelation was to cause her to experience the sensation that: all of her life was suddenly opened - and God could see everything.
So when you bring a word of knowledge, or move prophetically, it may not seem much to you. It's very little to you - because it's not for you; but when it goes to the person - oh, the person can be deeply impacted! How could you know that? It's like suddenly their whole world is opened up; but for you it was just a little tentative step. For them it's like oh! This is a big deal, because now you've opened up something in their life.
This is so powerful, to flow in the gifts of the spirit. It's wonderful to be able to operate in them.
So there are three gifts.
1) Words of knowledge - word of knowledge, just a little bit of knowledge about a person, some fact about their past or present.