I once heard something that I pray I will never forget: "A prophet is what I do, a son is who I am.". This statement holds true for all of us no matter what the call of God is upon our lives and no matter what gifting we have or office we may hold. We are all called to something. Not one of us is here accidentally. Each one of us is uniquely fashioned and designed by the master creator of the universe to do something extraordinary. You may not feel extraordinary but you are. You are uncommon. You are created in His image and you are supposed to go and be His image bearer on this earth.
1 Corinthians 14:1 tells us to pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. Prophecy edifies, exhorts, and comforts. There are 9 spiritual gifts named in 1 Corinthians 14. If you are living and breathing, you have a gift. Why are they called gifts? Because they are given. A gift is something given willingly to someone without any payment, a present. Christ already gave us the ultimate gift, the gift of salvation but there is so much more to the Christan life, to our lives as believers than simply being saved and going to heaven. 1 Peter 4:10 Every believer has received grace gifts, so use them to serve one another as faithful stewards of the many-colored tapestry of God’s grace. TPT I love that: the many-colored tapestry of God's grace. We are all interwoven into a beautiful tapestry. Without you that tapestry is incomplete! You are not an accident. You are here for a reason. The fact that you survived everything you have ever gone through is no coincidence. There is a mess before the message and a test before the testimony. Your message and your testimony are unique to you and there is someone out there that needs your expression and that needs your gift. Your gift is not who you are but it is very much connected to who you are. Because of this, there is often much intertwining of the two.
So often I have witnessed two extremes operating in the body of Christ. In one extreme, I've seen those who don't know who they are in Christ. They may have suffered rejection or they may be fearful, insecure, or simply insignificant. They may not have been taught that they have spiritual gifts. Maybe they have been taught but they don't believe God could or would ever use them. Some believe they are too flawed or just simply not "gifted" enough. I was one of those at one time and I can tell you those are all lies of the enemy. If he can keep you from knowing who you truly are in Christ, then He can keep you from being that expression and that image bearer I mentioned above.
In this other extreme, I have witnessed those who appear to be very gifted and confident in their "gifting", extremely charismatic even, but the gifts became their identity. Pride came in. Usually, there is an insecurity that they are overcompensating for or hiding. They likely don't know who they truly are as sons and daughters. Often, their gifting becomes the place they place their own personal value or worth. How sad when this happens. You are so much more than your gift and you have so much more value and worth than what your gifting can do. No matter what your gift is, that gift is not your identity. It is given to you by the Holy Spirit by grace. You do not earn a gift and you do not qualify for a gift. A gift is a gift. Your only responsibility is to receive. Your gift is not who you are.
The Word of God tells us to pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, and develop and cultivate fruit - Galatians 5. John 15 tells that we are grafted into the vine, Christ. His desire is that we bear fruit in our lives. We have a problem today in the Charismatic church. Too many in the body of Christ are seeking the gifts or seeking and not cultivating fruit. If you are preaching, teaching, evangelizing, or prophecying and then going home and fornicating, getting drunk, slandering your neighbor, harboring unforgiveness or resentment, cussing like a pirate, abusing your family, etc... then you are not bearing the fruit of the Spirit. We must not get spiritual gifts and the fruit of the Spirit mixed up. Yes, we are to desire spiritual gifts. But they are that, a gift. We don't seek gifts. We seek the giver of the gifts. You become who you hang around. In seeking Him, you will become more like Him and will cultivate and develop fruit. That takes intentional relationship and friendship with God, all three persons of the Godhead. Cultivate means to prepare and use for crops and it also means to foster the growth of. Crops speak of a harvest. God desires to get a harvest out of you! The gifts are tools He gives to us but those gifts will take us to a place where our character can't keep us if we aren't intentional about developing and cultivating the fruit of the spirit in our lives. You can tell a tree by the kind of fruit it bears and the characteristics of that fruit. Your identity is not in your gift but it is who you are as a son or daughter of your Father in Heaven through Christ Jesus. Apart from Him, you can do nothing. Your character and fruit develop out of your relationship with Him. Really and truly, everything in life flows out of your relationship with Him. Gifts are given, but the fruit is cultivated and grown.
Wherever there is fruit growing there are also sucker branches. The sucker branches suck the life and nutrients from the main vine. It causes the growth of the fruit to be stunted and sparse. We must be willing to allow the Father to prune off the sucker branches, to remove everything that robs us of the life we were created to have in Christ. Again, in John chapter 15 we learn that we are the branch and we are connected to Jesus, the vine. Every branch that does not produce fruit is thrown into the fire. Because we are grafted into the vine (Christ), we can't help but bear fruit.
Maybe you don't feel very fruitful in your life right now. There is good news for you! I have had seasons in my own life where I have not seen the evidence of fruit-bearing. Sometimes that is because of our own foolishness or immaturity. Sometimes there is more going on that you can't see and you need to simply stay grafted into the vine and trust. My last season was a very difficult season for me. It was what some call "the dark night of the soul". But the Lord showed me I was in development. You don't see fruit because the tree is developing. But the potential of harvest is there! Development happens in darkness. A roll of film is developed in darkness. The "negative" is the opposite of what the final picture will look like. When a tree is developing, it happens first under the soil, in the dark, where no one else can see the roots that are growing way down deep. The roots must grow before the tree can grow and produce fruit or else that tree is going to either be easily uprooted by strong winds, wither in a drought, or not survive a harsh winter. But we are ones who are called to bear fruit in every season. (See Psalm 1) No matter what season you are in. Some seasons are more active than others but we are called to bear fruit in each one! Just because I am no longer co-pastoring or actively in ministry, (though some in my life insist otherwise) it does not mean that I am not bearing fruit. Some things had to be uprooted out of my life because they were hindering my growth. I had to be willing to go through the pruning process. Some sucker branches had to be pruned off but I am letting my roots go down deep. If you are in a difficult season, don't despair. That fruit may be in seed form right now. Any avid gardener can tell you that when a seed is first sown or planted, it grows in darkness (under the soil) but yet it still needs light. It has to be planted in good soil and needs just the right amount of water. Then, that seed will sprout but yet it is still very tender and fragile. It has to grow deep roots to survive. Have you allowed yourself to be deeply rooted in the word? Have you allowed yourself to be deeply rooted where God has planted you? It takes time, patience, and faith.
You have been born again of incorruptible seed. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. - 1 Peter 1:23. The seed bears the image of the tree. (Jesus). When people see us, they should see Jesus.
When our focus is only on the gifts we aren't cultivating the fruit. We can even commit idolatry in the church, both the one on the pedestal and the one putting someone else on a pedestal. I love all of the 9 spiritual gifts but prophecy is probably one of my favorites. In my own life prophecy has been an amazing gift that completely changed my life forever, putting me on a track that I would have never been otherwise but it has also almost destroyed my life and that of my family. In my own immaturity & inexperience, I had placed a prophetic person on a pedestal. I became enamored by their charisma and their "gifting". I greatly desired to be like them, not with an envious or competitive attitude, but I simply wanted to be used by God and make a difference. That's not a bad desire but in it, I had completely overlooked many obvious signs that things were out of order and I set myself up for much hurt and disappointment later on. Some of that was due to a lack of healthy relationships in my own life. I had a faulty foundation, to begin with. We must allow the fruit of the spirit to develop and also see it developed in others. We should be ever-growing, ever-maturing. We must be more enamored with Christ than we are with a person representing Him.
I witnessed firsthand the damage that can be done to lives when an office or gifting becomes a person's identity and primary goal. When that happens in 5-fold ministry, that person will do anything to hang on to that gifting because it has become everything and from where they get their value and worth. They have bought into the lie of the enemy that without that gifting, without what they do for God, they have nothing. Romans 11:29 tells us that the gifts are irrevocable. God doesn't take them back just because our heart isn't right. But in time, after He's given many opportunities to repent, the anointing will lift. Icabod - the glory has departed. The gifts will still be in operation but God's fingerprint is no longer on them. Always look for the fruit.
Another area where I missed it when I was newer to the things of the Spirit was being in it for what I could get. I would be at church every time the doors were open, but in my immaturity, my focus became on getting a touch from the Holy Spirit, rather than me touching the heart of God. It became about me being ministered to rather than showing up ready and expecting to encourage someone else that needed ministry. That was how I started out. There is a grace for us when we begin but we must grow from the place of immaturity and become mature sons and daughters. It's good to be excited about the gifts. We are to desire them and yes, even enjoy them but we miss it completely when that is our sole focus. We are all called to ministry to one level or another. We are all called to be ministers of reconciliation, reconciling a lost and dying world to the Father. But your identity is not your gifting. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” Romans 5:14-15 ESV For the Holy Spirit makes God’s fatherhood real to us as he whispers into our innermost being, “You are God’s beloved child!” - Romans 5:16 TPT. You are a first son or a daughter of the Father. I have two amazing kids, Natalie and Kaleb. They are not my children because of anything they do. They are not my children because of the thing things they are good at. They don't earn the right to be under my provision, protection, and blessing. In the framework of family, Natalie is my daughter first. Kaleb is my son first and everything else is a benefit that comes out of the covenant relationship we have as a parent to child. Well, you are part of the family of God. Are you not? In the family of God, your identity is as a son or a daughter. Doesn't a good parent give good gifts to their children? Yet, the relationship is the most important thing. The father doesn't identify you by your gifts. He doesn't see you as a teacher, a prophet, a pastor, etc... He looks at you as a son, as a daughter. And all the earth is waiting for you! Romans 8:18 says it like this in the Passion Translation: The entire universe is standing on tiptoe, yearning to see the unveiling of God’s glorious sons and daughters! The world is waiting for you to manifest as a son or daughter!
We have a lost and dying world out there that needs to hear the simple gospel and see it demonstrated through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's about the family business, not about "my ministry" or your "ministry". It's about the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit that comes when we long for Him and His presence in our lives above all things. Let's stop comparing, complaining, and competing with one another and get busy being about our Father's business! No matter what your gifting or calling is, don't forget: "A prophet is what I do, a son is who I am".
- As a daughter of the Most-High God, learning to live authentically!
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