1 Corinthians 12:2
You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.
The second reason for losing the spiritual gifts, according to Paul in this passage, is that we are using our natural life to assess spiritual matters. When we talk about spiritual life, we often confuse it with personality; a person is considered spiritual if he or she has good personality. The two, however, are not necessarily related. A spiritual person could have bad personality, and vice versa, because personality is in our nature, but spirituality is in our spirit. What is spirituality? It's the ability for one to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. In other word, if a person with good personality but cannot hear the voice of the Spirit, the person is still not spiritual, but if a person has bad personality but can hear the voice of the Spirit and is willing follow it, then this person is truly spiritual.
Whenever we talk about spiritual gifts in the church today, people immediately think of talents. The fact is that gifts and talents are completely different things. We are born with our talents or we may acquire them throughout our life, but gifts are how we serve God through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. You might have acquired a gift through learning, but your gift is definitely a talent. We in general understand this truth, but in practice we get rather nervous, because we want to use our natural life to control spiritual matters. Therefore, many in the church don't serve according to their gifts, because they either don't know what gifts God gave them, or the church never provided a good environment the practice the gifts, and they end up serving according to their specialties and interests. It is important to offer our talents for God to use, but besides talents we also need to exercise our spiritual gifts.
May God help us to have a humble heart and let the Holy Spirit guide us; help us to understand our spiritual gifts so that we can serve God in the church with both talents and gifts. When spiritual gifts are exercised, the power of the Holy Spirit will be released and the name of Christ will be lifted high, and thousands upon thousands will be drawn to the Lord. Today, the church is not witnessing signs and wonders because we have neglected teaching and practice the truth about spiritual gifts, so may God restore the truth and let the church enjoy the benefit of spiritual gifts.
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