Concerning these gifts of the Spirit (studies)
Concerning the gifts of ministry as noted in: Romans 12: 3-8
As I was praying and trying to discern how one is really supposed to pray intercessory prayer - I began thinking, “how do you pray when you don’t know what to pray for” - I was filled with a feeling of “I will tell you what to pray for.” I then said, “Well, why should I pray, or what’s the point of praying if You will be giving me the words to just say back to You?”
That thought led to an examination of other “gifts” - giving, compassion, serving, administration, all of the others, teaching and even exhorting - they all are meeting people’s needs, while “perceiving” which often is, uh, perceived as the most important gift is really the least important in many ways. Yes, its major task is intercessory prayer, but that is just giving back words to God that He has told you to say anyway!
I then pictured a big china wash basin into which water was being poured on one side with such force that the water was not staying in the basin, but literally splashing back out the other side. As the words poured into the “perceiver” they rushed back out. Now, what good was that?
But, before that thought had barely left my mind, another took its place - “isn’t the gift of giving, just giving out of what has been given? And isn’t compassion, pouring back out of the compassion that is filling the person? And isn’t exhorting, and all the others, a pouring back out of the very gift that is being poured into the person? Picture that same basin. As the gift is poured into a believer, it is not to stay, but to be “splashed” back out into the world. The gift of perceiving is not any less important (and not any more important) than any other gift. Its focus is just different.”
As I was praying and trying to discern how one is really supposed to pray intercessory prayer - I began thinking, “how do you pray when you don’t know what to pray for” - I was filled with a feeling of “I will tell you what to pray for.” I then said, “Well, why should I pray, or what’s the point of praying if You will be giving me the words to just say back to You?”
That thought led to an examination of other “gifts” - giving, compassion, serving, administration, all of the others, teaching and even exhorting - they all are meeting people’s needs, while “perceiving” which often is, uh, perceived as the most important gift is really the least important in many ways. Yes, its major task is intercessory prayer, but that is just giving back words to God that He has told you to say anyway!
I then pictured a big china wash basin into which water was being poured on one side with such force that the water was not staying in the basin, but literally splashing back out the other side. As the words poured into the “perceiver” they rushed back out. Now, what good was that?
But, before that thought had barely left my mind, another took its place - “isn’t the gift of giving, just giving out of what has been given? And isn’t compassion, pouring back out of the compassion that is filling the person? And isn’t exhorting, and all the others, a pouring back out of the very gift that is being poured into the person? Picture that same basin. As the gift is poured into a believer, it is not to stay, but to be “splashed” back out into the world. The gift of perceiving is not any less important (and not any more important) than any other gift. Its focus is just different.”
posted by Betty Newman at 7:04 AM
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