This ministry highly recommends Lester Sumrall's "Gifts and Ministries of the Holy Spirit".
Acts 1.8 "But you will receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is
come upon you: and you shall be witness unto Me both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
Earth." (KJV)
There are 2 foundational stones: Unity and Love
Gifts
of the Spirit are given when UNITY with our Lord Christ Jesus as Savior
Lamb of God and our Father God Creator happens in our hearts with LOVE!
Reason
for gifts of the Spirit are for our use as weapons of spiritual warfare
to show our LORD GOD is invincible! (pretty cool reason!)
There are 9 gifts of the Spirit and they are broken into 3 groups.
- The groups of Gifts of the Spirit are: Revelation, Power, and Inspiration
- Revelation Gifts= word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits
- The word of wisdom is the revealing of the prophetic future under the anointing of God. In OT every seer (prophet) foretelling the future was endowed with this gift.
- The word of knowledge is the revealing of a fact in existence that can only be supernaturally revealed. It can't be seen or heard or known naturally. The difference in these is: wisdom reveals of the future, knowledge reveals of a fact that exists now!
- The discerning of spirits has to do with the comprehending of the human spirit, supernaturally revealed by the Holy Spirit. It is not the discerning of demons, but the discerning of the human spirit- good and bad.
- Power Gifts= gift of faith, gifts of healing, the working of miracles
- The gift of faith is God's bringing to pass a supernatural change. No human effort is involved.
- The gift of working miracles does work through a human instrument. It is a person doing a supernatural act by the divine energy of the Holy Spirit.
- The gifts of healing is God supernaturally healing the sick through a ministry anointed by the Holy Spirit. A person may be given a gift from the Spirit of God to pray for a particular kind of sickness or disease. There are many ways to be healed and this is the only gift that is plural for this reason. There might be as many gifts as there are diseases.
- Inspiration Gifts= gift of prophesy, the gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation
- The gift of tongues is the ministry of proclaiming in a public meeting a message from God in a language not understood by the person giving it. It does NOT come from their mind, but from the Holy Spirit.
(This teaching by Lester Sumrall helps understand the difference in a "message in tongues given to the church" and "praying in the Spirit". Until reading this book as well as some others I will tell you about, I didn't really understand this concept at all. Now I think it is pretty clear. On this subject this ministry recommends the reading of Pastor Don Nori, Sr.'s book titled "You Can PRAY In Tongues" or T.D. Jakes book titled "Anointing Fall on Me" explains it rather well.)
- The interpretation of tongues will follow the operation of the gift of tongues. The message that has been given in another language is interpreted supernaturally by the Holy Spirit through another person, without that person's mental faculties being involved.
- The gift of prophecy is the anointed speaking forth of words of edification, exhortation, and comfort- words supernaturally given to the church from God.
