Daily Devotional: God's Wonderful Gifts - Part 7 - The Mind Gifts

by Jerry Ousley  

 

 

The Mind Gifts

 

1 Corinthians 12:8-11 – “. . . 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 the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”

 

            The third category of God’s wonderful gifts are called “The Mind Gifts,” so called because they are revealed by God in our minds.  They may be expressed through one of the other gifts.  For example, a revelation of a truth may be placed in the mind and spoken out as prophecy.

 

            As with all the other gifts these too have been misused over the years by people for various reasons, more recently by charlatans trying to proport that they are something special with God and deserve lots of money for their revelations.  I am sorry if it seems that I am stuck on this, but it is only because the gifts of God are real and we should be used by God with the gifts to build the kingdom of God, not little kingdoms of men.  When we allow God to use us in these wonderful gifts then His kingdom is built up, people are saved, healed and made whole spiritually because of obedience to Him, not because we are “something special” with God and are to be reverenced and honored because of it.

 

            The gifts were demonstrated by the Apostles and early disciples very naturally even though they were supernatural acts.  By this I mean that they were used by God and they allowed themselves to be used just as if it were the most natural thing to do.  I believe that this is also what God desires of us.  He has not changed; we have.

 

            The mind gifts include a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge and discerning of spirits.  These do not include human wisdom, human knowledge or human suspicions.  They are gifts from God.

 

            The word of wisdom is an imparting of the wisdom of God in a given situation.  God allows us to see what His wisdom is in a certain situation.  It is wisdom to do the right thing in that given situation.

 

            The word of knowledge is essentially the same but with knowledge.  Many today seem to mix wisdom and knowledge up as being the same thing.  But they are not.  Knowledge is education and wisdom is the ability to know when and where to use that education.  I have met some smart people who didn’t seem to have a lick of wisdom about them.  And that principle applies to these gifts from God.  A word of knowledge is an imparting of a particle of God’s knowledge – A Revelation of something the receiver didn’t previously know.  Again, a word of wisdom is a God-given revelation of how to use knowledge, either revealed by God as a word of knowledge or human knowledge, and how to apply it.

 

            Discerning of spirits is a Divine revelation as to what spirit is moving in a situation.  There are three spirits always at work.  They are the Spirit of God, the human spirit and the spirit of the devil.  So discerning of spirits is a revelation from God as to what spirit is operating.  For example, in the situation in the Acts 16:16-19 where the little girl was following Paul and Silas crying out, “these men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”  On the surface it seemed that she was on their side proclaiming who they were.  But God revealed to Paul that in reality it was a demonic spirit speaking through the girl and so Paul cast out the evil spirit.  Only God through the gift of discerning of spirits could have revealed that to Paul.

 

            And so there we have the spiritual gifts.  But we are not finished yet.  The office gifts go hand in hand with spiritual gifts.  We will begin to deal next with the office gifts.  They are all from God given to lost man to win him back to God. 

 

. . . To Be Continued . . .

 

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ïSoul Challengeï, ïSoul Journeyï, ïOrdealï, ïThe Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ïThe Shoe Tree.ï Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

 

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