More…Where our hunger meets His Promises 

Ephesians 5:18 NLT 

– Week 13 – 

“Everyday Grace – the Practical Spiritual Gifts” Part 5 

The key is to be wild for Jesus – no fear – no shame – but to be wide open for whatever God wants – to be audacious – to believe in a big God – a God of miracles who has called us to something unique. Sometimes you have to be bold – we have not because we ask not – we need to ask God to supply what we don’t have. Pray – cry out to God – and he will honor that with a cascading waterfall of miracles – not just once but on a regular basis. 

He reveals to us that he is a God who still does miracles today – not just the big stuff either, but in real power for small miracles daily – little things – connections – the right people showing up – until our buckets are full and overflowing – where we find ourselves in the “miracle zone” – where God still does miracles. 

We’re talking about the manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit found in First Corinthians chapter twelve, and the next group called the Dynamic Gifts – the gift of faith, the gifts of healings, the working of miracles. What is the purpose of miracles? – of healings? – of the manifestation and the working of the Holy Spirit in and through our lives? Is it so we can have a big altar call? – to get an article in a publication that our church is seeing revival in our time? 

We believe that the revival we’re going to see will not look like it used to – that God’s not going to take us backward. He’s going to take us forward – to a revival of maturity of believers. Immaturity is the trojan horse in the Church that is destroying churches right and left – immature believers who don’t know how to handle things – like conflict – stress – tension – pressure – the enemy – spiritual warfare – all these things. When they’re handled from the place of immaturity, they’re devastating to a church body. Some of us have felt the pain of that. God is on the move, but it is a work of maturity. 

“A Beautiful Mess” – Pastor Jimmy’s devotion from Sunday, September 18: 

“As we draw near to Jesus, He reciprocates and draws near to us. However, that is not all He does. In fact, He fills our buckets, a representation of our heart and life, to the point of an absolute and continual overflow of grace, life, joy, confidence, and peace. Living life out of the constant overflow of His presence in the person of the Holy Spirit creates an attraction that is compelling. It is what some have called, “Irresistible Grace.” Right now, take a moment to invite the Holy Spirit to fill you above and beyond the brim of your heart and life, so that others may enjoy the unceasing overflow of His grace, joy, presence, and love. 

Go ahead, spill Him out and make a beautiful mess.” – Jimmy 

We’ve been talking about the Holy Spirit all summer and we’re leaning into it now as we talk about these final manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit. We’re reminded of the entire point of this – it’s not just about diving into the details, and defining spiritual gifts and their application and how they work – it’s really more about this learning how to be before God and about being filled with him. 

John 7:38 NKJV 

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 

That is what this is about. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God is not about making you weird – or, if you’re weird already, making you weird-er! The Holy Spirit is not weird. He is a Gentleman, and he is the Third Person (sometimes refered to as the “lesser known” Third Person of the Trinity). We have spent the summer trying to get to know him better, and to “de-weird-ify” the Person, Presence, and Power of the Holy Spirit. 

Well-meaning good people have driven more people away from the kingdom of God by being weird in the Holy Spirit than have attracted them – and that is tragic. 

What would it be like for you, if you’ve got your heart and life filled up with him? – you’ve got your buckets full? – and then all day long you are sloshing everywhere you go? You get a bump here – you get a hit here – you get a bad text or email – bad conversation – bad meeting – whatever it may be – and you are sloshing out Life – Love – actually the fruit of the Holy Spirit – Love, Joy, Peace – sloshing out everywhere. You are making a “beautiful mess” everywhere you go. 

That is the point of the Presence and the Person of the Holy Spirit – our Helper – our Comforter – our Counselor – our Advocate – our Friend – our Intercessor – and, according to God’s Word, our Healer. 

The Dynamic Gifts 

We get that word dynamic from the Greek dunamis, which means explosive force or power (as in dynamite). The Holy Spirit is also called the Dunamis. He carries dunamis – he expresses dunamis. The first of the dynamic gifts we studied was the gift of faith – by definition, a supernatural impartation of belief and confidence for a specific situation. Have you ever been in a situation where you knew something had to happen? – something had to change? – something had to move? 

Have you ever had your back against the wall where you knew that if God didn’t show up it wasn’t going to happen? And then suddenly, out of nowhere you got this infusion of faith – of confidence of trust – of belief – that God is going to come through – or, that you just know it’s going to be good no matter what the outcome is. We get caught up in our outcomes and sometimes forget that ours do not always line up with his. 

Sometimes his outcome isn’t a win. Sometimes his outcome isn’t victory, in the sense that we think it is. Sometimes the victory is in the learning – it’s in the struggle – it’s in the pain – even in the suffering, where we learn how – we learned – we grew – we expanded our capacity – even through the pain. Sometimes the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us and we get this infusion of faith – belief – trust – and it is supernatural in scope. We rise to a new level – his level – above nature. 

But it happens because he wills it so, not because we pound a desk – pound our Bible – or say things just right and get our tongue just right. He actually says, “I love you so much, and you need this right now – or someone around you needs this, so I’m going to give this to you – this gift of faith – because you’re going to help somebody else with that.” It’s never really about me – it’s about we and them. 

Gifts of Healings 

The next gift is the gifts of healings. Notice the words are plural. This isn’t just a one-time deal in the moment, but there are opportunities for us over time and in different seasons to express this gift in different and varied ways. The gifts of healings are defined as, supernatural, above nature, endowments of divine health imparted through an individual, group or congregation. 

Acts 19:11-12 NKJV 

“Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.” 

That is a “wow” not “how” moment. We need to take that as a whole, and not break it apart. The anointing on Paul which was a grace gift (or, a power gift) to anyone who just touched his body. We can only say, “Wow!” to that. We need to learn not to tell God how to do stuff, but just pray and say, “Lord, it’s in Your hands, and we release it in obedience to Your Word.” We’re not the Savior or Messiah. We’re just vessels. So we say, “Wow – thank You Lord.” 

Working of Miracles 

Definition: a divine intervention that alters our natural circumstances. God will give an impartation of faith, for the working of a healing or for miracles. These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit – not the gifts of us – like the fruit is the fruit of the Spirit – not the fruit of us. These are His that he gives to us so that we can steward them for his glory – and that’s what happens here. 

Acts 5:12-16 NKJV 

“And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.” 

Signs and wonders – signs that make us wonder – that’s what this is – in fact, it’s all about that. It makes you wonder about God’s ability – God’s work – God’s intervention in the affairs of man. It’s meant to turn your eyes towards him – not towards the person whom it came through. They just got a gift for that moment – whatever God’s reasons he may have for that situation. 

“The shadow of Peter passing by…” the same Peter who denied Jesus not long before – Peter, who ran – scattered – denied Christ – this is how God shows that it’s Him and not us. He takes the most broken and messed-up vessel and says, “In this moment, I’m going to touch your life, and you’re going to do something amazing. In fact, you’ll do greater works than I did – something bigger later on – when all are healed.” 

Acts 19:11-12 NKJV 

“Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.” 

“By the hands of Paul…” some fifteen years later. Some people will take a scripture such as from Acts, and say that God did it “then” but he doesn’t do it anymore. However, if you read the whole account of the book of Acts – that time span – the new testament – the whole account of the Bible – it didn’t stop after a year or two or three – it continued on through the whole new testament. God didn’t stop – he hasn’t quit. Why would he give us this and then say, “Oh, that was only for then!” That’s like him saying, “I loved you back then, but only for then. I don’t love you anymore.” What? Who are we to pick and choose what God gives? 

We see the massive, crazy miracles and then look at our lives and say, “I’m nothing.” Remember, though, these are highlights – the highlight reel of the new testament – but there were also daily things going on. We’re at a point where we need to look for everyday stuff that comes when we’re walking around with full buckets and sloshing out and making a beautiful mess everywhere we go – where the trajectory of somebody’s life gets redirected by four degrees – where we might not see it in the moment but two years later and they’re not even the same person – because something spilled onto them and made a difference! 

God wants to fill our buckets so that we can go out and make beautiful messes all day long – every day – and literally leak him out – his Grace – his Goodness – his Power – everywhere we go. It’s not complicated. Jesus said, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13 NKJV) 

There’s your prerequisite – ask! You don’t have to do a tap dance for God. You don’t have to show out, or bluff your way through anything with God – he already knows. But we humbly come before him and say, “Lord, I may be a broken vessel with scars, marks, nicks, bruises, and cracks, but Lord, would You fill my buckets so that I can somehow, someway, leak out through my day and create a beautiful mess everywhere I go, for Your glory – for Your honor?”

If God only used perfect vessels, we’d never see another human being come to Christ – never. If he used perfect vessels, you wouldn’t be here right now. Our buckets may not be pretty, and they may have stuff in them, but God can also help us clean them out so we can hold even more of him. 

All of these manifestation gifts are amazing – they’re beautiful – and they have epic and biblical implications, but they also have practical implications for your everyday life. Sometimes a miracle is somebody picking up the phone when you call, or somebody writing you a word of encouragement when you were so down – feeling so much weight and shame and pain – and you get a note that just lifts your life. 

That is a miracle – everyday grace – everyday miracles. If all we do is look for the epic, we miss the beauty that’s right in front of us – those little everyday moments where God is showing up – shoulder-tapping you all day long – but because we’re looking for the big thing, we miss the million little things that he’s bringing to us all day long. Don’t miss the beautiful messes all around you. God loves you so much! He is overwhelmed thinking about how much he loves you! 

Prayer 

Thank You Father that Help is here, in the Person of the Holy Spirit – in the Person of Jesus Christ – in the Person of God the Father. Help is here for us – today. Thank You that we can leave this place different than when we came in because Jesus is with us, and He can change the trajectory of our lives, because of Who He is. We now turn our hearts to You and receive Your gifts for us – for You to love others through us. 

Lord, if there’s any breach in my relationship – my fellowship with You – give me the Grace to reconnect with You. Lord, I’m sorry there’s been a breach in my fellowship with You. I turn my heart to You and away from the stuff of life, and I embrace You. Embrace me, Lord. I want to come home. I want to be with You. Thank You for loving me. Fill me now with Your precious Holy Spirit. Fill my buckets to overflowing. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Jimmy Pruitt is a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. As an idealist, his words are filtered through his spirituality with the expectation that he will encourage and inspire people to “Live Up in a Down World.” He is committed to being an authentic person in all he does. Because everyone has been through something, or is currently struggling, Jimmy believes the proper response to life is humility; it is the signature of Jesus bringing forth both pain and glory. He and his way better half, Annette, have been married for 30 years. Agreeing their family is amazing, placing “Fun” in dys-Fun-ctional. They have three adult children and seven grandchildren that bless their lives beyond what they could ever dream. He is currently Lead Pastor at Bridge Church Fredericksburg, TX, and has started a new podcast titled: “Living Up in a Down Word – Making Faith real for the rest of us.”