CULTIVATING THE GIFTS. FaithWalk Don Carpenter

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SPEAKER_01: What I'm talking to you about is things of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Still Speaks

SPEAKER_01: And we are constantly Holy Spirit alive. Just think of that. When we are conscious of the Spirit of God, amen. He's alive. And the Holy Spirit is communicating with you. He's in conversation continually. When we pray and when we seek God, we're going to hear what God has to say. And when we move, when somebody moves in the gifts, if they're prophesying, for example, or if it's a message in tongues and an interpretation, the Bible talks about these gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. When that is taking place, that is God speaking to us.

SPEAKER_01: Some people say I can't hear from God. You have God speaking to you in many ways. And especially when we're believers and we come together and we operate in the gifts, that is God manifesting himself to us. God is speaking to us. God is confirming things to us. But we need to cultivate these things. We need to cultivate the gifts.

Cultivating Gifts Like A Garden

SPEAKER_01: And when I talk about cultivating, like here in New Brunswick, where we live at this time, gardens are growing. And this is true no matter where in the world.

SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with that tomato plant? Tomatoes have to have a lot of water. They have to have a lot of moisture. And I've got to cultivate that. And what it needs right now, it didn't need weeding, it needed water. So that's part of the cultivation. I had to water it. And when I walked out the door this morning, that little tomato plant was standing straight in the air and it's saying, I'm going to grow. That's what happens when we cultivate something. We allow the Holy Spirit to cultivate us. And the people who move in the gifts, the believers who are spirit-filled and operate freely in the gifts, and that's permitted in the church that you go to.

SPEAKER_01: It certainly is permitted here. I want you to know that you're going to grow. When we do this by faith, operating in the gifts, we are connected to another realm. There's many realms, there's different dimensions, and that's beyond what we can see with and taste and touch. We certainly understand this physical realm, but there's other realms of the spirit.

Neglect Not The Gift

SPEAKER_01: 1 Timothy, chapter 4, beginning at verse 11. I'd like to read a few verses here, and I'm going to comment on them. And if you want to grow and you want to become strong, stay with me. Here it is, New American Standard. Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. Until I come, give attention to public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance, with laying on of hands by the presbytery.

SPEAKER_01: Take pains with these things, be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. Paul the Apostle writing a letter to his young protege, a young minister called Timothy. And he gave Timothy instruction and what he must do in the body of Christ. When I read verse 14 here, did you notice as I was reading this in verse 14?

SPEAKER_01: King James starts it off right to the bone. It says, Neglect not the gift that is in thee. It gets right in there. Do not neglect this. Gifts are received through prophecy, laying on of hands of the presbytery.

Impartation Through Laying On Hands

SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes when I'm in meetings and ministering, people will come to me and they'll say, I would like to have some gifts. I say, Do you feel you have any? And I'm talking about the nine gifts here. I'm not talking about other gifts that we have, like hospitality and service and giving of offerings and all these other gifts. I'm focusing on at this meeting about spiritual gifts, the nine spiritual gifts found in 1 Corinthians 12. And they'll say, No, I don't feel I do, or I say, What gift would you like?

SPEAKER_01: And quite often they'll say to me, I would like to have the gift of prophecy or faith, or they will name healing, or these are very common ones. Some will say discernment, some will say a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, tongues, whatever. They will just ask for these gifts. So what I do what I feel is according to Scripture, I lay my hands upon them. And if there's some other ministers close by that would like to join me, I'll invite them. We'll lay our hands on that individual. And when we do, when we lay our hands on, there is a divine impartation, and we're bringing the gifts from God, who's already got them here for us, and we're stirring them up, and we're imparting the ability and the power to move in those gifts.

SPEAKER_01: And when they move in those gifts, they will be confident that it came from God. So what we need to understand is have faith that your gifts are God given to you. If you can do that, if you have the faith that you received it, this is what you were to do, because the Bible's clear, lay hands upon them, prophesy over them, and they'll receive gifts. This is very clear in the word. And if you have confidence in the ministry that's doing it, if you believe that this is scriptural and biblical, I don't see any reason why you would ever doubt that you don't have gifts, spiritual gifts.

SPEAKER_01: If you doubt it for one moment, I would advise you to come against that doubt very strongly and speak to that spirit, even out loud, because spirits will come and test you and they'll probe and they'll try to see if you will give in to them. You know what I do? I would say, I rebuke you, Satan. Just like Jesus did. He would say, I rebuke you, Satan. I rebuke you. You will not speak that.

SPEAKER_01: You have to cultivate this. You have to read scriptures on this, you need to listen to messages on this. You need to put yourself into a position and take the time out of your busy lives. Take some time for your spiritual man, your spiritual being. And when God gives you these gifts, how blessed you are. How blessed. So neglect not. I know sometimes we read the Bible and we read scriptures and there's words there and they just blow past us, don't they? And we're thinking, here it is, neglect not the gift.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Do you know the seriousness of neglect? It means we make light of it. I first encountered people moving in the gifts. I was in total awe. Like, I'm thinking, wow, how's that happening? I asked the minister, I said, How's this happening? They said, they're just opening their mouth and God is speaking through them. I'm saying, God is speaking. Yes, like I was in total awe of this. And I thought, what power? And I and I couldn't make up my mind, because I hear people say, I have the gift of, and I have this gift of, or I have a couple of gifts.

SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, but me personally, I like all nine. And I'm thinking, why just settle for one and two, or why not just ask for all nine? And I got them. I got all nine. And it was just something that was inside of me. I don't ever make light of that. I don't ever think for one moment that it's okay, it doesn't matter if I do or I don't. It matters. When we're in the body of Christ, we all should have gifts in operation. Everybody. And to say it's not necessary, that is a deception. It is necessary.

SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you strong enough. Having gifts in this end-time and age church, having the gifts of the Spirit is absolutely vital, critical, necessary. We need it. Because that's what happens. And when you have the gifts and you're moving in the gifts, it stirs everybody.

Decay Starts When Gifts Stop

SPEAKER_01: The term neglect, it's a much deeper meaning than we've come to understand. The gifts are not to be made light of as if they're not important or they're insignificant. The danger of neglecting a gift is that results in decay and obscurity. When you stop using the gifts, it's very hard. And you're going to think, I'm so rusty. That's called decay. And if you no longer will move in those gifts, you are robbing the people of God. So we don't want it. So what is the cost of neglect? Does the Bible address it?

SPEAKER_01: There is a price to pay for neglect. There is a cost. And the cost is recorded in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 3. Here is the cost of neglect. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

SPEAKER_01: Gifts are a part of the salvation package. Salvation is what works through all our Christian life. That's what brings us life. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. That means that when we move in the gifts, that's part of salvation. That's bringing deliverance and victory to the church. Salvation is just not washing of blood and washing away your sins. Salvation is the whole package that God has for us. And how sad it is. Even that, salvation, they're on fire for God for two weeks. They go to church for a couple of years, and then suddenly they fall by the wayside.

SPEAKER_01: Because what's happened? The people who are bitter, the people who are ungodly have influenced them, and so the list goes on. So don't hide your gifts.

SPEAKER_01: And I'm trusting that you're learning this. In 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 14, neglect not the gift that is in thee. Neglect not the gift that is in you. Now, like I said, you're given to hospitality, you're given to a lot of things, and we thank God for this gift. But there's also spiritual gifts, and continue in those. So this gift is a favor with which one receives without any merits of your own.

Gifts Are Grace Then Use Them

SPEAKER_01: It's a gift. Nothing that you have done. It's nothing because you're born the right race in your mind, or the you speak the right language, or you're the right sex. It's nothing to do with that. It's a gift for God. And God loves you so much and he trusts you so much that he gave it to you. So praise God for this. So gifts are exactly that. A gift. We do not receive a gift because we're good enough, or we qualify through some action.

SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 2.8 says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. God is a giving God. He doesn't just give you one gift and say, That's it, you don't deserve more. He'll give you many gifts. And the more you use your gift, the more benefit, the more comfortable you will become, the more fulfilled you are. You feel like, you know what? I come to church and I operate in my gift, and I feel like I've gathered with the body. It's not ritual. Man has made it ritual.

SPEAKER_01: Religion. The body of believers, we come together, we're a family, we have things in common, like we're born again. We all love Jesus, and that's how it's to be. So gifts are to be activated by faith, which you will boldly declare you're going to release, you're going to activate it, and you are going to do it. Can you imagine buying a brand new bicycle and never riding it? You buy a brand new jacket and never wear it. You bride yourself a brand new pair of shoes and you never put them on. What would we call that?

SPEAKER_01: We could call it a lot of things, but mainly the first thought that comes to my mind, what a waste of money that was. You never used it. It's a waste. You bought it, it's for you, you like it, use it. You will find that when you move in the gifts, you will like it. Have a love for moving the gifts. And I'm talking to everybody here in the church and online. When you activate your gifts, it's going to bless the body of Christ. It's going to bless the church. God has blessings for the church that the world knows nothing about.

Gifts Build Up The Church

SPEAKER_01: You try prophesying in the grocery store to some person walking by, and suddenly you lay hands on them and you start prophesying. If they're a believer, if somebody was to do it to me, I'd be okay with that personally. I would say yes, just give it to me. But if you were to do it to somebody, they're not a part of the church, they're not a part of the family of God, they might charge you with assault or things like this. But we have that wonderful privilege, don't we? In the body of Christ. We can do this.

SPEAKER_01: So I want you to be encouraged by that. So if you are a spirit-filled believer, you carry a God-life gift, a God-life L-I-F-E, a God-life gift that will benefit the members of the body of Christ, the church. In Ephesians, the Holy Spirit says that Jesus loved the church. Yes, Jesus loves the church and gave himself for it. Jesus is all about the body. He's all about the church. And when God, in his great design for humankind, and especially in the body of Christ, this never existed. The Israelites and other old patriarchs that we read about, once in a while a prophet would have, but they knew nothing about these gifts that we have.

SPEAKER_01: The angel, powerful as they are, the Bible says they desire to look into this, what we've got. They don't move that way. They don't have that ability. But you do. You do, as a still believer, you have the ability to move in the gifts. But you're going to see by the dawn, I'm so rusty, or I don't feel like it, or whatever. It's because you have let grow dull. You need to cultivate it. You need to stir it around, get the weeds out, and get the earth stirred up. Remember that little tomato plant I was telling you about that I bought yesterday, drooping over when I got it home.

SPEAKER_01: It was waiting for some treatment and some love. Somebody to care about it. It couldn't do a thing for itself. It was setting right there. It doesn't have legs to get up and walk off to the river or the brook. It's dependent on somebody. And somebody is depending on your spirit field, and they are depending on you.

SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 10 33. Even as I please all men and all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved, that they may walk a fulfilled Christian life. Hallelujah. Amen.