Gifts are important, but they are not everything in the Christian life

Regarding Saul's life and the way God's anointing was manifested in him, I want to touch on one more topic concerning how we handle God's anointing to ensure that that anointing does not turn into something that can be until harmful to our ministries.

In the case of Saul we see that the beginning was wonderful and that God did indeed change and transform the life of King Saul, and put him in a place of prominence, and of great use for His Kingdom, but then over time that anointing of God ended up being mishandled by Saul and his life ended in great tragedy.

And we have also seen that this happened in the lives of other men greatly used by God, like David, who made serious mistakes in his reign despite having the baptism, the anointing, the filling of the Holy Spirit in the way it was known in the Old Testament. We have seen in the case of Solomon, his son, that God blessed him with an unprecedented anointing of wisdom, but also because of his conduct he ended in disaster, becoming an idolatrous man, full of lust and ended up introducing his entire nation into an idolatrous practice that caused him terrible, terrible damage.

And we can see this theme working even in the life of the Church in the New Testament and of certain characters also in the New Testament that make us consider very carefully this idea that we have to be extremely reverent and cautious in the way we handle the Power of God when it comes into our lives. Because that Power of God when it is working in the life of a man, a woman, a Church, a ministry, if it is handled well God blesses it and gives us more, but if we handle it poorly it becomes a weapon against us and it can have tremendously destructive results.

We see in the case of the Corinthians, for example, that the Corinthian Church, according to the Apostle Paul in several passages, especially in the first two chapters, that Church did not lack any gift, it was a highly Pentecostal Church where the Power of God manifested himself in a great way, and yet it was a Church that is also characterized by grave moral defects as Paul himself mentions in his two letters.

In the case, for example, of the great divisions and fights, and struggles that existed, that the brothers were taking each other to court, and Paul says to them: "Don't you have the Spirit of God that is still going to judge the Angels?" Why, instead of resolving your issues in the secular courts, do you not resolve it internally?

And there is also that great immorality that was being tolerated by the Corinthians where this young man was sleeping with his father's wife and Paul sanctioned this, and pointed out in a very, very clear way that this was a grave sin.

So we see that the fact that God's anointing is moving in a man, in an individual, does not guarantee that that man, that woman is going to be a paragon of virtues. The anointing of God is not something magical that solves everything, it is a resource that God then wants to use in our lives but that we have to handle in a very reverent, very cautious way and that we have to balance with a holy life, of obedience. , study of the Word, subjection to the Holy Spirit who wants to work in our lives and induce, and infuse the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us.

There is another side to this issue, the fact that we have that anointing from God should not create in us a sense of perfectionism where we believe that we have to be perfect for God to move in our lives. God uses imperfect men and women and He knows that we are made of dust, and that many times we will have to come to Him and ask His forgiveness when we make mistakes, but neither can we live a life of guilt and fear, and of moving in God's anointing simply because there are areas in us in our marriages, in our mental life that we have to progressively bring the Holy Spirit to continue treating and perfecting us, and taking us to new levels.

When we have the anointing of God in our lives we have to ask the Lord also to polish us, to improve us every day, we have to study the Word to see areas of our lives that we have to be continually submitting to the Lord, because life Christian is a life of continual progress, of continual growth.

I believe that many times in the life of the Church in the 21st century, especially in our Latin American countries and here in the United States as well, there is a lot of Pentecostal Church, many Pentecostal ministers who believe that because they have the anointing, they speak in tongues, They pray three hours a day and God moves in their lives as if they can already neglect their ethical conduct, how they conduct their ministries, their growing formation, their character, the way they relate to people who are under his authority and it is not.

We have to be very careful that even when the anointing is on our lives and precisely because it is in our lives, we have to be even more careful that the character of Christ, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is manifested in our lives.

That is why the apostle Paul in First Corinthians chapter 13, after speaking in First Corinthians chapter 12 about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, its importance and its power, says: "If I spoke in human and angelic tongues, and I do not have love "meaning: if I had many gifts but I do not have the fruit of the Holy Spirit" I come to be like metal that resounds or symbols that rattle. "

And also the apostle Paul speaks elsewhere in that same passage, that if we have faith so that we can move mountains, or if we give all our goods to the poor, or even our body to be burned, but we do not have love, We do not have the character of Christ, we do not have a behavior that honors the Kingdom of God, so these gifts are worthless.

The idea is: we cannot idealize or enthrone, or deify the gifts as if, if we have that, we already have everything. Gifts are a resource, they are a means that God uses but they are not everything in the Christian life. If we want to have fruitful, long-term ministries that honor God, and that the devil cannot come to destroy despite the presence of the anointing in our lives, we have to match and strengthen those gifts with other attributes that are equally necessary.

Only a man, a woman who walks carefully in all dimensions of the Word of God, as much as possible because we will never be perfect, only that person can have a fruitful ministry of God that honors the Ministry of God and brings advancement for His Kingdom. Let us take care of the gift of God that is in us and make sure that we strengthen it with other attributes of equal importance. May the Lord bless you and until our next program.