Don't be ignorant about spiritual gifts

First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 1. I want to leave only one verse in your mind and now I ask the Lord to renew this passage in my spirit so that I can preach it as if it were the first time today, even though I preached it this tomorrow in english It is a call, a warning, a challenge, an invitation from the Holy Spirit to the people of God, he says:

"I do not want you, brothers, to be ignorant about spiritual gifts."

Receive that as if the Holy Spirit himself were speaking into your life. "I do not want, Lion of Judah congregation, put your name there too, that you are ignorant or could be said to be ignorant about spiritual gifts."

And that is precisely the title of this sermon, do not ignore, do not be ignorant about spiritual gifts. And then I'm going to develop that idea a little more. But what I want to start now is by saying the following, God wants, I am going to put it in positive terms, God wants us to know the elements of the Christian life. God wants us to be understood regarding the things of the spirit. He does not want us to be innocent, like children ignorant of things of the spirit, but he wants us to be informed, understood, educated, skilled in the elements of a mature life in the spirit.

When I have spoken about this verse in particular I have always made a clarification, and it is the following, that Paul is using a much broader term than what the Spanish translation suggests here, spiritual gifts. The word that Paul uses in the original Greek, which has been translated into English as spiritual gifts, is the word pneumon. Say with me pneumatic. You have now become experts in the Greek language.

Do you see a word that you have heard before in Spanish, tire. What is a tire? An eraser. Do you know why in Spanish a rubber is called a tire? Because it has air. The rubber is filled with air. The language is beautiful, linguistics is very interesting. We say tire and we don't know that we are saying that it is something that is filled with air, because in the original Greek it is the word neuma which is also the word used for spirit.

So, Paul says brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant about the pneumon, who have translated that word to spiritual gifts, but that word is much broader. That word pneumon, if we are going to get very specific and technical, is the neuter plural in the original Greek which is translated rather as spiritual things, it is the idea. Pneuma of the spirit, 'with' is the neuter that has neither masculine nor feminine gender, but simply the spiritual ones, one could say, spiritual things, things of the spirit, matters of the spirit, is what Paul is saying.

They said what does pneumatic mean? Things of the spirit, things of the spirit, and as he goes on to talk about spiritual gifts in the rest of his talk, they said, well, let's translate it as the gifts of the spirit. But sometimes I think that what happens with this is that in the translation, which is a science in itself, sometimes you get lost, when you choose a word then you lose another possible meaning of the same word.

It has helped me a lot to understand that what Paul is saying is, I do not want you, brothers, to be ignorant about things of the spirit, matters of the spirit, spiritual things and matters in general. And then, having said that, he proceeds to develop a little more what he means and then he talks about the gifts of the spirit, he talks about the diversity of the gifts, that the gifts manifest themselves in many different ways but the spirit that manifests them is one. The fact that in the body of Christ there are many different gifts, there are people who have the gift of healing, others who have the gift of preaching, others who have the gift of teaching, others of evangelizing, there are gifts of tongues, there are others who are of interpretation of tongues, prophecy, miracles, wisdom, special knowledge, but all these supernatural manifestations are made by one and only one spirit, not many different spirits.

So Paul begins by saying, brothers I don't want you to be ignorant about things of the spirit and then he begins to develop that and give some ideas of how one can be ignorant of the spirit and how to correct that. And one of them is to think that every time a person manifests a gift of the spirit, he refers to a special spirit.

You know that, for example, in the Catholic world, I say this with great respect, there are saints for everything. There are saints of butchers, there are saints of women who are looking for a boyfriend, there are saints of truckers, there are saints of whatever, of those who are sick, there is charity, there are virgins for everything, the virgin of this, the virgin of the other, copper charity, is like a proliferation of saints, each one with his own specialty and that rather, I say this with respect, comes from a pagan mentality that thinks that each spirit has a specialty and that It manifests itself in only one way.

And Paul says, no, it's not like that. Now why was that important? Because Paul was preaching to people who came from a pagan world where there were many different spirits, many different gods, nature gods, sexuality gods, family gods, wine gods, and a number of different gods. And Paul wanted to correct that kind of ignorance and bring that Corinthian congregation to a clear understanding of the mysteries of the spirit.

So, he says, look, there are different... we talk about different gifts that are in the church and that is true but do not go around saying that they are different spirits, because the spirit of God is one. The Holy Spirit is one, but it manifests its power in different ways and different gifts, but it is one spirit. And in the same way, in a church there are people who have different virtues of the spirit but they are all part of one body.

Whoever has a prophetic gift don't think like wow, I'm the big deal. And don't think that the hujier who has a gift of service is perhaps inferior because what he does is serve the sacrament and welcome people. No, it is the same spirit and they are all part of the same body.

Paul is talking about diversity and unity at the same time. So his idea was, look, brothers, think deeply about things of the spirit. Do not think in a superficial way. The spirit is deep, it is diverse in its manifestations and there are different gifts but it is all part of one thing and we have to love each other, serve each other, know that each part of the body is tremendously important.

In our church, for example, there are people I am not going to mention by name simply for nothing, a person who many times when we pastors come to visit someone in the hospital and she has already been there for a long time, Sister Maira, why not to say it, to whom glory deserves, amen. Sister Maira Rodriguez sometimes one arrives at the hospital thinking like... but the shock troops have already been there earlier than one. Because? Because she has a spirit of service and a missionary, for the sick, for the people who are... And there is a group of brothers who also accompany her many times who are always there as a strike force, paratroopers, they arrive and don't even leave the parachute and begin to minister at once in a home or wherever. Excellent.

Because they have a gift of ministry, of service. Others have a gift of preaching or teaching or pastoring or whatever, but all are one and the same spirit. And the ministries of the church have to be given in that attitude of supernatural provision from God. When we minister to the brothers we have to do it in that sense of… Wow! I am at this moment handling the power of God and God allows me to channel his power. And we have to do it with that spirit of sobriety, of consecration, of holy fear and also of humility, knowing that we do not deserve it, only by the grace of the Lord.

So no one should boast that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are manifested in his life, on the contrary we should fear that God uses us in that way and we have to always give glory to him and we have to use the gifts in a very holy and fearful before God. So what Paul wanted was to correct the simplicity, correct the lack of sanity in the Corinthians.

And God wants, brothers, that we be well informed, well educated about things of the spirit, many things of the spirit. In the course of a year of preaching we speak here of so many different things and that is why we have chosen these weeks, these Sundays, to speak specifically about the Holy Spirit, about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, about life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit, because that is an aspect of the maturity of every Christian and we want this church to be well balanced and well instructed on the fundamental things of life in the spirit.

I don't want there to be a group of Christians who understand about these things and another group who are like innocent bunnies in a wild forest being attacked by the enemy because they don't know how to use the tools of the spirit to defend themselves when they need to or to live. effective lives in the Lord.

This teaching about the Holy Spirit that I am carrying out and that Gregory has accompanied me on a couple of occasions, is part of the instruction that you need because the Lord does not want us to be ignorant about things of the spirit. God does not want us to be childish in our knowledge of things of the spirit. And just as I refer to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Holy Spirit, so there are so many other things that have to do with that aspect.

You know that there are many churches, for example Pentecostals, that know about the Holy Spirit and that practice the life and energy of the Holy Spirit that many times are just as ignorant in another way as churches that are not filled with the Holy Spirit. And that they lack other aspects of knowledge and complexity about the Holy Spirit.

There are churches that are filled with the Holy Spirit and God manifests Himself in their services and there are healings but many times there are also divisions, there is spiritual abuse on the part of the leaders, there is all kinds of gossip within the brothers, there is a lack of wisdom on how to educating children, there is a lack of knowledge of what holiness truly is and many times holiness becomes religiosity and becomes legalism. There are times when there is an emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but not enough emphasis on the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Ouch!

What is the fruit of the spirit? Humility, love, meekness, kindness, patience, the joy of the Lord. You know that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit and also be weak in many other areas. There are churches that can be very anointed, lacking in certain balancing aspects. A church that only thinks of power, power, power, and does not think of love, as I preached a few days ago that God has not given us a spirit of cowardice but of power, love and self-control or a sound mind as he says in the original Greek. And sometimes there are churches that are childish, they seek the power of God and to his credit, there is blessing in that area, but in the area of the fruit of the spirit, there is lack and there is deficiency. And God does not want us to be ignorant about how complex and balanced the power of the Holy Spirit is.

Look at the church in Corinth, this same church to which Paul writes, from which I have quoted that verse, is a church that had many gifts of the spirit, for example, look there in First Corinthians, chapter 1 in verse 7 , says:

"...so that you lack nothing in any gift, waiting for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ..."

That is, it says that you lack nothing in any gift. That is, they had gifts of power, knowledge, wisdom, signs, it was a Pentecostal church, but look at what Paul says later, in verse 10:

"Brothers, I beg you by the name of Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in the same mind and in the same opinion because I have been informed about you, my brothers, by the of Chloe that there are strife among you. I mean that each one of you says, I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollo, I belong to Zephas, I belong to Christ, perhaps Christ is divided? Was Paul crucified for you, were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

Look, it was a church filled with the power of the Holy Spirit but also with many divisions and fights within it. And Pablo says, it's not possible, there has to be a balance. There are churches that think that because they already have the manifestation and power of the Holy Spirit they have already reached the top and neglect character, harmony, love, kindness, and patience.

So that is a type of ignorance also about the gifts and about the movement of the spirit in the people of God. And there has to be a balance. Paul, in chapter 12 talks about spiritual gifts and in chapter 13 he talks about the preeminence of love and he says, if I speak human and angelic tongues and do not have love, I become like resounding metal or tinkling cymbal. And if I had prophecy and understood all mysteries and all science, and if I had all faith in such a way that it could move mountains, if I do not have love I am nothing.

So, when we preach about the gifts there has to be a complete balance, there has to be the complexity that befits the Kingdom of God and the things of the Holy Spirit. There has to be a counterbalance of one thing and the other.

In the 14th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul talks about when the church gathers in a gathering like this that the Holy Spirit is also there, but one must be careful how one handles the strength and power of the Holy Spirit in a public context. which is different from how it is handled if you are at home, in your bathtub and entered into a blessing and you are worshiping the Lord while bathing.

It is one thing when you are at home quietly or with a group of familiar brothers, mature in spirit, in a family cult, in a small worship meeting. You can there loosen your bow, jump, jump, sweat, do whatever you want, if they contain each other there is no problem. Now, when you are in the context of the body of Jesus Christ, a gathering like this where there are people of all kinds, there are visitors, there are people who come from a very liturgical background and 4 by 4, there are elders, there are people who have had bad experiences with the Holy Spirit in other churches, there are people who are neophytes, who do not yet know God and are searching, there are people who come with a critical and skeptical attitude towards the church, and in that environment where there is so much diversity, it is Plus, we have a group of people that you don't even see when they're here. Do you know what they are? Those who are going to see this program on the internet. That is another congregation, they see it in different parts of the world and they are seeing here, what is happening, and they are part of this assembly as well.

So, one has to take all these people into account when the Holy Spirit is manifesting because one must be careful not to offend, not to scandalize, not to provoke thoughts that the devil sometimes uses to confuse the neophyte and new people who He does not know things of the spirit, so one has to be careful of the other brothers.

That's part of being part of the body. What happens if you hit your index finger with a hammer? Does the whole body feel it, yes or no? What happens when someone in the church is out of tune, let's say in the spirit? The whole body feels it. So one has to be careful to discern the body, says the Bible. When one is in the congregational meeting, the manifestations of the spirit must be conditioned to the collective context, unlike when you are in a very small group or you are alone at home worshiping the Lord however you want. Is different.

That is why sometimes, as I always tell you, there are brothers who sometimes think that when I call for discipline in some moment of the spirit, or end a moment of exuberance in worship or whatever, they think, the spirit. But no, it is that the pastor is discerning the interests of the collective body and as a general pastor one is thinking, okay, it is time to do this, it is time to do that, or someone is involved in their own personal party and is not discerning the other things that are happening, and he does not realize that he is being a stumbling block, sometimes, or an obstacle for others and then that order must be established.

Or there are people that sometimes what they are having is simply a nervous breakdown and they think that it is the Holy Spirit that is moving. And then you also have to help that person and guide them towards the sense of body because it is very different when the Holy Spirit is manifesting in general.

And that is why Paul in chapter 14 of First Corinthians, you can read it later in his time, speaks of the order that is appropriate for the manifestation of the spirit when we are in a general meeting where one has to stick to other considerations, which do not go to dull the spirit necessarily. There is a fine line between grieving the Holy Spirit and simply maintaining the order that befits the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It is a very fine line because many times there are pastors who want everything to be absolutely by the book, well ordered, well controlled, well coordinated and choreographed everything and when there is a moment when God truly wants to bless and manifest himself once and for all they turn off And that is not from God and that is called grieving the Holy Spirit.

But when it comes to simply maintaining order in a charismatic Pentecostal church so that it continues to grow and continue to manifest, whatever blessing there is, then it's okay to set certain limits. When Paul says, for example, that the spirit of the prophets is disciplined and is under the control of the prophets, what does that mean? Many times there are Christians who say, no, because the Holy Spirit entered me and I couldn't control it and I screamed and this and that.

Paul says, no, it's not like that. In the order of worship you can say, you know what? Perhaps this is not the time and I am going to adore God, but I am going to adore him in a more controlled way that does not interrupt the service and that does not monopolize the attention of the whole world.

Now, if God moves, as for example on Wednesday, there were times of a Pentecostal salpafuera. Praise God for that. There was everyone drunk in the spirit and it was a party. Amen. There look if you want to jump in place 24 times per second, amen, do it, don't worry, because we are all in the same thing. But in a quiet moment or something like that if you do the same thing that you do when everyone is into the same thing, you're going to come out as a… like a sore thumb, as they say in English, you're going to stand out a lot.

So what in one context may be very appropriate, in another context it may not be so appropriate and you have to discern both. For example, many times in a meeting, let's say right now you discern someone who is in the congregation, God shows you something in that person, I have seen in other congregations, for example, where someone has a prophetic intuition at a moment since God gives it, and at the moment they jump like a spring, they interrupt the service and begin to say, "God tells you this and that, that you repent, that you are going to hell if you do not do this or if you do not the other."

And you have to ask yourself, okay, Lord, you have given me that revelation but I have to respect the dignity of that person, his privacy, I am not going to embarrass him and at the given moment I may approach that person, in a right time, and I'll say, "Look, while I was here in the service God told me something about you." Or you can also say, "Look, I think that God told me this and this is what I saw in my spirit and I advise you now to meditate on it and if it is from God, confirm it." And that's all you need, you don't have to say, "My son, so says the Lord to you now, repent."

You can use a natural, normal language and the content is what is going to matter the most and the moment. Perhaps that person will receive you better than if you humiliate him in front of the whole congregation. The same happens, for example, when there is a demonic manifestation. I personally am not the type of pastor who believes that when an evil spirit manifests itself in the midst of a service, I have to go right away. That kind of scenario where many times in a church someone under a time of powerful worship manifests a spirit, and everyone rubs their hands together and jumps on top of that individual, because wow! Good thing a demonic spirit manifested. The cult stops, everyone stands on top of the person, the cult is interrupted and the next 20 minutes are spent berating the demon.

And that is what the devil loves, attracting attention, interrupting the cult, instead of saying, okay, he manifested himself, establishing the order of the Lord, taking that person behind to protect his dignity instead of embarrassing him and then minister to him in privacy and quiet. In any case, if she was demon-possessed, she has been demon-possessed for a long time, she can wait a few more minutes to minister to her.

That spirit has been alive for many thousands of years and can wait a little while longer to attend to it. That is part of spiritual maturity because one is learning, one is gaining knowledge about things of the spirit, therefore, I do not want you to be ignorant about the subtleties, the complexities of the Holy Spirit.

The first time in our church when we began to search for the Holy Spirit, a demon manifested itself in the service, we ministered to that person but the spirit did not come out and then one night in a vigil the spirit manifested itself again, we finished the service and gave it to us. we went back and frankly we spent about 5 hours fighting in that spirit. It was what I had seen, I rebuke you and I rebuke you, spirit of character manifested itself, spirits of different things, the spirit did not come out. We were around until 3 in the morning and I have said that the spirit left because it was tired and not because we reprimanded it, it simply said, you know what? I have better things to do. I'm going somewhere else to be left alone. I don't think it was because we were so effective, but that's what we've seen, that it's a salty outside and a fight there, and that's how it becomes...

I have learned later, with time and by reading and educating myself in things of the spirit, that many times the most important thing comes first, to do an interview and a study, ask the person, investigate, find out where that manifestation comes from, because it always there is an entry of an evil spirit into a person's life, we always, in some way, give entry to an evil spirit, some practice, some attitude, something hidden, some generational curse, some contaminating experience, but there is always an door that is opened for Satan to enter a person's life.

And I have learned that it is very economical, you first interview the person in a quiet place, talk to them, ask for discernment from the Lord, pray and then remove that spirit is like removing a loose tooth, it goes away gently. Once the person has been led to confess, to acknowledge, the devil no longer has anything to hold on to and then he leaves gently. And you don't have to suffer so much and walk out of there with your buns undone and your mascara rolling down your cheeks and all that sort of thing. A lot of time is saved.

I have learned that many times in the counseling office I sit down, declare the presence of the Lord, say certain things and demand that this spirit come out in the name of the Lord and I stay calm drinking a Coca Cola until the spirit goes away. impossible to continue because a spiritual order has already been given and that spirit then has to leave.

If there is something there it will come out in the name of the Lord, because Christ is powerful. Because? Because if a person, brothers, is demonized and does not renounce what led him to be demonized, that spirit will never come out. What's more, if he leaves, he comes with 7 more and their situation becomes worse. He goes out for a while to go have a Coca Cola and comes back again with 7 more worse than him. First you have to liberate, you have to tie the strong man, you have to tie what gives you the right to be there, then you can save a lot of time and it's something definitive. It is different, it is science, it is the judo of the spirit.

And that is why Paul says, I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about things of the spirit, but rather that we be mature, let us be deep in things of the spirit. There is a lot of ignorance in the Christian world in this area. There are people who believe that everything is simply accepting Jesus Christ and I no longer need anything. I accepted Christ, I started going to church, I give my offering, I go on Wednesdays, I enroll in the discipleship course and I'm fine now.

Remember that there is a dimension of the spirit called the baptism of the Holy Spirit that is very important and that is what the church of Jesus Christ needs to know. These teachings that we are giving is for you to understand that you have to search more, you have to search deeper. You will remember my teaching about Moses who was ministering to the Lord, yes, much used by God in his ministry, but he said, "Lord, I want to see your face, I want to have a deeper experience with you."

And I encourage each one of you, if you are not sure that you have had that filling of the Holy Spirit take advantage of one of these opportunities, go to a spiritual meeting, come to the front when we invite you, look for more and in one of those you are going to see that you are going to be filled with baptism, with the power of the Holy Spirit. That idea of power is in all areas of Pentecostal life.

Paul says that the things... the Gospel does not consist of words but in the power of God. And we have to go further in that direction. There are so many different elements of a powerful life in the spirit that we need to understand, how many of us understand, for example, about spiritual warfare? That's what I'm talking about a moment ago here.

That is an area of the life of power, spiritual warfare. You need to know about spiritual warfare. You need to know the intricacies of spiritual warfare. The Bible says that Satan prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And Paul says, be sober and vigilant because your adversary, the devil, walks like a roaring lion.

Very recently I had an experience right here in the church with a person who is very dear to us. She has been with us for a long time, she knows the Lord, she ministers in the Lord, many things, but at a given moment, because I was afflicted with certain things, I realized that there was a dimension. I thought it was purely something psychological but I realized at one point that no, there was a truly demonic dimension to that evil, that affliction for things that shouldn't be revealing too much. But that understanding that God gave me at that moment helped me to minister in a different way, in a way that I wouldn't have if I didn't understand certain things about how the Holy Spirit works.

One of the things... a person who is under demonic oppression many times cannot mention the name of Jesus Christ, for example, it is difficult for him to mention that name. And so it's a way that you can know that there's something there that's more than just something emotional or mental. And then you can detect that and you can minister in that way. There are situations in our spiritual life, our family life in which one discerns, wait, this is not just my mind, this is not just a matter of psychology or my family, whatever, no, this is a spiritual affliction and I I have to do spiritual warfare.

There are depressions that are purely physical, material, hormonal, chemical, and there are depressions that are of demonic origin. There are sexual ties and mental ties that are of purely family origin, practices from the past, experiences we have had, and they are battled against in forms of psychology, good spiritual hygiene, confession and other things. But there are other spiritual addictions that have a demonic origin and that require fasting, and prayer and crying out to God and have to be confronted in a spiritual way, with the weapons of the spirit.

Do you remember the story of the disciples when they descended from the mount of transfiguration? When Jesus descends with his disciples there at the base of the mountain there is a father whose son is afflicted with a demon and the disciples have been battling with that demon, trying to get him out, but they don't have the knowledge and complexity they need to do it and they don't they were successful, they could not drive out the demon.

When the Lord arrives, he ministers to the young man and immediately the spirit leaves. And the disciples then remain terrified and go to the Lord and privately say, “Lord, what happened? Why couldn't we get that spirit out and you got it out so easily?" Do you remember the Lord's answer? He told them, there are spirits that only come out with fasting and prayer.

Because? Because the Lord had a life of fasting and prayer and his life was strengthened and supplemented, even the Son of God submitted to a regimen of fasting, prayer, seeking the power of God. That is a mystery because if it was God himself and it is God himself, why did he fast? why was he praying Why was he seeking the power of God? because in his human condition he needed the power of God. And he submitted to a life of spiritual discipline.

That regimen of fasting and prayer gave him effectiveness when the time came to wage war. That boy did not suffer from a neurosis, it was not schizophrenia that he had, it was not mental insanity, it was a demonic possession and he was a particularly resistant spirit, he required a level of authority.

How many of us practice fasting and prayer as disciplines to strengthen ourselves in our normal lives? No, we think that's from the Old Testament, that's legalism. No, Paul practiced fasting. Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. We are not more powerful than any of those great characters of writing. We need… take half a day from time to time, take a day, partially fast, whatever, but make time because there are battles in our lives and the times that we currently live with a demonic culture, like the one we inhabit today, needs strong people in the spirit.

Especially if you occupy and move in contaminated environments. If you work, for example, in today's social science environment, you work in the Department of Social Services, the Department of Public Health here, in the Department of Education, in schools and all that, you , I want to tell him, he inhabits a very heavy environment and needs to be strengthened. You need extra vitamins and you have to stay full of spirit and strong in spirit.

If you are going through a struggle in your spiritual life, you need to fast and seek the spirit of the Lord, because your struggle is not only emotional, cultural, it is a struggle... today, the struggle of Christians in this world most abandoned by God that never, people are needed who understand the mysteries of the spirit, of the life of power in the spirit.

And the Lord does not want you to be ignorant about these things. Fasting is needed more than ever. There are battles in our life that we have to fight with supplementary weapons. Says the word of the Lord, you have heard it a lot, our fight is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities and powers, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

More than ever we live in a time like the time of the Corinthians where it was a time where pagan gods were everywhere, demons ruled society, culture and Christians needed to know about the power of the Holy Spirit. We are in a time worse than the time of the Corinthians. There are demons of greater power and greater manifestation in the 21st century than in the 1st century and we need to know about that part. As we never need the energy of God's power because we inhabit an environment that tires us and wears us out more than ever.

So in that context fasting is important. Prayer is important. Our children have to be covered with the blood of Jesus, we have to pray for our marriages, we have for the health of our mental life. The devil wants to destroy marriages, he wants to destroy ministries, he wants to destroy churches, and it is a reality that more than ever we need the power of fasting, the power of warfare prayer, prayer made in an attitude of spiritual warfare, putting on the armor of the spirit Therefore, Paul says, put on the full armor of God, because these are dangerous times that we inhabit.

And God does not want us to be ignorant of the warfare techniques of the Holy Spirit. So, I've talked about spiritual warfare, I've talked about the importance of fasting, I've talked about aggressive prayer. Another manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit is the specific gifts of the spirit. Here in First Corinthians chapter 12, Paul talks about different gifts.

“There are diversity of gifts but the spirit is the same. And there are diversity of ministries but the Lord is the same. And there are diversities of operations – verse 6 – but the same God who does all things in all.”

And then he talks about the different gifts, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, word of faith, gifts of healings, miracles, prophecies, discerning of spirits, kind of tongues, interpretation of tongues. He mentions 9 gifts here and many Pentecostals say, well, it's only 9 gifts. We talk about 9 gifts. But no, he just played a sample, a sample of the gifts.

Potentially the number of gifts that the Holy Spirit has for his people are potentially infinite, depending on the situation in which the person, the people of God find themselves. For example, I think that one of the gifts, because there are several lists of gifts, in fact, in the Bible, that is not the only list. There are other gifts, for example, of service, I don't hear many Pentecostals talking about the gift of service, that is a gift. There it is in the Bible. There is a gift of presiding, I am not sure what it is, but it is like a gift of leadership, there are people to whom God gives a gift of leadership and wherever they enter they assume leadership or people hand it over to them because they have authority that inspires confidence, inspires leadership and people immediately understand and discern. That is a gift like any other.

Do you know what is one of the most important gifts at this time, in the 21st century? In my opinion, the gift of counseling, the gift of advising. I think that is a gift. The gift of speaking a pertinent word that discerns what a person needs and that goes directly to the heart of a situation, and does not need 20 sessions of psychiatry like sometimes you see psychiatrists who need 45 minutes for 3 years to know what they are about limping a person

I believe that when God gives the gift of counseling in a moment many times, a word, a discernment, one can go to the very heart, to the heart of a situation and give a word that hits exactly where it is needed and that word clears and breaks ties and brings blessing. Or it may be that over a longer period, yes, God also gives that wisdom and that ability to gradually remove this poison from a marriage, from an individual and then ministering the power of the Holy Spirit for healing in that person .

But in the 21st century there is so much neurosis, there is so much madness, there is so much mental and emotional illness because the environment we live in is such a harmful environment for mental health that I believe that all of us are insane to some degree or another. Laugh, that's just a joke. But it's true, today everyone is a little anxious, a little depressed, a little strange because the world we live in is a very sterilizing world and we need that freshness of the Holy Spirit to fill us, to bless us. We need God to give us spiritual discernment so that we can go to the Lord in spirit and heal ourselves many times.

But I believe that the gift of counseling is a precious and very necessary gift at a time in human life when neurosis is everywhere, because the further away societies are from God, the more power the devil has to fill us and contaminate us.

So the gifts of the spirit are important. I told the brothers in the 9 o'clock service this morning, and if Meche and the sister will allow me for a moment, I am not going to say… I always say that I am not going to say the name and I end up saying it. But a sister, and correct me if I heard what you told me correctly, that about a month ago a sister from the congregation came to Meche, at the end of the service, and gave her a prophetic word and told her that she had seen her in front of a white coffin. You correct me because I'm here and the person who said it is also here, so… this is true. He told her, “Sister, I saw you crying in front of a white coffin.” And Meche, who knew the background of that prophetic word, immediately understood what that meant.

Now, if I'm correct, you had previously purchased a coffin in preparation for… 4 months… 4 years ago. They had been preparing for the death of their mother for 4 years, because she had a progressive disease, and not wanting to leave that for last, by the way, here is an extra little bit – don't leave funeral arrangements for last many times. If you have to prevent certain things then don't be at the last minute. That is not a lack of faith, that is simply knowing that we all die and that it is good to prevent these things. That's free, I'm not going to charge you for that advice.

4 years ago they had reserved the coffin with the funeral company and if they were not misunderstanding it was white. Meche herself had reserved it and it was a white coffin that I could now see when we were in Puerto Rico at Meche's mother's funeral. When Meche heard that prophetic word from this sister, that she saw her crying before a white coffin, she immediately understood that her mother and her mother's death was imminent and that she would take her away at some point. I think that helped prepare her for that moment as well.

That is a gift, it is the gift of prophecy, it is a prophetic gift, it is a gift of knowledge, call it what you want to call it. But God many times in preparing his children gives us a word that prepares us for certain things. And those gifts are at work in a church where there is spiritual understanding, where there is good education, where there is good teaching, where there is an invitation to God's people to be open to the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit, where there is a glorifying of the Holy Spirit. Holy, the Holy Spirit is manifested then.

And the gifts begin to grow more and manifest more because the Holy Spirit is being glorified and is being invited to manifest. A young woman at the end of the 9 o'clock service came up to me and said, "Pastor, when I got here I could barely walk with pain in both of my legs." He is a refugee and he came here by faith and he came with that serious pain in his 2 legs. And he told me, "and a brother from the congregation came and prayed for me and I immediately began to feel warmth in both legs and I was completely healed and I was able to finish the service and I feel totally restored." Because the power of God is real.

And I know that there are many here who are healed, every time I find out that God has done something in some way and who knows how many miracles... one day when we are in heaven we will know all the miracles of healing, deliverance, illumination that God made in the midst of his people. And that is why we have to bear witness to these things, in this congregation God does many wonderful things continuously.

And if you are open to the gifts of the spirit, if you live your life in a healthy expectation, understand, it is not that you manufacture the gifts, it is not that you are seeing gifts in the soup, no, it is that you maintain an openness, that move and breathe the Holy Spirit into your life and that you be open. When God wants to manifest, you receive it because you are open, you know that the gifts are real, you pray for the Lord to manifest, you keep your life healthy, you fast, you worship, you read the word, and you live a supernatural life. Because what you expect is what you will receive.

If in the church they tell you, no, the gifts have already passed, that is for the times of the Apostles and you believe it, that is how it will be. A nail in a wall is going to be more active and alive than you are in your spirit, because you are going to be rough and clumsy and closed and God does not go where he is not invited. But when a church appreciates and blesses the gifts of the spirit, the Holy Spirit grows.

You know what the Bible says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. How sad? Gregory talked about that I think last Sunday. There are many ways to grieve the Holy Spirit, with a vengeful spirit, resentment, an impure life in your moral practices, abuse of others, pride, so many ways, disbelief, denial of God's power, neglect of things of the spirit, all those Things sadden the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit feels rejected, he feels neglected, he feels despised, he feels not appreciated and taken into account. So that saddens and quenches the Holy Spirit.

There are churches where the Holy Spirit is not spoken of. Furthermore, there are churches where the gifts of the Holy Spirit are spoken against. And that is terrible because there is a warning not to despise the gifts of the spirit.

First Thessalonians, chapter 5. This time I do remember. And with this I am already landing, if the brothers of the praise team can prepare themselves. There is an invitation to the people of God to cultivate the gifts and in your own life, brother, God invites you to appreciate the gifts of the Spirit. They forgot to tell me, I told them to let me know, but I forgive them because I am a merciful man. I spent a couple of minutes, but that's okay because we have the sacrament and we're going to finish now.

Brothers, according to what we believe, practice, praise, invite, so it will be done in our life. If you continually hunger for the Holy Spirit, if you cultivate the gifts of the spirit, if you are seeking the power of God to move in your life, if you understand the things of the Holy Spirit, if you know the mysteries of life of the spirit, and the subtleties and the subtle and sometimes strong instruments of the spirit, then your life will be adorned by those manifestations and those expressions of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

And our attitudes towards the Holy Spirit are very important as well. If we believe, we do not believe, we hope, we do not hope, we confess, we do not confess, we appreciate, we do not appreciate, we despise, we value, according to what is within us, so will be the manifestation of God's power in our lives. I leave you with that word from the Apostle Paul and First Thessalonian 5:16:

“Always be joyful – do you know that joy is a spiritual weapon? The word says that the joy of the Lord is our strength. That's subtle. May you cultivate the joy of the spirit and may that be a spiritual weapon. Oh yes it is, when you worship the Lord, when you feel a joy of spirit, it activates the power of God in your life. But Paul says:

“Always be joyful, pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything – how many know that gratitude is a spiritual weapon? Gratitude breaks chains. When you give thanks to God even in the midst of your tribulation there is power in that gratitude because it is a sacrificial gratitude, it is a gratitude in the spirit. Says the Apostle Paul, day by day thanks in everything, there is another passage. Gratitude is a spiritual weapon.

He says, “…give thanks in everything, because this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus, and look here, 19, do not quench the spirit, on the contrary we must fan the fire of the spirit. There are congregations, there are individuals who put out the spirit, saying that this is over, that it is not for this time, this and that. It is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit I would say. Whoever says that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not manifested in our time, I believe that he is saddening and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. And you are robbing your congregation of the opportunity and privilege to live a spirit-filled life.

For me these sermons that I am preaching are not only to educate you, by the way, it is to glorify the Holy Spirit. And to restore its place in the midst of our life as a congregation. I know that I declare this word as a hymn of adoration to the Holy Spirit, to the Third person of the Trinity. I want the Holy Spirit to know, that you know, Holy Spirit, that we value your presence and we value your ministry, and we value your gifts and your movement in our midst and that we want more of you in our midst.

Receive this word as a word of adoration and exaltation of your person, Third person of the Trinity. Do not quench the spirit, do not belittle the prophecies. When a person prophesies, do not despise, do not look at him as... no, what he says is examine everything and hold fast to what is good.

Someone prophesies something to you, listen with respect because that person is making an effort to obey the Lord. Listen to it with respect, nothing costs you and then go home and ask the Lord for discernment and judge what the person said in the spirit, discern what he said and if there is something of good content, keep it in your heart. Ask the Lord for confirmation. Because not everything that people sometimes prophesy is one hundred percent correct, sometimes there is a little bit of a mix of things. But examine everything and retain the good.

That is the origin of that passage. I know that it applies to other things, but the origin is when you hear a prophetic word examine it, and what is solid and from the Lord, keep it and retain it and what is not, let it go or put it in soak and the Lord give you clarity later. Because perhaps later what that person meant by what they said to you will come to light. There are prophecies that you understand at the time and 3 years later, the light comes on, ah, that's what the Lord wanted to say.

That is life in the spirit. Brothers, do not be ignorant, let us not be ignorant about things of the spirit. Amen.

Lower your head for a moment and we are going to receive this very special moment. Thank God, we are going to seek more of the Holy Spirit as a congregation. We are going to ask the Lord to manifest himself more and more in our lives. May this church be a place where daily bread is the manifestation of the power of God and his gifts, his miracles.