SPIRITUAL GIFTS FOR THE BELIEVER

You cannot help but glorify Jesus Christ when you are filled with the Spirit, living in the Spirit, and walking by means of the Spirit. This activity means you are living inside God’s power system. You are living inside that power sphere for time in fellowship with Jesus Christ. That is the most important thing. As you live in God’s power sphere for time, you identify your spiritual gift and you use it for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is glorified by your reproducing His character in your soul. He is glorified by your using the gift that He has given His church. Those spiritual gifts are distributed by the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation.

The miracle for today is the filling of the Holy Spirit plus maximum Bible truth residing within our souls, producing in Mr. Joe Average Christian, the very character of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Galatians 4:19, Paul is incensed with righteous indignation. He is chewing the Galatians out. Paul is naming names and rebuking his congregation. This is an important responsibility of every pastor-teacher who is teaching according to the Word of God. The moment a minister fails to mention false teaching, those involved in it, and those leading it, he has failed in the function of his spiritual gift and will incur God’s divine discipline for wimping out when the going got tough. God rewards the pastor who hangs in there with the Word when those in his congregation who are involved in false doctrines are challenging his correct teaching.

My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19)

In unconditional love, Paul rebuked them for going legalistic and departing from salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. They added to salvation by keeping the Mosaic Law and they had retrogressed by moved away from grace and Bible doctrine and into apostasy. They were all wrapped up in keeping the Law for salvation and spirituality that was and still is wrong. With his pen, Paul is shaking them up and spiritually smacking their souls "up side the head." This is not "airing the dirty laundry" of a believer in front of unbelievers. This is a family matter where activity contrary to the correct teaching of the Word of God cannot be tolerated long without being mentioned by the pastor-teacher to his congregation for teaching, rebuke, and for correction in righteousness as stated in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

In Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, Paul mentioned that he was so upset with their behavior that he brought the epistle to them in person rather than having it delivered by others. He was concerned about them because they had fallen away from grace. Although they could not lose their salvation, they had become negative to the Word of God. Paul had such unconditional love for them that he felt pain for them and was compelled to write his letter to them to rebuke them. He wanted them to know that he was reproving them because of his love for them, not just because he was an apostle. Paul wanted them to have the right attitude toward the Word of God and to get back to grace and Bible truth that would form Christ in them.

What does it mean to reproduce the character of Jesus Christ in you? Through spiritual growth under the power of the Spirit, each of us takes on ever more of the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wanted God the Holy Spirit to control and reproduce the character of Christ in the Galatian believers. In Galatians 5:22-23, he stated that the fruit of the Spirit is unconditional virtue love, sharing the happiness of God to the maximum at spiritual maturity, and peace that means total grace blessing from God. He also stated that unconditional love produces patience, kindness, morality, and loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and your local church. To one another, it produces gentleness, self-control, and genuine and enforced humility. He tells the Galatians there is no law against these things.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Power of the Spirit Is All You Need!

Many self-help books are out now that claim to help you such that you will not have to make tough decisions. For example, self-help books involving women who love too much, or men who won't wear wool and other asinine notions. It's crazy. You do not need self-help books! You should not listen with any seriousness to what Dr. Toni Grant has to say or if you feel any need to obey her counseling. Dr. Beverly D'Angeles is another example. I get a kick out of listening to these speakers. It just shows me how screwed up they and other people are. Self-help! In the 40's or 50's we did not have anything related to self-help. We did not expect so much from life, and got a lot more out of it! People today are so wound up in self-help, being self-centered, and afraid that everything they do is wrong, or some major psychiatric failure. If you look cross-eyed at someone, they think you should see a shrink. It's ridiculous! It’s even ludicrous!

If you keep tabs on yourself by keeping a very short account of your sins, consistently take in and obey the Word of God and grow spiritually, you will automatically produce the fruit of the Spirit. If you stick with Bible doctrine, there is absolutely no way you can have a serious mental disorder unless it is caused by a physical condition or disease. This cannot simply happen if you are characterized by love, tranquility, peace, contentment, happiness, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. No "thou shalt nots" exist on this list. Every believer is to have them to the maximum!

As a mature believer, you will have no need to call Dr. Beverly D'Angeles to get her satanic viewpoint. One of her most recent statements is that she believes dreams are prophetic. She had a dream where she was involved with this man. Shortly afterwards, this man came on to her, and she felt that if it were a dream, it had to come true. She took this man away from another woman because the dream told her to do so.

That's the kind of information people are believing today. It isn't much better on the talk shows on Christian radio stations. Take Dobson, for instance. He's so Freudian that it's pathetic, and he seems to be getting worse. About the only ones you can rely on to give doctrine regarding psychiatric or professional counseling are Jay Adams and Dr. Bobgan in Santa Barbara. Dr. Bobgan has practical advice on how to counsel from Scripture. He calls it "The Healing of Souls." It all begins with the fruit of the Spirit. That’s what is important.

So, what am I saying? The miracle for the post-Canon period of the Church Age is the control of the Spirit and the influence of doctrine in the soul of Mr. Joe Average Christian. Compare Galatians 4:19 with Galatians 5:22-23. The peril of Christians today is that they want to be noticed, they want to draw attention to themselves, and they have an arrogant preoccupation with themselves. They erroneously want self-esteem rather than Christ esteem. They do what they do to draw attention to themselves and not to draw attention to the Lord Jesus Christ. Their attitude and motivation are all wrong.

My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Teaching Ministry of the Holy Spirit

We can never earn or deserve the ability to understand spiritual phenomena. We are totally dependent on the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. His teaching ministry is activated by each of us making sure that all of our known sins are confessed to God the Father. This automatically results in God placing us in fellowship with Himself through the filling of the Holy Spirit. This divine enablement allows us to have an objective comprehension of God's Word. In responding with faith-believing, we build up the resident doctrine in our souls and attain the growth we need to figure out our spiritual gift or gifts and use them for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The charismatics believe in salvation by accepting the Lordship of Christ. They do not believe that you are saved simply by faith alone in Christ alone. They believe you have to commit to the Lordship of Christ with the attitude of determination that you will not turn back and that you will persist. That is characteristic of the Charismatic Movement. The Bible clearly teaches in Ephesians 2:8-9 that if you add anything to the singular act of faith in Jesus Christ’s substitutionary spiritual death for all of our sins, then you have canceled the entire grace process of salvation. You are not saved! Salvation is an act of God’s grace! We can take absolutely no credit for salvation because we were spiritually dead before salvation and could do nothing for God. He has never needed our help for anything! We need His grace and enablement to do anything!