The Divine Spark Series

How to trigger your spiritual gifts! Sometimes, when you plug an electrical appliance into an outlet, you may notice a small blue spark. In most situations, this is a normal event as the electrons begin to flow into the appliance's power cord.

A spark is triggered when the electric field strength exceeds approximately 4–30 kV/cm — the dielectric field strength of air. This may cause a very rapid increase in the number of free electrons and ions in the air, temporarily causing the air to abruptly become an electrical conductor in a process called dielectric breakdown.

Static electricity is generated whenever two materials are in contact with each other. All materials are made of electrical charges in the material atoms. In the universe there are equal amounts of negative electrical charge (electrons) and positive charge (protons). These generally try to stay in balance of equal amounts at every location.

However, when two materials are in contact, some of the charges redistribute by moving from one material to the other.

The Holy Spirit and the gifts are received by laying of hands of people in Spiritual authority

1 Timothy 4:14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

Illustration

A man from the U.S. decided to travel to Quebec to go duck hunting. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of the fence. As the flatlander climbed over the fence, a dairy farmer drove up on his tractor and asked what was going on. The hunter said, "I shot a duck and I'm retrieving it." The old farmer replied, "This is my property and you're not coming over here!"

Well, this made the hunter mad so he said, "If you don't let me come over the fence I'll call my New York lawyer and I'll sue you." The farmer smiled and said, "Apparently you don't know how we do things up here. We settle disagreements with the Quebec three-kick rule. I'll kick you three times, and then you kick me three times, and so on, back and forth, until someone gives up."

The man from U.S. liked this challenge because he thought he could easily take the old farmer. The Quebec Farmer climbed down from the tractor and planted the steel toe of his heavy work boot into the man's shin. The man fell to his knees. His second kick went directly to his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The farmer than landed his third kick to the side of the hunter's head. The disoriented man slowly got up and said, "Okay, you old codger, now it's my turn!" To which the farmer responded, "Nah, I give up. You can have the duck."

Many of us battle over things as well. Sometimes we fight because of a lack of information and other times we kick people simply because we want to. As we've been learning in our series called, "Improving Your Serve," most of us default to our selfish settings instead of looking for ways to put others first.

The whole topic of spiritual gifts has been a battleground for many years, going back to the church at Corinth. This tension can result from an overemphasis on certain gifts, or it can come because we like to pick fights with those who are wired differently than we are.

Chapter 12 gives us some instructions to help us unlock or spark our spiritual assets.

1. ¬ Be Informed

When we come to 1 Corinthians 12-14 we see that Paul wanted to make sure that they had a proper understanding about spiritual gifts. The church at Corinth desperately needed instruction on this topic, and so do we. Notice verse 1 of chapter 12: "Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant." This is a topic that is too important for believers to be uninformed about and it's certainly too critical to fight about.

There is a difference between spiritual gifts and natural abilities. It's important to recognize that the Holy Spirit gives you the spiritual gift, whereas a natural talent is something we're born with. While we must yield our talents and abilities to the Lord's work, we must pay particular attention to unleashing our spiritual gifts for the good of the body of Christ.

2. Desire to be used by the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 12:31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 14:1 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

1 Corinthians 14:39 So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

What is your main desire? Most people desire nothing but material things. They have self-oriented desires that have to do with comfort, success, possessions. Can you do yourself a favor and check your desires today? If you have no desire to be used by God I must wake you up and tell you that I doubt you're on your way to heaven.