Notes

A Perplexing Issue & a Strategy

Let us start this Spiritual Gifts podcast with a mystery that perplexes me and maybe you: nearly every church has deacons. Right? Why? Because it’s in the Bible. There are about five verses that discuss deacons in the Bible. Let’s contrast that with spiritual gifts. Most churches do not operate with spiritual gifts. Why not? It’s in the Bible. Three chapters in I Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 explain spiritual gifts, yet churches do not operate this way.

First Corinthians 12:1 Paul writes that he does not want us ignorant or unaware of spiritual gifts. Two thousand years later, our churches are unaware and impotent. We pray God uses this podcast to attract you and those you know, and this begins to change churches in our country.

This podcast channel aims to Glorify God and edify our churches, their people, and the community. Stick around long enough, and you will discover the second-best day of your life. People say that when they discover their God-given Passion, God-given Spiritual Gifts, and God-given Personality Style. We call this trio of discoveries your spiritual DNA. Those discoveries and personal visits from the Holy Spirit are the second-best day of a person’s life, only eclipsed by finding salvation through Christ.

Spiritual gifts are God-given from a most gracious God, and our churches are ignoring the gifts and, more importantly, the power. Some churches use 50-questions, 75-questions, or 100-question surveys that offer an indication of what a person’s gift may be, but the surveys are likely a disservice to people. Why? Understanding your spiritual gift tells you what you are supposed to do. But it doesn’t tell you where you are to serve and how you serve.

Ministry leaders and your pastor are happy to tell you where they think you should serve based on what they perceive is their biggest need in the church, but you may not find peace, joy, and fulfillment. Why? Because God has also given you a passion which indicates where you will use that gift. You will be fulfilled when you work in your passion and do what you’re best at.

Most church people who know Jesus do not know their place on this earth and, as a result, live unfulfilled lives. Some of you may feel fulfilled, but are you living in a community with shared gifts, and have you witnessed the spiritual fulfillment that shared gifts breed? I’ve lived with and without spiritual gift knowledge as thousands or millions of others have. If you have never served in a ministry with others, where everyone knows their God-given spiritual gifts, God-given Passion, and God-given style and uses the gifts as the Body of Christ, then you have no idea how God will allow you to be truly fulfilled. It is a Holy Spirit benefit to yield oneself to the power of the Holy Spirit and then truly experience the ensuing fulfillment.

Imagine a Church of 250 people where everyone knows their God-given passion, their God-given spiritual gifts, and their God-given personality style. Each of these 250 people with the powerful Holy Spirit inside of them doing exactly what God wants them to do would change their community for the glory of God. How about a Church of 1000 people or a church of 10,000 people where everyone knows their God-given place? Can you imagine the power we are losing or have lost in our churches that God wants to use to change our communities, church, states, country, and maybe the world?

These podcasts will introduce you to spiritual gifts and almost everything we have discovered and experience for over 30 years.  Our hope is that the churches in the United States will adopt this Biblical system to glorify God and bring fulfillment to their people.

God intercepted our world when God came to earth to create Adam and Eve and they audibly communed with God. Later we know Moses had a direct communication link with God and together they brought the people out of Egypt into the new land of Israel.

“Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland. Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies. They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan. For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams. He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them. He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts. He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet. He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning. He loosed on them his fierce anger— all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague. He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt. But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness. He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies. He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them. He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes. But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws. They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow. They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols. When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel. Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people. He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands. He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people—his special possession. Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs. Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths. This is the summary written by chosen recorder Asaph found in Psalm 78:41-64 (New Living Translation)

Later, God’s chosen – in their rebellion – asked for a king, and God reluctantly allowed it, warning they would regret it. They did but repented when David became King. David had failings too.

Eventually, as time passed, God decided to come right down to earth again, this time as baby Jesus. Jesus became a man and not only a man but a savior, a Messiah, and so much more. When he was crucified on our behalf in that brutal murder, he came back to life. He was on Earth for another 40 days. After those 40 days and just before he went up into the clouds to never be seen again until the promised second coming, he said to the disciples and those who believed in him and followed him, I’m going to give you the power. It is the Holy Spirit, and it will be inside of you. The third part of the Godhead inside of us. Think about that. When you lay in bed tonight, dwell on it.

If the Holy Spirit has power that could raise Jesus from the dead, and that power is inside of those of us who believe that he is the Christ, the son of the living God, then where is that power today? Are we like ancient times and have forgotten God’s power?

This podcast is about opening the gifts given to us and seeing if God will once again visit us by using that power to change our communities, nation, and world.

Do you wish to find peace and joy amid a crazy world? Do you want to discover how to serve God and be fruitful and fulfilled? We define “fruitful” as achieving the results your work intended. And we define “fulfilled” as the joy you experience when you lay in bed at night reflecting on the events of the day, and you know you have made a Kingdom difference.  

This podcast channel will discuss what a church could be like, make the Biblical case for Spiritual Gifts, uncover the steps to live a fruitful and fulfilled life and see how a church can go from 500 to 2000 in less than five years, operating with spiritual gifts.

If you want to see a revival in your life, spread the word about this podcast. Please share it with 10 others and ask them to do the same. Together, with God, a church and nation can be changed. If there is ever a time for this, it is now.

Come back for Podcast #3, where we look at the glory of God — since the purpose of our existence is to glorify God, what is the glory of God? In Podcast #4, we imagine what a church could be.

John 15: 5 — Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. The ones of us who remain in Jesus and Jesus produces much fruit because we can do nothing without him.”

Let us continue to meet like this to stay connected to the vine of Jesus.

God of all, you are our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and the vine from which we grow to produce fruit for you. In the name of Jesus, open the ears and eyes of the people listening and let them see the powerful Holy Spirit inside them whose design is to bring glory to the name of Jesus in whose name we pray, Amen.

Start Listening Today!

After listening, share the podcast with 10 others. Do this every week for 10 weeks and  encourage each person you tell to do the same, in 10 weeks, we could reach 10 billion people. If those 10 billion people knew Christ and knew the Holy Spirit was in them and they knew how God had spiritually gifted them and they used that gift to serve their neighbor and glorify (give positive attention) to our King, Christ, the world would be transformed into the Kingdom of God !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Are you ready?