Taste Test

Ps. 119:¹⁰³ “How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.”

When people encounter you, what taste does it leave in their mouths? Bitter, sweet, or bland? God wants people to encounter us as His children and have an unforgettably sweet taste, a sweetness that they cannot shake off. Remember our illustration from yesterday’s devotional? If you drop a cube of sugar into a cup of tea, no matter how hot the tea is, the only way to get that sweetness into every sip is by stirring. Sadly, the case with some of us is that the sugar, the gifts have become sediments in our lives. People taste the tea of their lives and say, not sweet. But the Lord is saying, “you need to stir it up.” To stir is to trouble. You cannot maximize the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your comfort zone. To stir is to create turmoil, to ruffle, to turn. Some of us have asked the Lord to stir up the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us. God begins to stir up your life and you object, you lament, you say, this is too much trouble. God is saying, do not worry, the gifts are going to come out through the stirring.

What I am saying in essence is, it is up to you and me to understand, crave, and stir up the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 1Tim.4:¹⁴ “Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.” This is Paul speaking to the same Timothy but bringing another dimension to light. Which is, you can receive spiritual gifts through prophesies spoken over you. You can also receive spiritual gifts when elders of the church lay their hands on you. 1Tim.4:¹⁴ “Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received….” It is your responsibility and mine not to neglect the spiritual gifts that we have been given. Do not neglect means do not neglect. If we do not stir up the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we become sluggish spiritually and our progress becomes lethargic. People become stale and eventually stagnant, immobile. It is not something that is optional; it is something that you and I have to do. We have to stir up the gifts and this is what God is saying.

So, now that we understand what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are, we understand how to receive the gifts and how to activate the gifts. We need to understand the purpose of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor.12:^4-5 “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all.  There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.” (emphasis added). This scripture shows us clearly that spiritual gifts are for service. Spiritual gifts are for the benefit of another. If you look at the pipe that brings water into your house, for instance, the pipe is not there to drink the water. The pipe is there to serve your bathroom with water, true or false? That is the purpose of the pipe. But will the pipe remain dry? As long as it is delivering the water, it will never remain dry. That is the benefit of being a conduit.

Prayer: Father, let it be like Father like child; let my life be flooded with revelation light; no dormant gift, every gift deployed in serving, in Jesus Name. Amen!