(Ephesians 5:18-21) “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of the Messiah.
(1 Corinthians 12:7-7, 11) “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
(1 Corinthians 14:26) “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a psalm or a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. All of these must be done to build up the church.”
One of the travesties within wider Christendom is the terrible “sameness” or the same style of worship being conducted week by week in multitudes of Church assemblies across our land. So many congregations it seems are quite content to have it this way as it makes no real demands on those assembled together to actively participate in the worship. One of the distinct marks of the first century apostolic Body of the Messiah was the way the blessed Holy Spirit engaged the worshippers gathered together to build each other up and to encourage them to express their faith by imparting to each member spiritual gifts to edify the assembly.
As the author of Hebrews writes; “Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds. Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:23-25).
Many of the admonitions in the New Testament for believers when they come together to worship the Lord is in the context of the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus. His Second Coming to establish the Messianic Davidic kingdom on earth was the focus of the first century apostolic fellowship in the Holy Spirit. The apostolic fellowships in the time of the apostles were spiritually charged as the gifts of the Spirit flowed freely among the members of each local assembly and through the appropriate exercising of these gifts, as led by the Holy Spirit, individual believers were encouraged in their faith and the Body of believers as a whole strengthened and unified. This was the pattern for worship.
We know from the Book of Hebrews that some individual believers in the assembly started to drift from the fellowship. They had become lazy and had started to make a habit of not attending worship. Today in multitudes of Churches within wider Christendom believers are staying away in droves yet the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus is much closer than it was 2,000 years ago. Satan is actively at work in the unseen spiritual realm and his sphere of operation related to us on earth is in the atmosphere just above the surface of the earth being “the prince of the power of the air” and this is his domain (Ephesians 2:2) (Job 1:7; 2:2).
You know it is one thing to be enlisted into the army and to be trained to fight and to know the tactics of the enemy yet without weapons the battle cannot be fought or victory assured. Through the power of the Holy Spirit the Lord Jesus has released spiritual gifts to His body to furnish believers with spiritual weapons to pull down Satan’s strongholds in the lives of believers and the unsaved.
The apostle Paul writes, “For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to the Messiah” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
This can only happen effectively when the Word of God is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, undergirded with prayer in the Holy Spirit, and where the gifts of the Spirit operate as they were intended to operate Biblically. This was the norm in the first century apostolic fellowships over which the apostles had oversight. Spiritual gifts flow out of Spirit-filled worship. While we are commanded to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit when we engage in worship, there will also be interaction between believers which is very hard when one is staring at the back of the head of the one sitting in front.
If believers sat facing each other then they would be able to spur one another on to love and good deeds. This may mean rearranging the pew seats in the auditorium where the focus is not on what is happening up front but on each member waiting on the other to hear what the Lord wants to say. This in itself would spiritually energize the fellowship and meeting with the Lord and for His people it would become a time of expectancy. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will edify but also challenge and even convict of unconfessed sin in a fellowship and the need for repentance. The Holy Spirit will always seek to promote holiness and righteousness because He is God the Holy Spirit and He is holy. As it is written; “Holiness adorns your house O Lord” (Psalm 93:5).
Now in the apostolic fellowships in the first century there was the freedom of the Spirit to operate among the members of the local assembly but He always maintained order and self-control practiced by those exercising these gifts. The Holy Spirit Himself will always control the inner spirit of a believer with a spirit of love power and self-control or of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Even the spirit of a prophet is subject to the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). Of course we know that at Corinth things were getting quite of hand where spiritual gifts were being exercised, however, Paul never discouraged them from desiring the gifts even though he had to recorrect their thinking in the way they were expressing them in the local fellowship (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Today more than ever with the spiritual deception and growing apostasy within wider Christendom, the gifts of the Spirit are desperately needed especially the gift of discernment of spirits. We know that the coming of the lawless one will be preceded by all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and deceiving those that do not have the love of the truth. Hence they will buy Satan’s bill of goods lock, stock and barrel and be condemned, who have not believed the truth to be saved, but have delighted in wickedness! (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).
As this age draws to a close fellowship in the Holy Spirit is vital for the spiritual survival of the Body of the Messiah. Today the Holy Spirit is calling for an apostolic Church, one that is grounded in the apostle’s doctrine which we have in the complete canon of scripture, and a Body that is living in the power of the indestructible resurrection life of the Lord Jesus! (Hebrews 7:16). However, spiritual gifts have never ceased to operate in the wider Body of the Messiah. In the first century spiritual gifts were in abundance and in the last century Spiritual gifts will be in abundance in the Body of the Messiah.
Much of what we see in western Churches today that claims to be spiritual gifts or manifestations from the Spirit are suspect and this subject has been discussed in previous posts. Having said this does not give ministers and church leaders any licence to supress or discourage the use of spiritual gifts in their local assemblies. No one has any right to supress the Spirit from doing His convicting, converting, sanctifying and edifying work within the wider Body of the Messiah or in the local fellowship for that matter. We are told in the New Testament “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
Tragically so many Church fellowships are so ‘organised’ and ‘controlled’ that the gifts of the Spirit are supressed. Many churches do not even teach about the gifts of the Spirit and why they are needed, hence the local assembly has no real spiritual power to fight against “the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Brothers and sisters we are at war with a very clever implacable enemy and his cohorts from hades and in these days we need all of the spiritual resources that God has made available to us especially with the spiritual deception infesting the wider Body of the Messiah.
It is time that many assemblies came before the Lord to enquire of Him and to wait upon Him, to let Him speak and to rearrange things if necessary so that there will be the opportunity and freedom for the local body of the Messiah to edify itself in love as every member does its work! God has gifted each of us and we need to discover what that gift is because our brothers and sisters need that gift to be exercised. What is needed in many Churches is teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and how they operate, how to discover them and opportunities presented to allow them to operate. If this does not happen then we will be continuously faced with worship services that are the same week by week with very little expectation that God will speak or do something unique among us.
One thing to keep in mind is the Holy Spirit himself cannot be manipulated by us. The gifts of the Spirit are for the glory of God and to edify others and not the one exercising the gift. What is wrong in a service to even have times of silence? This in itself can facilitate one to stand and to share. Most of the time we have to ‘follow the programme’ and in this kind of regulated and controlled service many are content to just sit and observe and go through the motions of worship but seem to have no real expectation that God will really do anything.
The purpose of this post is to stimulate our thinking in this matter and to assert that the gifts of the Spirit are vital for the spiritual survival of the wider Body of the Messiah, especially as we see the Day of the Lord approaching and all that it entails!
