The Father’s Gift

Pitfall: Tongues as the Only Evidence of Reception: The question, which ultimately ends up being a pitfall, is this one: Is a personal prayer language the only evidence of the reception of the Holy Spirit? The obvious answer depends on who you ask and their personal experience or lack thereof. But in truth, the Word answers this question in Chapters 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 19 of the Book of Acts. As a long-time teacher, I know firsthand that some of you have had God’s promises quoted to you, had hands laid on you, been criticized for not having faith, told to tarry, told to say this, say that, encouraged to utter sounds, and finally when nothing happens, you are then awarded with the catch-all phrase: “Tongues is just not for everyone.” While that statement is true (and refers to Paul’s teaching about the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit), it is taken out of context. The gift of tongues is not for everyone, but as the Holy Spirit wills. This means we are all candidates for the operation of all of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit wills—only to the extent of our yieldedness to Him, which has nothing to do with the Gift of the Holy Spirit. We need to grasp in our hearts that the promise of the Holy Spirit is to all believers, and He always arrives with evidence, and that evidence as noted in the Book of Acts is a personal prayer language. Sure, you can receive by faith, which is the only way to receive anything from God, and not utter a word or a sound. But you know that you received Him. As noted in Chapter 4, my wife Priscilla received the Holy Spirit in my Bible class and then had a dream she was speaking in another tongue. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you will receive a personal prayer language, and the time frame of manifestation is not under anyone’s control. That lies in your court. Pitfall: Tongues Are No Longer a Gift During Reception: An extreme argument is also posed that tongues aren’t a gift at all. You may have been taught that the gift of tongues was only available and necessary during the time of Christ’s first disciples, only for a time back then. We don’t need tongues now. Or you may have been taught to be careful when it comes to tongues because those people who speak like that are fanatics. These teachers will quote 1 Corinthians Chapter 13: “Whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away” (8). There it is, the naysayers exclaim—prophecy, tongues, knowledge will all be done away with! God forbid! Are we to believe that knowledge no longer exists? If you are going to believe part of the Scriptures and cast the rest away, you will eventually have a Bible that looks like you and not like Jesus. Maybe you read the Word of the Lord, the Bible, like a restaurant you may visit. You know the buffet kind; I’ll have a little bit of this, a lot of that, but none of that. Unfortunately, that is how many churchgoers believe today which makes it an easy jump to trust the pastor standing at the pulpit espousing the gifts and the operation of the Holy Spirit are passed away. What audacity. This provides the answer why there are so many ignorant men and women of God walking around needing wisdom, knowledge, healing, and deliverance from things they have no power over. The passage from Paul continues: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:9-11). For the literal theologian, speaking in tongues is the language of a child and childish things. We are not children any longer; therefore, we can put away tongues, knowledge, prophecy—they’re not needed anymore for that which is perfect has come. Have you ever thought that when a supposed person of God claims a gift of the Holy Spirit is “done away with, no longer important,” that this utterance is an ignorant and prideful statement? Since teachers like these likely have had no experiential encounter with the Holy Spirit, they teach and then suggest, let’s get rid of Him, and teach He is in every one regardless of what kind of life a person leads. This attitude, or teaching if you will, freezes the body of Christ in a stagnant and stationary position. It robs believers of needed deliverance, healing, and miracles in their lives, and it can make them cynical of most everything written in the Word. And when they see Father God doing nothing and being seemingly powerless—because every Sunday is like last week, last month, last year, with pressures to tithe and go to potluck dinners—is it any wonder the church body has become complacent toward sin and the desire to serve God? We need the Holy Spirit to walk the walk. We are supernatural beings and everything about Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit is supernatural. As supernatural beings, we can do supernatural things as Jesus did. Glory to God forever. In Acts 5:3, Peter talked with Ananias and said, “Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?” Peter knew this through the gift of knowledge given by the Holy Spirit. Had the gift not been in operation, he would not have known Ananias was lying to him. Important—obviously, because it cost Ananias his life as well as his wife’s. In Acts 8, we know through the power of the Holy Spirit, Stephen brought deliverance by casting out devils (Mark 16:17) and healing of the palsied. There are many instances where one or more of the gifts were in operation in the Word in both testaments In the late 1970s and throughout most of the 1980s during my lunch hour at work, I walked the halls of Lafayette General Hospital, and I prayed in my spirit (remember we can do this as we will). From out of a patient room door, a man asked if I was a preacher since he had heard me pray for a man across the hall. I said, “No, just a man who loves the Lord and loves to see Him work.” He asked if I would pray for his son, who had been diagnosed with cancer and been taking intensive treatment for six months. That morning, the young man had been given three days to live from his oncologist. With teary eyes, he said, “We lost our daughter to the same type of cancer last year.” He went on to tell me that his son would not see anyone but his own family. The boy was tired, lonely, and scared. The father began to turn away and said, “I’d like to ask my son if he minds if you pray for him. If my son is okay with that, would you pray for him?” Quite moved, I said, “Yes, I am returning to my office now, and I will pray to the Lord and see what He says about this. If He gives me permission to pray for him, and if your son gives his approval as well, I will come back here and pray for him.” At my office, I prayed for over an hour in my spirit. I had written down on a piece of paper the following questions: 1) What is his name? 2) How tall is he? 3) What color is his hair? 4) What color are his eyes? and 5) What does he weigh? After an hour of praying in my spirit, I heard in my ears: “Are you ready?” I answered, “Yes, sir.” “His name is T.J. Crochet, 5’7” tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and he weighs 150 pounds.” A few minutes later, I stood at the patient’s door. With paper in hand where I had scrawled the message, I knocked softly, and the father appeared. Beginning to cry, he said, “You won’t believe this, but he said he would allow you to pray.” I handed him the piece of paper and said, “Is this your son?” Mr. Crochet got down on his knees in the corridor and gave his heart to the Lord. With tears of joy in his eyes, we entered the room. He handed the paper to his wife, and she got on the floor and gave her life to Jesus. They then handed me T.J.’s driver’s license……the rest of the story is in the book