I’ve been around people who want the gifts of healing and prophesy and miracles so they could be famous, so they could get invited places and get nice honorariums. It wasn’t about honoring God. It wasn’t about serving other people, their growth and edification.
This is why Paul says, “Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?... There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:6, 10-12, ESV).
You want spiritual gifts? Pursue and excel in those gifts that build up the church because Christ died for the church. Anyone who helps the church, God will help. Anyone who’s out to make a name for themselves…God is going to withdraw from that. He’s not sharing his glory with some other name. There is only one name that is above every other name!
What do we say if we’re so proud of our denomination and we’re carrying on in church, and a visitor comes in who’s smoking weed five days a week, takes one look and says, “I’m out of here”?
Is that what Christ would want?
“Oh no, but we’re having church! We’re worshiping in the heavenlies.” Well, come down to earth for a little while and talk to that guy smoking weed. He needs Jesus. Whatever you do — hymns, speaking in tongues, worship, sharing the gospel, prayers, odd words and phrases — pray that God will edify people because outside of church, out in the world, they’re being attacked by a thousand demons.
We forget to look at life this way because we get full of ourselves. If you’re full of the devil, that can be cast out; but if you’re full of yourself, that’s a whole different problem.
What we need is to see people the way God sees them and to feel what God feels. Otherwise, we’ll be judgmental and self-righteous. When we’re tired and we feel the temptation to be short or be about ourselves, we have to pray, “Holy Spirit, come. Help me see this person like God sees them. What do you feel? Help me serve them.”
Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.