This fall we have been looking at some of the various
aspects of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit is the promised Advocate or Helper that
Jesus promised to his disciples at the Last Supper (John 14). God has given us the Spirit to live in us. This Spirit is
still acting in our lives. We may not be aware and call something a coincidence
or synchronicity. In reality, it is God working in our lives through the living
Spirit to renew, empower, sanctify, comfort, and help us discern things. This results
is the fruits of the Spirit that we looked at last week. The same Spirit also
gives us ‘gifts’ that help us encourage and strengthen one another in our life
work and play. (Fruits of the Spirit are attributes of our personality and
Gifts of the Spirit are things that we do because of the Spirit working in us.)
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, we are told, “Now
there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are
varieties of activities, but it is the same
God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the
Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according
to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of
healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another
prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of
tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each
one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)
The Holy Spirit of God ‘activates’ the gifts as is
individually and corporately needed. As the graphic says, a spiritual gift is
“an ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in love to build up
the church.” Using our gifts in Love is the key
I Corinthians 13 goes on to expound the best gift of the
Spirit, which is indeed love. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of
angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if
I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if
I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions,
and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices
in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures
all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as
for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know
only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial
will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a
child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish
ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now
I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.”
(1 Corinthians 13)
As we’ve seen in our fall meditations, the Spirit is a gift
from God, promised by Jesus. The Spirit of the Living God is active in our
lives to help us live out the Great Commandment to “love one another”. The
Spirit gives us courage and strength to live into our ministry and life in
community and in love.
Think about how each of the gifts of the Spirit is a
manifestation of love. How can we allow the Spirit to help us more fully live
out the mandate to Love one another?
Is there something you can do today or this week to make I
Corinthians 13 visible in your life?
Next week we’ll enter Advent and do an interesting
contemplation of what Matthew Fox calls Original
Blessing. He calls this the way of the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa, and Via Transformativa. We’ll look
at how some familiar Christmas story participants experienced these 4 parts of
God’s love.
