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Life in the Spirit, Part 4

Picture of God #85, Fri 2/16/1

It is a fairly widely known fact that humans use between 10% - 15% of our brain's capacity.

I am convinced it is the same way with our soul and spiritual abilities.

Think about Bill Gate (the CEO of Microsoft) and his newborn son (the kid's probably 2 by now, more or less.) Now these figures are all approximate, since things change so fast, but last I heard Mr. Gates has something like 600,000,000 (that's 600 million) shares of Microsoft, each of which is worth about $60...Do the math, and 600,000,000 times 60 is $36,000,000,000. That's 36 BILLION dollars. That best way I've found to explain how much money that is is with this illustration: If Mr. Gates converted it all into cash, and put One Million in each of several banks, how many banks would he need to hold his money? Think for a moment. Got it? The answer is 36,000 banks. Could you imagine the poor postman who would have to deliver 36,000 bank statements every month?

Now, why have I walked you through this little exercise? Because of this astounding fact:

All of those Millions and BILLIONS of dollars are the inheritance of little Baby Gates!!! That little child is the heir to a fortune larger than he could possibly imagine, let alone understand!

If you take nothing else from this website or ministry or Church or whatever you want to call it, remember this:

You are Baby Gates, and your Heavenly Father has treasure for you far beyond the bounds of your weak imagination. He's just waiting for you to continue to mature so that He can start showing it to you!

A hint of some of that inheritance is called the Gifts of the Spirit. Potentials, abilities, capabilities of the human race, once touched by The Spirit, kinda like Baby Gates being able to throw a heck of a party once Ole Pops tosses him a couple of mill for the weekend(!)

First Corinthians 12:7

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom- The ability to know the right application of knowledge. Often in a business situation, for example, all the data is on the table, and yet the correct decision is not clear. A Word of Wisdom can appear in this type of situation.
to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit- Folks, this, quite simply, is knowing things that you couldn't and can't know by any other means.
to another faith by the same Spirit- Faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the confidence of things not seen. Those with the gift of faith are often leaders, helping to inspire others that the seemingly impossible really CAN be done.
to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit- There are a lot of fakes and phonies out there. I'll not argue that at all. But that doesn't change the fact that YHWH does heal...often His pace is so much slower than ours, and I can make some suggestions along this line, but that will need to wait.
to another miraculous powers- Yes, that's what the Bible says: miracles. Occurrences which cannot be explained by any of our known laws of nature or physics.
to another prophecy- The ability to know something before it happens.
to another distinguishing between spirits- I am convinced that both angels and demons walk among us. But forgetting that, a person with this gift can tell if someone is lying or telling the truth.
to another speaking in different kinds of tongues- Probably the most controversial here. The Bible is NOT talking about flailing your arms around and taking gibberish...It's talking about speaking in a language you do not know.
and to still another the interpretation of tongues. The ability to understand the meaning of a language you do not understand.

All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

Now, there are a few VERY important comments I want to make.

These gifts are real, and still operating in today's world.
You don't have to believe me, and I cannot make you believe me, but I have actually seen each of these gifts happen at one time or another.
Most of them I have actually had happen in my own life.
These are gifts - you cannot harness or develop them.
They are given by the Spirit (as the passage above so clearly says) FOR THE COMMON GOOD. If you happen to have one of these gifts and are using it for selfish purposes, you are on very shaky ground. Danger.
Having a Spiritual Gift DOES NOT make you a "better" Christian or person than someone else.
NOT having (or being able to notice) any of these gifts working through you DOES NOT MEAN you are not a "real" Christian, or that there's something wrong with you, or that you are a bad person.
The Gifts of the Spirit appear most when someone around you is in need.

There's just so much misunderstanding, both in and outside of the Church, makes me (almost) despair of every being able to educate people about the truth....but press on we must.

Now I'm going to tell you one story. Nothing dramatic, no miracles, but it was definitely a manifestation of what I consider to have been a Gift of Knowledge. You can ignore this....call it coincidence, say I knew it all along, call me a liar. I don't care, really I don't. But the following little story is true.

In 1983 my Father was in charge of Brokerage Firm (stocks, bonds, that type of thing.) That was before the days of the internet and day traders. Anyway, they needed a program to track all the stocks & bonds that were bought & sold, commissions for the agents on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. It just so happens (I hadn't been told this at the time) that after a 6 month investigation the people who ran the $million Mainframe computer in Los Angeles told the company that it was too complicated and they could not do it.

Now, as a hobby I spent some time playing with this little $95 mini-mini-mini computer....no disk drive (1983, remember!), no color, 16k of memory (about as much memory as is in your mouse now!), plugged it into the back of the black & white TV, and you saved your programs on a cassette tape....Your cell phone (no joke) has about 100 times more power!

So my Dad buys this $4,000 IBM system, talks into a tape recorder for an hour about what this thing needs to do, and sent me off into the night.

First thing I did was buy a programming book...I've never had, even to this day, a class or lesson in computer programming...Anyway, I will spare you the gory details....After 5 days, the thing worked (!), but it could only process 1 day at a time. It couldn't add-up days into weeks or months...It had a problem, and NOTHING I DID, for literally 3 16-hour days, made it budge one bit.

And you have to realize the pressure...new machine...new industry...My Dad really needed it...And nothing, no matter how I re-wrote it, nothing worked.

So, I finally printed out the essential part and made an appointment with a PhD in Computer Science....looked, read, talked...."Looks right to me!" No help at all.

I was stuck...absolute, total, 100% dead end. Nothing had worked, it didn't work, and there were no more resources available anywhere I could imagine to talk to....And Dad NEEDED that program....his entire business plan required it....Heck, on a hope & a prayer (based on my so-called abilities, the poor fool) he had spent $4,000 (in 1983, which was even more real money then than it is now, and with inflation and all that's the equivalent of $8,100 today (YIKES!)) on a computer to run his business...The sense of despair was overwhelming.

And I remember it like it was yesterday...I was sitting in the living room, in this funky green chair, the printout of my torturous computer code on my lap, and I prayed:

"Forgive me, Lord. I know I should make you my first resource and not my last resort, but I am really stuck here. But I know you know everything, and if you would be kind enough to show me the answer, I will do my best to give you the glory and praise. In Your Holy and Infinite Name I pray, amen."

I opened my eyes, my gaze fell to one specific line in this cryptic mess, and I knew. I just knew the answer. It was strange, curious, and weird, I'd never read anything like it, let alone thought anything like it, but it worked. I "knew" what the PhD in Computer Science didn't; what, evidently, no one else (anywhere?) knew.

And folks, there was no possible way I could EVER have figured that out.

The next day I gave a fully working copy to my Dad. I was known as the computer expert for the entire Financial Group, which lead to another project, and 18 years later, well, here I am.

And in my own, failing way, I have tried to give YHWH the glory, to return thanks...That's why I tell this story....that's why I host TCOY....And I could go on and on with similar stories...Heck, one of the Words of Knowledge was so powerful we looked into the patent process...And I'm just a trained toilet scrubber!! (Really.....For the first 3 years after college, before YHWH gave me that word of knowledge and turned me into a computer expert (if they only knew!) I was a housecleaner.)

As a postscript to this little story, over the last 18 years I have looked through (NO exaggeration) AT LEAST 40,000 pages of computer books...As to that Word of Knowledge I received sitting in that green chair, I have never, ever, seen it written in any book, anywhere, or used by anyone, or appear in any sample code, or anything. Ever.

Now this isn't a lesson in computer programming. That's just one tiny example of the real, actual, living presence of YHWH I experience nearly daily.

Here's the bottom line:

YHWH loves you more than you know
He has an inheritance for you that makes Bill Gates look like a street bum
If you will try to be open to the notion of YHWH working through you, like electricity through a wire, it will happen. (Of course that assumes you are living a moral, honest, devout life; the electrical wire can't have any short circuits in it!)
IF you can learn to turn to YHWH as your FIRST RESOURCE instead of your LAST RESORT, you will save yourself a lot of grief.

Trust me.

I know about these things.

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