How Did You Know?

Good morning.

We continue with the series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit as per 1 Corinthians 12:7-10.

Where a Word of Wisdom is to suddenly and supernaturally know exactly what to do or say in a particular situation, a Word of Knowledge is to supernaturally know something about somebody. There is no way you could have known unless the Lord revealed it to you.

We are in a spiritual war. Evil forces are constantly trying to stop the work of the Lord (Ephesians 6:12). In an ordinary war each army has their spies collecting intelligence. Knowing what your enemy is planning makes your next move easier.

Say, for instance, you’re counselling a Christian with problems to grow spiritually and you feel like you’re going in circles. The person seems to have something holding him back, but no matter what you ask, he doesn’t reveal anything. Suddenly you just sense that this person has a lust problem. He’s probably involved with pornography and illicit relationships. You gather your faith, because you have no evidence of what you sense (Hebrews 11:1), take a deep breath and blurt it out: “The Lord just told me you are involved with pornography and other women, which is why you won’t grow spiritually.” The person’s jaw drops. How did you know? Can you see why the Lord gave us this gift? You may also use it to convince an unbeliever by knowing something that would astonish her, etc.

Jesus acted in this gift many times in His ministry and this gave Him a huge advantage.

Matthew 9:4: But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?’”

Luke 9:47: “But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side.”

John 6:61: “But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this?’”

Remember, if you’d like to exercise religion you’re welcome to just do the religious activities day by day, but if you’d like to see people changed and delivered, and the Kingdom of God grow, you’d better work with the Holy Spirit. In our example above, the counsellor would have an immediate breakthrough. Now that he knows what the problem is, he can help the counselee to deal with it. Had the Holy Spirit not revealed it to him, he probably would have gone in circles all the time and wasted his time.

As we saw from the selected scripture passages, Jesus relied heavily on Words of Knowledge from the Holy Spirit. Knowledge is power. The Holy Spirit offers His assistance, since He is all-knowing and loves His people. As with Words of Wisdom, He’ll feed us Words of Knowledge whenever we need it. We just need to hear it and have faith to make it known. This will take faith, especially when the other person does not admit it initially. You may not be sure of yourself and will need the faith to persevere. Maybe this is why the church is so weak, because we are scared to act in faith by making use of God’s gifts. We are too self-conscious and scared that we will be embarrassed.

Yes you may be embarrassed at times, but practise makes perfect and as you continue by faith, exercising the Holy Spirit gifts, you will certainly enjoy the Lord’s presence and power and once again the world and other Christians will be in awe of the Lord.

Lord, I’d like to act in your gifts. Please help me with the faith and perseverance I need.

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