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We are making our way through a letter Paul wrote to Jesus followers in Corinth. Today, Paul moves on to a new topic.


1 Corinthians 12
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. 2 You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. 3 So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. 7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.


Help. There are some days when I read God’s Word and it seems a little ambiguous or irrelevant. There are other days (like today) when a thought jumps right off the page and applies directly to my life. For me, the thought that stood out was actually an entire verse ... seven. “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.” When we accept God’s grace and believe in Jesus, God (in the form of the Holy Spirit) moves in ... into our heart, into our mind, into our life. According to Paul, He brings along a “house” warming gift ... a spiritual gift. Which raises two important questions ... Have you identified your gift? Are you using it to help others? I didn’t say the application would be easy ... just obvious and relevant.