Not Coming Up Short

      All through both the Old and the New Testaments we see how God didn’t choose the wise or the strong and powerful of this world. One of the marvels of the Bible is that God shows us the key characters in His-story as they really were: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s reassuring, isn’t it?
    In these last Days, we know there are two distinguishing characteristics: (1) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and (2) the extended nature of the tribulation, which Jesus also called the beginning of sorrows and birth pains.
     Any mother will tell you that pregnancy can have its not so pleasant moments. Then when the end of the predetermined gestation period draws near, the birth pains ramp up. When her water breaks and she transitions into heavy labor, the mother-to-be endures because she knows a wondrous birth is at hand. In her most trying time, the joy set before her carries her through.
         End-Time Lesson: In the face of our own trying times, Paul gives us this assurance: “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (vs. 4-9).
        In case you’re wondering, we can know we are blameless because our sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus. We’ve been fully reconciled to God through the gift of grace. If you don’t have that same assurance, now is the time to get it, for the time-specific offer to be part of the Body of Christ and ultimately the heavenly government shall end when He comes again. People will still be able to accept Jesus as their Savior after the rapture and become part of the redeemed family of God, but they will not partake of the heavenly calling as the immortal government of Heaven.
       What I want to draw your attention to is this: because Christ is confirmed in us through the Holy Spirit now abiding in us, we are to come short in no gift while we await the rapture at the start of the Day of the Lord. Why is this so important? Because those gifts are how God equips us for our present assignment.
       When we think of the gifts of the Spirit, we tend to focus primarily on the various lists of the gifts given to individual members of the Body for the corporate setting. That is, when we come together to worship and praise God, to fellowship around the Word of God, and minister to one another in our faith. These corporate gifts are meant to be in operation, yet limited to a few in each local body in order to maintain order and submit to the authority God has placed over that local body.
      Yet throughout the New Testament, and in particularly the two letters to the Corinthians, it is clear that God gave these same gifts of the spirit to each believer for our own individual walk, just as each of us carries the fruit of the Spirit in us. As we saw earlier, each of us is to grow in the wisdom of God. Each of us has access to greater knowledge of the Word through the Spirit. Each of us has been given a measure of Christ’s faith. Each of us has access to healing by the stripes that Jesus endured.
      As with the disciples, all of us are commissioned to preach the Gospel, lay hands on the sick, and bring deliverance, such that these signs and wonders confirm our witness. Each of us has the mind of Christ and has been commanded to transform our mind with the Word so that we can discern what is good and what is evil. Each of us is to hear from God as to His will for the specific circumstances in our life, and speak it forth on earth as in Heaven (prophesy).
     And finally, Paul teaches us that we are to pray with our understanding and pray with the Spirit. The latter is also known as speaking in an unknown language, tongues, or the prayer language. In 1 Cor. 14:1, Paul tells us we’re all to walk in the God-kind of love he describes in the 13th chapter. He then tells us to desire the spiritual. Some translations say to desire spiritual gifts, yet the word “gifts” is in italics. That alerts us that the word was not in the original transcripts. The translators added it afterwards, thinking that it would make things clearer. In this case, it muddied the text. We are meant to pursue all the spiritual blessings available to us through Christ.
       Jude was one of Jesus’ half-brothers. Jude affirms the power of praying in the Spirit. “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (vs. 20-21). The next two verses seem to imply that when we pray in the Spirit, and get the interpretation through the Spirit, we know how to share our faith and the message of Christ’s coming again with others. Since only God knows the heart of a person, He knows what they need to hear to be convinced, either compassion or the blunt truth about the snare that is coming on the earth.
       This ability comes when we are baptized in the Spirit. Water baptism is our confession of faith that we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and that we identify with Him. When we accept Jesus, He baptizes us with fire, which is the anointing of God through the Holy Spirit living within us. We are given the fruit of the spirit as evidence of God’s life in us. We become citizens of the Kingdom and have access to all the blessings and spiritual gifts for our individual walk of faith. The working of these gifts for the corporate setting is a separate anointing granted by Christ for the benefits of others. 
         This may not be what you were taught in your denomination. That’s why it’s important to remember that man-made religion is not the same as faith in God and His Word. We need every tool available to complete our earthly assignment. So don’t believe those who say the gifts have passed away. And don’t fall short of every gift available to you, including praying in the Spirit. This gift is especially crucial in these times because it is the Spirit who helps us when we don’t know how or what to pray (Rom. 8:26).