Big Healing Book - Can I “Turn On” Gifts of the Spirit at Will?

Can I “Turn On” Gifts of the Spirit at Will?

No.

Attempting to do so is dangerous and can even lead to you ministering by familiar spirits (demons) because you’re trolling around in the spirit realm looking for some word to give out when God isn’t giving you anything.

Men of old prophesied when they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), and you would be wise to make sure that the Holy Spirit is moving you to prophesy before you just start trying to do it “by faith.” I’ve heard the argument that if you open your mouth, God will fill it, but I’ve seen firsthand too many cases of people who were better at opening their mouths than having God fill their mouths.

I once had a guest speaker in who was prodigiously “reading people’s mail” in a sometimes jaw-dropping way. The way he flowed in that was amazing and it was definitely the Holy Spirit’s doing. But this speaker had a problem. When the Holy Spirit wasn’t moving in prophecy, I guess he figured that he could move the Spirit instead of waiting for the Spirit to move him (2 Peter 1:21). I think he sensed the public pressure to perform prophetically because of the previous nights’ successes and the fact that people were saying that if you want your mail read, go to his services. But when the Spirit wasn’t moving him, I could definitely tell. His words were inaccurate and confusing, and this left the more discerning people wondering how he could be so “on” one night and so “off” another night. I tried to exhort him about this to no avail. (I never invited him back, even though we had a LOT of real miracles in his services.) Rather than just being a blessing, he left people puzzled when he gave out gobbledygook to them. As the pastor, I had to clean up the mess. That was fair, because I’m the one who invited him in based on someone else’s recommendation. I learned a lesson about having someone in mainly because someone else recommended him. After that I always sought God’s mind on guest speakers for myself.

Much recent teaching says that because we have the anointing (which we DO), we can “activate” it to flow in any gift of the Spirit at our will. Do I ever wish that were true! I would activate the “power” gifts in every service if I could really do that. Then we wouldn’t have to minister like Jesus and have many get healed by their own faith. If I could activate these gifts at will, no one would EVER have to be healed by his own faith in our meetings – their unbelief wouldn’t be a problem. If Jesus had followed this modern teaching, He could have gotten all the people at Nazareth healed in spite of their unbelief by just choosing to “activate” the power gifts and bypass their unbelief. No, wait, do you really think Jesus COULD NOT do mighty works at Nazareth just because He didn’t have a modern book or teaching series that told Him that He could activate the gifts of the Spirit at will? Something is fishy here.

What Does Scripture Say?

The Bible is so clear on this matter that I wonder how anyone can miss it.

Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 12:8-11: “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.”

God says that these manifestations are distributed as HE wills, not as WE will. If we could activate gifts at will, Paul would have had to revise this passage to end, “But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, giving EVERYONE ALL these gifts that we can all flow in as WE will.” Rather than saying to one who wants to give a message in tongues, “But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God” (1 Corinthians 14:28), Paul would have had to say, “If no one else interprets your message in tongues, do it yourself for crying out loud because we know that YOU can activate the gift of interpretation as YOU will. So just do it!” I can’t agree with such a departure from actual Scripture.

Hebrews 2:4 would not fit the modern mold either: “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?” The last phrase would have to be replaced with “according to the will of the ones doing the preaching.” The modern teachers would probably counter that having everyone able to flow in these things was according to His own will, but I don’t think an unbiased reader could interpret Hebrews 2:4 that way.

It would have been nice if the disciples could have just turned on the gift of faith to cast the demon out in Matthew 17:14-21, but they were limited by their unbelief.

You are commanded to “covet” (earnestly desire) gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy (1 Corinthians 12:31, 1 Corinthians 14:1, 1 Corinthians 14:39). Paul did not say, “Start operating in all these gifts now, because you already ‘have’ all the gifts because you have the anointing.” God would not command you to desire something that He already gave you! Instead, He’d just point out to you what you already have. So it is clear that neither you nor anyone else “has” the gifts of the Spirit to use at will.

Even more explicit is 1 Corinthians 12:29-30: “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” If you can activate gifts of the Spirit on demand, Paul would have continued, “Yes, ALL can work miracles, ALL can flow in gifts of healings, ALL can give public utterances in tongues and ALL can interpret tongues – all of this at will!” But Paul’s questions are clearly rhetorical. NOT everyone can flow in these different gifts as an act of his own will.

A Challenge

If you are REALLY convinced that you can turn on the gifts of the Spirit at YOUR will, just go to the local hospital, activate the power gifts at YOUR will and empty out the place. Faith will not be needed when the gifts are operating like that, so you can just get them ALL healed through the gifts that YOU activate.

Then go empty the local morgue. You see, raising the dead has to be done by special manifestations of the Spirit because there is no blanket promise that we can always raise the dead. But if you have the ability to turn on these manifestations at will, you can turn on “the gift of faith” at will and whatever “gifts of healings” are also needed to prevent the people who undie from re-dying immediately. So let’s see you do it. And if you can’t, I will have to conclude that you are not really the one in control of the type and timing of the gifts of the Spirit after all.