How to Hear the Voice of God – Part 7

Secrets to Spiritual Small Talk

 

Do you want to hear the voice of God more clearly? Everyone needs to hear what God is saying, and you don’t want to wait until you’re in a crisis to try and hear Him. As a believer and His child, you can hear God. You were created to hear Him. It’s part of your spiritual DNA!

Key Bible Verse: John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

Transcription

Carlie: Did you know that there are nine spiritual gifts, and in every person, there is a unique combination of those? You have spiritual gifts that Jesus has given you and wants to operate through you. So stay tuned to find out more.

Announcer: Welcome to the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.

Ashley: Hello, and welcome to Abundant Life. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today in the lounge. We’ve got an exciting program for you today. We’re talking about the spiritual gifts. We’re talking about the nine spiritual gifts that every believer can operate in, praise God. In fact, this is part of hearing the voice of God. If you want to hear God clearly, and if you want to operate in the spiritual gifts, you going to have to hear God’s voice. And God is speaking to us constantly.

So this is part of the series and we’re excited. We’re on the spiritual gifts now, and we’ve looked at, in previous shows, we’ve looked at the offices, the five offices, the ministry offices that Jesus places us in. We’ve looked at the motivational gifts that we believe every believer, every person, God the father makes them in their DNAs, the motivational gifts, seven motivational gifts. And now, we’re looking at the nine spiritual gifts.

Our key reference here is, this is first Corinthians 12. So first Corinthians 12, verse one, Paul puts it this way. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. So Paul wants us to be educated in these things. Paul wants us to be educated in these spiritual gifts. It’s very important. He goes down here and in verse four, it says, there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. So there’s different spiritual gifts, but it’s the same holy spirit that enables us to operate in these gifts. And these are the guests we’re going to be talking about.

You can go down to verse seven, this is first Corinthians 12, verse seven, and this will actually list out the nine spiritual gifts. We’re going to list them out and then we’re going to come back around and we’re going to go through each one, right, and explain what each one is. So these are the nine spiritual gifts. So this is first Corinthians 12, verse seven. It says, but the manifestations of the spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. So before we go any further, we need to know the reason why we have these spiritual gifts isn’t to make us look good, isn’t so that we can show off. I’ve done this and that. Isn’t so that we can do some things. No, the reason that we’ve got them is for the profit of all.

Spiritual gifts are to help us minister to others, and you can use these in all sorts of settings. You can use these as a minister, if you’re ministering in front of people, or you can use them as just one-on-one. You can use them whenever you’re ministering to people, to help people. You get to use these in your family. You can use these raising your kids.

Carlie: Amen.

Ashley: But these are for the profit of all.

Carlie: And these are for everybody. This is for everybody and in everybody. That means there is no B plan. There is no second grade believers, right? If you’re born again, if you’ve received Jesus just one minute ago, you have just as much ability to operate in spiritual gifts as somebody that was born again 20 years ago, right? If you’ve been to Bible college and have a theology degree and are well-versed in all the scriptures, that does not make you any more able to operate in spiritual gifts than somebody that just got literally born again a few seconds ago and has no understanding of the scriptures, because it’s the holy spirit that operates these gifts in us.

It says this in verse 11. But that one and very same spirit works all of these gifts, dividing to each one individually as He wills. Now, the benefit of this is that we don’t have to find ourselves in a situation thinking, Hmm, which gifts shall I pick from my toolbox? I think I’m going to operate in, I don’t know, tongues today. We don’t have to think that. We can just listen to the … Our job as believers is to listen to the holy spirit, to listen to what the Lord is telling us in that situation, and then just follow his leading.

We started out this whole series talking about hearing from God. John 10:27, my sheep know my voice and they follow me. And so, our job in a ministry situation, whether that’s ministering to one another, to a family, or ministering to a congregation, it’s the same premise. Our job is, as a believer, just to listen to our father, our heavenly father, and to follow his leading. And as he leads us, it’s the holy spirit in us that will equip us in that moment with whichever gift the Lord knows is necessary to minister to the heart of the people around us.

Ashley: Amen. And sometimes we can’t even tell what gift we’re operating in-

Carlie: Right. We don’t have to decide.

Ashley: Because is it word of knowledge, is it word of wisdom? Is it prophecy? It doesn’t matter. We hear the voice of God, we minister, and the holy spirit gives us these supernatural gifts so that we can minister more effectively. We get to the root of problems and we can have insight into problems. We’re only listed them out to really help explain what they are, but they’re not always black and white. So we’re going to list them out, Paul lists them out.

Carlie: So that you can recognize them.

Ashley: Yeah, it’s good to recognize them. Paul lists them out, so we’re going to list them out. And we’re going to show you the differences between them, but they’re not always black and white. And you’ll find that sometimes you operate in one or two of these more strongly than the others, but it’s the holy spirit that wills. You don’t get to choose. It’s not like we say, “I’m going to choose this. I’m going to choose that.” It’s just like the motivational gifts or the offices. We don’t get to choose them. This is God who chooses which ones he gives us, when we need them, as we need them.

Carlie: Right.

Ashley: So these are the nine spiritual gifts. This is found in first Corinthians 12, starting at verse eight, it says, For one is given the word of wisdom, so the word of wisdom is the first one, through the spirit, to another the word of knowledge. So we have the word of knowledge, and we’re going to go back and explain the difference between these and how they operate and how they work. So the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge. Through the same spirit, to another faith, the supernatural gift of faith.

Carlie: So this isn’t talking about the faith, like a salvation faith.

Ashley: Right, everyone has faith.

Carlie: Right. This is a special dispensation of faith in that moment.

Ashley: Yeah, because everyone has the measure of faith.

Carlie: Exactly.

Ashley: Everyone’s given the measure of faith. You have the faith of Jesus. This is talking about a supernatural gift of faith. And again, we’re going to go back and explain exactly what that is afterwards. To the same spirit, to another the gift of healings. This is not the gift of healing, it’s the gift of healings. The gift of healings to the same spirit. To another the working of miracles.

So we have the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues. Now, this isn’t talking about your own personal prayer language of tongues. This is talking about the spiritual gift of tongues. Again, there’s a difference. We’ll explain that. And then to another the interpretation of tongues. There are the nine spiritual gifts, and they’re laid out there and it’s the holy spirit who gives them as we need them, as he wills. Amen?

He says, and as Carlie read already, but one and the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills, and as we need them to minister.

Carlie: Right. Amen. This is powerful. I just want to preface this a little bit. You can’t have a fruit, you can’t have a gift without having a root first. So these gifts operate through relationship with our father. Amen? Not outside of those things, but directly as a result of being in relationship with God. Amen? And they are for the profit of the body, not for the profit of the individual.

I remember studying church history as I was going through Bible college, and it struck me as really strange that there were many famous healing evangelists that ended up dying sick. And this really confused me for a while until I read this and I realized when they were operating in the gifts of healings and the gifts of the working of miracles, they were operating in the gift for the profit of the body for others. But when they got sickness in their own body, those spiritual gifts could not be used on themselves. So they needed to either operate in their own authority as a believer and take authority over that sickness and diseases in their body, or find somebody else with a gift of healing that could pray for them.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s good.

Carlie: But we need to understand this is very specific for these spiritual gifts that we’re talking about. They are for the body. They’re not for use on you.

Ashley: Right. That’s good. No, that’s good. These are for the profit of all. The body’s the profit of all and it’s really going to help others. And they’re ministry tools to be able to minister to others, praise God. They’re very powerful. And again, it all comes back to hearing the voice of God. We’re going to have to hear God’s voice to be able to operate in these.

So we’re going to break these down for you. Hopefully, this is really going to help you. It helped me when God started to reveal this to us and God showed this to us. So we’re going to go through these and break these down and you’re going to start to realize, oh, I think operate in that one, or I think operate in that one. And if you don’t ask the Lord, say, “Lord, can I start operating in these spiritual gifts?” And if your motivation is pure, if you want to help the body of Christ, then he’s going to, the spirit is going to give you these things.

Carlie: Amen, actually, and right over here in first Corinthians 12:31, it says, Paul says, but earnestly covet the greater gifts. So not everyone operates in all these things, but it’s godly to desire to see more of the power of God operating in our life.

Ashley: Amen. And another disclaimer is all these gifts need to be operated out of love.

Carlie: Amen.

Ashley: Paul talks about, without love, these things are just a clanging symbol.

Carlie: Yep.

Ashley: These need to be operated in love. If you try and do these outside of love, and this is what some people do-

Carlie: Outside of relationship.

Ashley: Outside of relationship. Some people try and do these things outside of their relationship with God and they do these things outside of loving people. And if you do these things outside of loving people, we actually hurt people. We’ve had people give us so-called words of wisdom and words of knowledge, and they’ve been from the flesh, they’ve been incorrect and they’ve actually been damaging. So I’d really encourage you to make sure you’re operating in love. Make sure you’re delighting yourself in the Lord. Make sure you’re doing this focused on the Lord, part of your relationship with God. You’re hearing God’s voice. You’re not just making it up. Amen.

So the first one we have here is the gift of the word of wisdom. So the word of wisdom is the first one here. Now, the word of wisdom is a revelation that comes to help in a particular situation, and it’s basically about the divine purpose of God. Now, the deal between the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge is the word of wisdom is often about the present or the future. It could be something happening in the future.

Carlie: It’s in the future. So this is something that you’d see somebody in the office of a prophet operating in the word of wisdom. Often people think, well, profits only operate in prophecy. Actually, most of the time they’re operating in the word of wisdom. If they’re telling us something about the future that they couldn’t otherwise have known, unless it had been revealed to them by the spirit of God.

Ashley: Amen. Yeah, it has to be something that they wouldn’t have known unless it was revealed to them, like Carlie said. And this has happened to us. There’s a prophet friend of mine gave me a word, has given me words of wisdom lots of times. And at the time, I’d think, that doesn’t make much sense. But then as I go into the future, I realize, this is exactly what he said would happen. And it happened.

So word of wisdom, it’s usually regarding the future, or it could be regarding wisdom in the very present, but it’s always to do with the purposes of God and it’s always to do with what’s happening next. It’s never to do with what’s happened in the past, it’s to do with what’s happening next. The word of wisdom can often be, like Carlie said, the office of a prophet will operate in the word of wisdom. And it’s very helpful. God’s trying to help us. God’s setting us up for success. He’s trying to help us. And that’s why he gives these spiritual gifts.

Carlie: So I’ll give you an example of that. The Lord spoke to me, and when we were living back in England, and he told me that we’d would be moving to America. And he even told me that the church we’d be going to, Charis Christian Center, and why we’d be going there, because we had something to learn from the Pastor Lawson Perdue in that church.

And so, this is while we’re still in England and we hadn’t got our visas or anything, but that was a word of wisdom that the Lord spoke to me by the spirit of God. And when we were applying for a visa, we ran into some difficulties and challenges, and it didn’t look like we were going to get a favorable outcome. It didn’t look like we were going to be able to granted a visa to come to America. It was a long and difficult process to get a visa to come to America.

But in the middle of that process, because I had been given that word of wisdom concerning our future, I was able to be encouraged in that knowing, well, hang on a second, God has given us a word, amen, and to hold onto that word. And that gave me comfort and edification and encouragement, even in the middle of that storm, because I already knew what the outcome was.

And we started to speak in agreement with the word of God that he’d spoken, rather than saying, oh, well, it doesn’t look good. The American embassy doesn’t want to grant our visa. What that did was that gave us boldness and we started declaring the end from the beginning, getting in agreement with that word instead of saying, well, you know what, the American embassy is going to have to change its rules because God’s word is higher than the rules of the land.

Ashley: Amen.

Carlie: And it wasn’t a long time before that whole situation was turned around. We got our visa, we came to America and sure enough, just as the Lord had said, those very things played out. And we ended up, Charis Christian Center’s our church. We’ve been happily there for-

Ashley: Over 10 years.

Carlie: Ten years now. Yep.

Ashley: Over 10 years. In fact, Carlie didn’t tell me that word at first, she heard Pastor Lawson. And for our American viewers, that’s Pastor Lawson. I used to do his voice over on his television program, and I used to say, “Welcome to grace for today. Here’s Pastor Lawson with today’s message.”

Carlie: But no one could understand what he was saying.

Ashley: And people wrote in, and they said, “Who is this is Pastor Lawson? We know who Pastor Lassen is, but who’s Pastor Lawson? Lawson is awesome. Apparently, say Lassen is awesome in America. So they said, “You got to change it, actually.”

Carlie: That’s a terrible accent.

Ashley: So now, they told me to change it. So I had to say, “Welcome for grace for today. Here’s Pastor Lassen with today’s message.” And they just fired me in the end. They got someone else to do it. But anyway, Pastor Lassen Perdue is our pastor. And Carlie didn’t tell me this, so we came over to America. We got our visa, we came over to America, and Carlie says, “Where do you want to go to church?” And the first thing I say is, “Well, I don’t want to go to that church, because there’s going to be a lot of students there and stuff.” At the time, they met inside the Bible college.

Carlie: We were coming to go to a Bible college.

Ashley: Yeah, and at the time, they met inside the Bible college. Now they have their own building. But I said, “Let’s try the other churches. Colorado Springs is a bit of a mecca for spirit-filled churches. There’s a lot of good churches in Colorado Springs. So we went around to all the churches. We got all the free gifts.

Carlie: Ashley got all the free gifts.

Ashley: I got all the free gifts. We got to go in the welcome rooms. Some of these churches have special welcome receptions.

Carlie: He got mugs and chocolates and cookies. It was great.

Ashley: After the service, I remember once, we went to this welcome reception in one of these big churches and they had all these delicacies laid out, donuts and coffees and all that. And they’re all the friendly people, Oh, welcome to church. And then someone came in who wasn’t a first time visitor and took one of the donuts.

Carlie: Maybe they were a second time visitor.

Ashley: And they went, “Put that down. That’s for first time visitors only. Put that down. Get out of here.” So, welcome to church. I was like, wow, that’s interesting. We got all their free gifts, but then eventually, we went to Charis Christian Center and Carlie said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think this is our church.” And she showed me her journal, where three months later, or three months earlier, she wrote down, you’re going to get a Charis Christian Center and Ashley’s going to learn from Pastor Lawson there. So that really shows you that word of wisdom was about the future, concerning the future. And it led our way into things, praise God.

Carlie: And the fun thing about that was when the Lord gave me that word, it was specifically to keep in my heart. You see, sometimes the Lord tells us things and they’re not for general consumption at that point. And the fun thing about the word of wisdom in that moment was I didn’t have to do anything to make it come to pass, right? I mean, it was like either this is from God or it’s just in my own imagination, but God is going to make this come to pass. And it really blessed me, actually, the way it worked out, the fact that I hadn’t shared it with you, because then when it actually panned out the way God said, I knew a hundred percent that it was God.

Ashley: It’s much more powerful.

Carlie: It was a confirmation.

Ashley: Just let It happen God’s way. Right? Rather than trying to manipulate the situation.

Carlie: Exactly.

Ashley: We don’t want to use a word of wisdom and try and manipulate the situation. You know what? We just use the word of wisdom correctly. You don’t have to make it happen. If there’s a word of wisdom, then it’s going to happen. It’s going to come about. And we can’t control people anyway. So anyway, that’s good. That was the word of wisdom.

The next one’s the word of knowledge. The word of knowledge is a specific supernatural insight into something present or past, something present or past. Let me give you an example. It could be you meet some of the first time, you’re praying for him. You say, the Lord is showing me, I think the Lord is showing me that you’ve had problems in this area of your life, or you’re estranged from one of your children, or you’ve got this medical condition, or I believe the doctors told you this, or a long time ago, this was spoken over you. It’s a supernatural knowing about something in the past or present.

And it will really encourage people, it will really show people, you know what, God is real. Some people call it reading their [inaudible]. But when that happens, it’s really powerful because there’s no other way you could have known that. If someone calls it out and says, this has happened to you in the past, or that’s happened to you in the past, it’s powerful. It makes God really real to that person.

Carlie: Yeah, we see this a lot in healing ministry, actually. And when the word of knowledge is in operation and you can start to hear from God and see healing manifesting in people’s body, just by the fact that you’re calling out particular symptoms that people are dealing with. You’ve never spoken to that person before. You’ve never met that person before. You never even had a conversation with them. And yet, you’re describing exactly what the situation that they’re dealing with in that moment. What happens is faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This is Romans 10:17.

So there’s people here, a minister or whoever, speaking out these words and they say, that’s my symptoms. What happens is their faith starts to attach itself to that word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God that has been spoken. And as faith arises, they’re able to access the healing power that Jesus has already provided. And before you know it, it’s manifested in their body, just as a result of somebody speaking out a word of knowledge in the realm of healing. It’s powerful.

Ashley: So word of knowledge is supernatural insight into something present or past. And often, what will happen is a word of knowledge will be given and then a word of wisdom can often follow. So let me give an example. It could be you’re praying with someone. “The Lord’s showing me that you’ve got a daughter, and many years ago, she made some bad decisions and you’ve lost relationship with her.” And the person’s like, “Hey, that’s it.” You say, “And the Lord showing me now that very shortly, there’s going to be a person enter your life and he’s going to reconcile you with your daughter.” That’s a word of knowledge and a word of wisdom. Maybe it could be, “The Lord’s shown me, you’ve had problems with your heart and you’ve had problems with your physical heart, that you’ve had operations on your heart. The Lord’s shown me that your heart is going to be healed and it’s going to be restored like a new heart.” Word of knowledge, word of wisdom.

Carlie: So sometimes it’s difficult to see where one ends and the other one begins, but it’s not like we have to sit and figure them out. It’s just interesting, an interesting observation.

Ashley: It is. Yeah, it’s good. So that’s the word of knowledge. We’ve covered the word of wisdom, word of knowledge. The next one is the gift of faith. The gift of faith. Now, this isn’t talking about saving faith. Everyone has faith to believe in Jesus. This is talking about a supernatural gift of faith. This is talking about supernatural ability to believe God in a seemingly impossible position, circumstance without any work on your behalf, without any, you haven’t got to grit your teeth, you don’t have to go do anything. You’re just at peace. And it often manifests in the areas of provision and protection.

So often, the gift of faith will happen in the areas of protection or provision. So maybe you’re in a situation, in a dangerous situation, and the gift of faith will just come upon you spiritually, and you’ll have this supernatural gift of faith where you’re at peace and you just believe in God, no problem. Or you may have a gift of faith in the area for finances. You need some resources. It looks impossible in the natural, but you’re just relaxed and the finances come.

Carlie: Amen. And this gift is actually a little bit unique from the other gifts, because it really doesn’t have anything to do with our actions. Most of these other gifts involve a person doing something. So whether it’s speaking out, getting into agreement and actually speaking out the gifts that’ll operate through us, but they’re vocal, they’re vocalized. So we have to step out and open our mouth and deliver that message. Or maybe they involve the laying on of hands in some way. But the gift of faith is unique, because it operates outside of us. It is, as Ashley was saying, that supernatural ability to believe that God is acting on your behalf.

We saw this in our own family one time. I was at home with our three young children. Hannah was newborn then, and then we had a one-year-old and a two-year-old. Phew, that was a busy time. It was a busy season. And I was at home and I had the worship music on, and I was just praising. I mean, I was just having my own little dance party with the kids there. And there was a knock at the door, but it wasn’t, I mean, it was like a pounding on the door. It was really firm. And, I mean, it was completely supernatural. I hadn’t even gotten as far as the front door yet. I’m walking down the hallway to see who’s knocking on the front door. It’s in the middle of the day.

And I just felt boldness rise up on the inside of me. And oftentimes, you can feel the gift of faith in operation, and it will manifest in you as that feeling of boldness or authority. As I went to open the door and take the catch off, there was a man outside that forced the door open, and had his foot inside the door and was pushing with all his weight on the door to get in. And he started shouting at me and swearing at me and telling me that he was going to burn the house down, telling me how he was going to hurt my family and attack our kids.

Ashley: Those window salesman, they’re aggressive. I mean, they’re trying to sell you something, they’re aggressive.

Carlie: And you can imagine-

Ashley: It wasn’t a window salesman.

Carlie: It wasn’t a window salesman. It was actually an employee, an ex-employee that we fired from our … We had a car front and he had stolen cars and done all kinds of stuff, and we’d actually had to fire him. Well, he’d got into a lot of debt with the local loan sharks, local mafia, and passed his loan debt, the money he owned and gave our address to the loan shark, the mafia people, to come collect it, right? The local mafia.

Ashley: Interesting characters.

Carlie: They were not nice dudes.

Ashley: I don’t think they were FDIC-approved.

Carlie: No, I don’t think they were. So he was a collection agent. He was coming around to collect his money, and was very vocal and very descriptive about exactly what he was going to do and the lengths that he was going to go to, to get that money back. And if you know me, if you’ve seen me, you know that I’m not really a big person. I mean, I’m-

Ashley: I love it when we do live events. We go all around the country doing live events. And people come up to Carlie and they say all the time, “Ooh, you’re much shorter than on television.”

Carlie: You’re much shorter in real life.

Ashley: In real life, you’re much shorter. Yeah.

Carlie: What life do you live in?

Ashley: In TV world, you’re much taller. Carlie is very short. God lets things grow to affection, and once they reach perfection, then he let them stop growing. So if you’re six foot plus, then it obviously took longer for you to reach perfection.

Carlie: I just got there quicker. I’m five foot nothing.

Ashley: She’s built for travel. Every seat on the airplane is like first-class for Carlie.

Carlie: Amen. That’s what it is. So not being real big, I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to intimidate the man. But something on the inside of me, it was faith, it was boldness, rose up and I swung the door wide open, and I just started talking back to this man. I didn’t even raise my voice, but I just started saying things like, “You don’t know who I am. Let me tell you how this is going to go.” Man, I had the attitude of faith about me.

Ashley: You had a David and Goliath kind of thing. Going to cut your head off and feed it to the birds.

Carlie: Let me tell you how this is going to play out, big boy.

Ashley: Carlie’s trash talking here.

Carlie: We were trash talking each other. But as I was speaking to him, it was almost like with every word that came out of my mouth, I was dealing a blow to his head. And I didn’t touch him. It was the power of my words. He started to stumble backwards down the driveway until he was 30 feet away from me. And the last thing I saw was he was actually holding himself up on the fence post, on our gate posts there, and he took one last look at me and took off running down the street. He could not wait to get away from me. And I don’t know what he saw in me, whether he saw, people have said, “Do you think he saw angels standing behind you or something?” I have no idea. I didn’t see any angels. I just saw what looked like a giant turned into a scared little boy and he ran away.

Ashley: You had zero fear. This is one way you can tell it’s in faith.

Carlie: I had zero fear until I shut the door.

Ashley: You went back in and shut the door.

Carlie: I went back in and then I melted like a puddle of jelly.

Ashley: The gift of faith that departed.

Carlie: Right, definitely.

Ashley: And now the fear had come upon you.

Carlie: It did. And when the police came around, they told us what kind of people that we were dealing with and they took care of the situation. But that was the gift of faith operating in that moment. Doesn’t live with me all the time, right? But in that moment, the gift of faith was operating in the area of protection, because that’s what I needed to flow in, in that moment.

Ashley: Right. And often, it will operate in the, it’s not limited to just protection and provision, but often, it will manifest in the areas of protection and provision. You’ll be able to believe God without having any fear. You won’t have, like I said, you won’t have to grit your teeth and confess and hold on. It’ll just be a natural thing. There’ll be zero fear. And after it, you’ll look back and think, wow, did I really do that? And you’ll just have a confidence, a peace and confidence.

We’ve had this in provision. There’s been times when we’ve had a seemingly impossible situation for our provision, for our finances, and it’s like this peace just comes upon me. It’s like, nope, it’s going to be a hundred percent fine, no problem at all. I haven’t got to sweat and toil. It’s just no problem at all. God’s going to provide, and the money comes.

Carlie: And there’s biblical examples of this, for protection particularly. You could look at Daniel in the lion’s den. When Daniel went down into the lion’s den, he just knew that God was going to protect him. In fact, the king actually said that, didn’t he? Yeah. Let your Lord protect you. And he went down into the lion’s den. We knew the lions are hungry because they ate everyone else that was thrown in afterwards. It wasn’t that they were starved, but it doesn’t say that Daniel did anything. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t close the mouths of the lions. He didn’t sing to them. He didn’t stroke them. He didn’t do anything, but God acted supernaturally on his behalf and protected him from the mouth of the lions.

And then you can see that in the New Testament with the provision of the fish with the coin in its mouth.

Ashley: Yeah, according to Matthew, Peter went and got a fish and there was a coin in its mouth.

Carlie: To pay the taxes.

Ashley: Yeah. A lot of provision stories like that, gift of faith.

Carlie: Yeah, absolutely.

Ashley: Yeah, the gift of faith is, like Carlie says, it’s pretty unique. We don’t muster it up or anything. It’s just something that God will give us at the time when we need it. Praise God. So, so far, we’ve looked at those gifts, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, and the gift of faith. We’re at a time this time, we’re going to have to come back and look at the others. Praise God, we’ll finish the others up in the next episode.

We want you to know the holy spirit wants you to be a success. And he gives these gifts to you as you need them in ministry situations and he’s setting you up for success. He’s setting you up to be for the profit of all, to help others, and also, to help you walk in the things of God. Praise God. So desire these gifts earnestly. That’s what Paul says. We can desire these gifts. We can pray and say, “God help me to operate in these spiritual gifts.” And the holy spirit will give you these gifts as he wills. Don’t try and pick and choose what gifts to operate in. Just let the Lord give you these gifts as you need them.

And the best way to start practicing is hearing the voice of God and start practicing by everyday life. When you’re in the supermarket, start talking to the person in line next to you and see if you can have a word of wisdom for them. And you don’t have to say, “This sayeth the Lord.” You can say-

Carlie: Let me give a word of wisdom.

Ashley: You just start talking to them and say, “Hey, do you have a younger brother?” And they’ll be like, “Yeah.” And you’re like-

Carlie: You just listen and repeat.

Ashley: “Is he The army?” “Yeah.” “How’d you know that?” “Oh, God just told me.” You’ll get their attention, let me tell you. It’s amazing. And then that will lead into ministry opportunities and you’ll be able to pray for them, and who knows, lead them to the Lord or see them heal or do anything like that. So praise God.

This is far more excited that you’ve joined us today and we’re looking forward to next time. Remember, join us next time. We’re going to go through the rest of the spiritual gifts. And until next time, amen.

Carlie: Amen.

Ashley: Until next time, don’t just live a normal life. God has paid the price for you to live the abundant life. We’ll see you soon.

Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching, visit our website, terradez.com, or call us at (719)600-3344.

Ashley: Hey, thanks for joining us today. We’re talking about spiritual gifts. We’re talking about how to operate in the nine spiritual gifts. And it’s all about hearing the voice of God. As we hear God’s voice, we’re going to be able to operate in the words of wisdom and words and knowledge and things like this. So I really want to encourage you, there’s much more to this than we’ve been able to teach today. So there’s some resources advertised on your screen. These resources will go into more depth about what we’re talking about, and they will really equip you in hearing the voice of God more clearly and operating the spiritual gifts. So go ahead and get these resources today.

Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching, visit our website, terradez.com, or call us at (719) 600-3344. Coming up next on the Abundant Life program.

Carlie: So oftentimes, when we see spiritual gifts, there’s a little bit of flesh involved in that. And God’s not worried about that, right? He’s not scared about that. He’s not scared if we make a mistake, if we deliver a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a word of prophecy and we don’t get it exactly a hundred percent right. He’s not worried about that. These things take practice, right? And doctor’s practice, so I don’t know why we can’t. Right? But we know in part and we prophesy in part, so when delivering these types of words to people, I find it’s always better to be honest with people and say things like, “I feel the Lord is saying, does this bear witness with you?” And then deliver it, rather than thus sayeth the Lord.

Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life? Join us next time for the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.