If you have read the New Testament you might be wondering what to do with spiritual gifts. In this episode Gina and Stephanie talk about the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit and the common fears and misconceptions that stand in the way of believers stepping into all that God has for us as his kids.
The Holy Spirit and His Gifts
Gina:
This is the second part of a conversation that I had with Stephanie Byerly. In our first chat, we talked about her journey, discovering her gift of prayer and her call as a powerful ancestor and what it means to hear God’s voice and to say yes to Him.
Hand in hand with that, I wanted to talk to her about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because when you enter into prayer ministry, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are what enable you to bring God’s presence, His heart and His kingdom to bring Isaiah 61 to God’s people.
This is going to be an episode where we talk about the fears, the baggage, the things that people wrestle with when it comes to the gifts of the Spirit. I hope it’s something that you find encouraging, that clears any confusion you might have and brings freedom as you pursue your relationship and an intimate walk with Jesus.
So Stephanie, I would love to talk to you about the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Spirit. You and I both have taught prayer training and you have way more experience than I do in that and the teaching about the gifts of the Spirit. When I say gifts of the Spirit, I’m primarily talking about the 1 Corinthians 12 list.
It’s an interesting thing to step into when you’re teaching. There’s Charismatic and more Pentecostal denominations that are all about the gifts and they’re active. Then there’s a more Conservative side. There’s the cessation side.
There’s the more conservative ones that may say “Maybe, but we don’t understand it. We’re going to pretend they’re not there.” Then the people in the middle that have experienced a lot of, sometimes, spiritual abuse or weird experiences and they’re fearful.
It’s an attempt to come in and go, what is Biblical normal? What did Jesus say? How did He function? How did His disciples function? How does He say in the Word, we are to function? What does that look like in real life, in the day to day?
I would love to hear your perspective on spiritual gifts, because we’re in a time in the church now where a lot of house churches are popping up. There is a revival, a spiritual renewal that’s happening.
There’s a lot of prophetic popping up in the young adult generation that is starting to discover prophetic giftings. Then there’s a lot of fear in some. I would love to hear your thoughts on all of that, and even a little bit of your journey.
Stephanie:
I was operating in gifts without knowing that there were gifts. I remember coming to your house for a prayer small group, and you introduced me, as you said, “Stephanie operates in the prophetic.” And I thought, “Am I prophetic? I need to look that up.” I had no idea, because I hadn’t thought about it.
I was all about wanting to know God, and prayer was my focus. But my gift was intercession, which is not even listed as a gift, but the prophetic piece of it is what makes it a gift. Knowing what to pray for someone without personally knowing their situation is revelation from the Lord.
Gina, you said so much that I could talk about. One is, when God started speaking to me differently when I was a litigator. We didn’t talk about the gifts that much up front. What I noticed in our church, in particular, is the same with demonization and all of that, we never talked about it.
The less we talk about it, the less we dig in, the less we learn about it, the worse it is, the more fearful it is. I want to speak to that. I love my church, but in our church, there was a season where I remember battling with some of the pastors saying, “We need to be very careful that we are not trying to protect the church from the direction of the Holy Spirit, as He’s protecting the church.
If He’s ready to release teachings at a greater depth, because of the spiritual maturity of our body, we need to be ready to do that. We don’t want to be protecting people from God’s leadership, because that’s fear and control taking over. That’s not letting The Holy Spirit take the reigns.
As pastors, you have a role to protect the flock, but it’s always subject to the Holy Spirit’s lead and guidance into the Word of God. A lot of the fear comes from ignorance. Fear is born out of ignorance.
When you look at I Corinthians 14 it says you are to “Eagerly seek the gifts of the Spirit.” What does that mean? It says, “Lord, these are the gifts of the Spirit. I know them. I seek them.” But if you look, even further in chapter 14, where it talks about the purpose for the gifts.
When you read about the purpose for the gifts, to build up the church, to strengthen it, to allow us to properly embody the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. The gifts are critical and paramount to our ability to do that well, to steward that well.
When you understand the purpose for the gifts, which is to embolden the church, to unify the church, to strengthen the church, to encourage the church, to build up the church, when you’re eagerly seeking the gifts, you’re eagerly seeking the fulfillment of those things actually happening in a church.
It is the power of God gifted to us for the building up of the Church. But what people get confused about is that people are seeking after the power, which is wanting attention to go to self. Plenty of people do that. That’s not okay.
Taking Risks and Taking Ownership
Gina:
The gifts are a means to an end, not the end. They’re gifts, which means they’re given freely, you don’t have to attain a certain level of maturity to get a gift. Which means that some of us are going to be able, are going to start with some level of maturity and they can be abused.
They can be abused as easily as they can be used. How do we create an environment of safety for people who don’t have the maturity to learn what that is and to grow and to what does this do?
I’m going to make safety, for me to understand what the gifts are like. How do we have that balance and create an environment and an atmosphere where we can all grow and learn and move together safely and not in judgment or offense?
What I’ve found and you’ve found too, in prayer training is sometimes people come in with a lot of healing that needs to happen, because they’ve been in abusive situations and need to let the Holy Spirit come in and bring healing. They have to get rid of offense and some unforgiveness.
You can’t fault someone for not longing for something they’ve never even experienced or understood. How to gently and gracefully invite people into discovering? You said you didn’t even know you had gifts, because I remember one particular prayer training class. This precious woman came and was a little not sure about the whole thing.
She had been on staff at a church that was operated as a cessation environment. The week of the Holy Spirit teaches on what the gifts are and biblical examples and practical examples. We go through it and then we pray for one another.
At the end of the class, people are leaving and she comes up to me with the book and she’s got this nervous, terrified look and she has it opened to a page and she’s pointing and she’s like “This, that’s me.” She didn’t know whether to be excited or terrified. She’s pointing at discerning of spirits and she’s going, “That’s me and I didn’t, I don’t know.”
I was like, “It’s okay, tell me about that.” I prayed for her and I was praying for the Lord to give her peace, first of all, and to guard her from the enemy, but also to give her insight. God gave me a picture of a table with a toy, but it wasn’t readily apparent what toy it was and what it did.
There was an owner’s manual next to it, and you open it up and it shows you what it does. I said, “Lord, show her, give her the instruction manual, show her what it does. Like a little kid opening a gift for the first time, show her what she can do with it. And that you’re intending for good things not for harmful things. That is a good thing for her.”
I get done praying that prayer about that gift. Then she’s like “You said you had a picture.” And then she goes into this whole other thing, saying where at the church that we were at there was also this ballet school nearby used it for their recitals. Her daughter who is now in her twenties, who I had just brought on to the worship team, she was going to sing on the worship team in a couple of weeks, in that ballet school when she was a little girl.
She came to our building for her daughter’s ballet recital. This night of prayer training was during the ballet rehearsals, there were little girls and tutus everywhere. She’s like, “I was here 15 years ago and my daughter was on that stage. While she was dancing, I got a picture of her being older and singing and leading worship. She’s singing this weekend.”
Her mind was blown. There was such a sweet moment of the Lord and me being able to come alongside and go “it’s okay. It’s good. God intentionally designed you and then He gave this to you. He’s not doing that to mess with you. It’s for a purpose. You’re not evil, you’re not demonic.”
She had gone through some weird things where, not even realizing it was functioning that way, she was shut down. She kept trying to shut down this thing that the Lord kept trying to awaken. And here she finally was in a safe place where I could say “No, that’s good. It’s okay. This is a safe place for you to now ask Jesus to show you why He gave this to you and what to do with it.”
Stephanie:
There’s something so simple and something so important for people to hear. Oftentimes I’ll have people that come to me with, “I’m having these crazy dreams, scary dreams or horrible dreams. I’m being attacked, pray against the attack.” If you look at the book of revelation, half of it would’ve come out as a horrible dream, but it was very prophetic.
My first question is, what’s the Lord saying about the dream? Instead of jumping to casting out, to rebuking the enemy, which we need to know our authority and that’s appropriate. But what is the Lord saying about it? Our whole conversation is going back to, it’s all about relationship.
In all things it’s all about relationship with God. “Do I go through chemotherapy, Lord? What do you want me to do?” “Do I take medication for anxiety? What do you want me to do Lord?” “Lord, I’m having these dreams. They’re scaring me. Why are You allowing me to have these? Help me know what to do. Show me what this means, Lord.”
Sometimes we jump to assume it’s from the enemy or it’s an attack. It might be, but the Lord is as good at showing that to you, as He is showing, “No, I’m trying to wake you up to something that I want to get out of your life.” It all goes back to relationship. It all goes back to intimacy.
In all things going back, remembering, you’re going back to whose you are. You’re going back to Him. You’re going back to your source of life and asking. He’s going to help you navigate through all of that.
The other thing that I wanted to bring up was when talking about creating safe spaces for the gifts and for learning about the gifts. Shawn Bolz wrote this book, it was called Experiencing God. It is a fabulous book. One of the things that he recommends, that I have practiced, is you have to be teachable and you have to be willing to say, “I’m sorry.”
There was this one woman at our church, she was sitting across the church and I got this picture, clear as day. But what I did was I thought I knew what it was about. All I got was a picture and it was a whiteboard and it had certain words on it written out. I was supposed to tell her those words.
I had a sense of what I thought it meant, which I then shared. In time, when that sense did not come to pass, I reached out to her and I said, “This may sound wacky, but I want to go back. I’m reminded of that. I want you to know, all I saw was this. I saw the whiteboard. I saw these words. I think I might have projected my own interpretation. That wasn’t from the Lord. I made a mistake in doing that. I wanted to say, I’m so sorry.”
What can happen sometimes is when we are practicing we add what we think it is. At first I thought, “I must have gotten it wrong.” He’s said, “No. Hear what you heard me say. Don’t make it into something it wasn’t.”
When we have that grace for ourselves and our grace for others, what I did for that person that I reached out to later, she was blown away that I did that. She’s like, “People don’t do that.” But it’s so important, because you can make this mistake of thinking, “Have I done something wrong that it didn’t come to pass that way?”
Especially if it’s someone you trust, who is prophetic, who speaks, then you trust the word more and then it doesn’t come to pass. You start to self-blame, or you think “I’m doing something wrong.” Or, God’s decided to take this away from me.”
I gave her freedom, in the situation, to even go back to the original word and say, “Lord, what does this mean? Talk to me about Your meaning. What did You mean for this to mean?” For me it’s how I clear the spiritual air.
I want it to be clean. If I misrepresented you Lord, I’m sorry. I can’t say that to Him, I need to go to the person. When you do that, it creates a culture. It creates a climate and an environment of safety because we can make mistakes.
Gina:
That’s healthy. That also removes the opportunity for the enemy to create offense and woundedness. It’s like a marital relationship, or a friendship. If you’re willing to say, “I’m sorry.” You ask forgiveness when you’ve overstepped or said something you shouldn’t, then that makes that relationship stronger and deeper and healthier.
But when it comes to spiritual family and spiritual community, for some reason, it’s very hard for us in that. A lot of it goes back to false humility. A lot of it goes back to our own insecurity and fear. “I’m going to look like a fool if I admit that I got something wrong.”
I can make excuses, I can deflect, to protect myself and in that create a hostile environment and a clearly unsafe environment for people. Then that’s going to paralyze the ability for the kingdom to infiltrate and for spiritual community to deepen and grow.
Stephanie:
There have been times where people have given words to me that they think are prophetic and it doesn’t resonate, or I even know that it’s not. To say, “That’s not resonating with me now, but I’ll set it aside and maybe it’ll come later.” It gives them the ability to then ask the Lord, “Was that for her? Did I get that wrong?” That’s part of the teaching He wants to grow.
Check out the rest of this conversation Discernment or Judgment
Check out the Dwell Meditations
