25 Jan Stir Up The Gifts!
Read 2 Timothy 1:1-7
She couldn’t stop crying.
The Jacob’s Generation mission teams had just returned to their homes in Europe and throughout the USA. Everyone’s flights had landed and they’d unpacked their luggage and gone back to life as usual. One of the kitchen leaders, Tamika Clark, had come with us from North Carolina (she is a minister who had served previously under Pastor Wade and Tammy Miller). She could not get back to “normal life”. After laundering her clothes and putting away her suitcase she sensed a strong brooding of the Holy Spirit that ended in days of tearful intercession. She sent a group message to the mission team. “The Lord says to pack my bags again. We are going back!” This was the very end of June and we had only been home for a few days. In fact, my luggage had just been delivered by the airline that day and was still packed and sitting by my front door. I texted her back, half-jokingly. “Maybe you’re going back but I’m not going until Fall Retreat in October!”
I headed out the door that same day to send an international bank wire and settle a final bill. Of the four banker’s offices I could have been called into, the next banker available was a lady in her early 30’s that I had never met. She processed the paperwork for me with very little conversation, only a strange look in my direction now and then. At the end of the transaction, she went to hand me the receipt, took and deep breath and said, “The Holy Spirit wants me to tell you to get some rest and get ready because He’s sending you back! There is an opportunity that He is opening to you and He will not send someone else to do it. You have to go.”
I was shocked and speechless. I thanked her, said nothing else, went to my car and sent a group message in reply to Tamika’s “word” about going back. I told them what this stranger in the bank had just prophesied!
Just a few days later, I received an email from one of the leaders of NATO Special Operations in Belgium. He asked if we would assemble a team and lead a summer camp for the children and youth of Ukrainian Special Operations soldiers. Through a miraculous series of events, we and most of our ministry team (plus some new faces) were back in Europe a month later to organize and lead a camp for 106 Ukrainian children, teens and a few of their mothers.
Oh, how we need the flow of the gifts of the Holy Spirit! How we need miracles, signs and wonders in our time! Tamika prophesied by faith to our group. A banker took a chance and prophesied to a total stranger who had just walked into her office. Because of the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, we were able to confidently say YES to the opportunity the Lord was opening, though we did not have the time, money or people available when we made the commitment. There could be no doubt that this was the Lord’s doing because He confirmed it miraculously through the gift of prophecy.
In our centers and ministries throughout the world, we need a fresh flow of the gifts of the Spirit. There is not a minister among us that does not desire the manifestation of the miraculous. In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we learn that Timothy had gifts but that they needed to be stirred up again. That tells us two things: 1. Our ministers must pray for gifts to be released in our people, as Paul laid hands on Timothy for that purpose; 2. We must pray for dormant gifts to be reactivated and stirred up!
I went back to the bank in October and found the lady that worked there. It was a moment just before the bank closed when there was no one waiting after me. I told her about the ministry we had done and her part in confirming the word of the Lord to us. She began to shake and cry, praising God for the opportunity to be used by Him. How powerful and humbling it is to watch the supernatural gifts of God at work in His people for the furtherance of His Kingdom!