Understanding The Gifts Of the Holy Spirit, II

Originally published in Real Manna Ministries by Pastor Musa Bako

Gifts Of Healing
The gifts of healing are the Holy Spirit’s manifestation through a man, empowering him to minister physical healing to people who are afflicted with sickness or disease. It is also worth mentioning here, that every believer can lay his hand on the sick by faith as the Bible says in Mark 16:17 and they will be healed. Healing is a sign that Jesus says will follow them that believe, when they lay their hands on the sick. However, this has nothing to do with the gifts of healing. 

There are people who are specifically gifted with the healing power of the Holy Spirit and from time to time the Holy Spirit moves them to pray for people who are ill (whom even medical doctors have concluded may never recover from the illness) and they will get healed immediately. The gifts of healing work to reverse death, deliver the oppressed and draw people's attention to Jesus. A typical example of the gifts of healing in manifestation in the Bible, is what we see in the life of Jesus, when virtue came out of Him to heal the woman with the issue of blood. 

And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes (Mark 5:25-30).

We can identify two power gifts manifesting in the scripture above; that is the gift of faith and the gifts of healing. It was the gift of faith, which rested on this woman with the issue of blood, that moved her to believe for healing and it empowered her to press through the crowd, against every odd to touch Jesus' cloth. It was also the gifts of healing that released the virtue from Jesus, which worked healing in the woman.

Wherever the gifts of healing are in operation, the gift of faith also comes into play and the person for whom the gifts are in manifestation, gets instant healing and they start to experience immediate recovery. The manifestation of the gifts of healing is not what you get everyday; however, whenever the gifts of healing are in manifestation, supernatural healing occurs, no matter what the ailment is.

Working Of Miracles
Working of miracles sets aside the natural laws and brings about things or situations that are out of the ordinary. Miracle is the revelation of God’s wonder and mighty power over nature. When miracle happens, nature is reversed. God uses miracles to demonstrate His power and to draw people's attention to Him. When the gift of working of miracles is in play, blind eyes open, the lame walk, the deaf hear, women whose wombs were taken out by doctors receive power to conceive and give birth to babies and even dead people come back to life.

One of the examples of working of miracles in the Bible is when Jesus, in John 9:1-7, opened the eyes of the man who was born blind. Jesus spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) The man went his way, washed as Jesus had instructed him and came seeing. Jesus turning water into wine was a miracle. Jesus feeding five thousand people with five loves of bread and two fishes was a miracle. I saw a cripple man on a wheel chair jump up and walk, through the ministry of Pastor Enoch Adeboye. This experience was a miracle of God.
 
It was the gift of working of miracles that was demonstrated when Peter reached out and pulled the crippled man at the gate called Beautiful in Acts 3:1-8 and he instantly rose up, jumped and walked. Some healings come about through the gift of working of miracles and not just the gifts of healing. When it is the gifts of healing at work, healing may not necessarily be noticed physically or instantly in some cases, however, the sickness will start dying immediately and recovery will eventually fully occur and the man will rise. Whereas, with healing through the gift of miracles, there will be instantaneous physical manifestation.
 
Miracle recreates what is missing instantly. For instance, it will be the function of the gift of working of miracles and not the gifts of healing, when a man who is told by his doctor that he has a bad kidney, suddenly receives a brand new set of kidneys. It will be the function of the working of miracles and not healing, when a man with leprosy enters a pool and comes out with his flesh like that of a little child (2 Kings 5:1-14). Miracle recreates and replaces what is damaged.

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