GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT.
Our GIFT is the Holy Spirit, Who lives inside of us and he has brought with Him a treasure chest full of gifts. John 3: 34 "For he whom God has sent, speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. Interpretation: When God sends you to do what He has already beforehand prepared for you to do (Eph 2:10), He will supply you with the right 'tools' to do the job. The full measure of it. These 'tools' are what we call the Gifts of the Spirit.
There are 9 gifts, mentioned in 1 Cor 12: 8-10
1. Word of knowledge - God drops into your mind and heart a little bit of His knowledge about a person or situation. Examples of Word of knowledge: a: healing - the person 'feels' the pain or affliction in his/her body b: other - the person sees a vision, gets a picture in his/her mind, hears an inner voice or an audible voice (the Lord's).
2. Word of Wisdom - God's wisdom as mentioned in James 3:17 Gods wisdom how to APPLY the previous given Word of Knowledge. Or God's wisdom for a certain situation. When given, this word brings PEACE.
3.Faith. - After God has shown you by the word of Knowledge that something needs to be done, He gives you the 'how to do it' by the Word of Wisdom, and then He gives you the Faith to do it.
Example from my own life: As a young christian I visited a sick friend in hospital. As I walked into the ward, I passed a bed and the Lord spoke to me by Word of Knowledge, I heard an inner voice saying: "This woman needs to forgive". I did not know the woman, so I walked on to my friends bed and sat down. I asked her, what's wrong with that woman? The answer was: the doctors don't know, they have turned her inside out, she has terrible pain in her stomach and thinks herself that she has cancer" I asked the Lord, "why did You show me this?" I knew that God doesn't just give a word of Knowledge to satisfy my curiosity, but because He is determined to do something about the situation. So God answered inside of me by a Word of Wisdom: "Go to that woman and tell her, when she forgives, I will heal her". I was a bit nervous, because this had never happened to me before, so I asked the Lord to give me the courage to go to her. He answered and faith rose in my heart. I got up, walked up to her bed and opened my mouth and heard myself saying: "I don't know you, but God knows you (tears in the woman's eyes)." I thought: Wow, this hit home! I continued: "Youhave been hurt, and God says, if you forgive, He will heal you" I then went on to tell her FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCE(!) how to forgive. Then I asked: "May I pray for you?" She said it was ok, so I prayed that God would fulfill His word and left. From my friend I heard that she left the hospital three days later, totally healed.
4.Gifts of healing - I understand in the above story, that God also gave me one of His gifts of healing to pass on to her when I prayed. There are more than one gift of healing as you notice.
5.Working of miracles - Here the Lord God OUR CREATOR is at work. When God creates something that isn't there, it is called a miracle. A simple form of this is for example: when you have worn out discs in your spine and after prayer God has replaced them with new ones . Or when a person can see out of an empty eyesocket or can turn his neck, which had been immobilized by steel rods , after prayer, etc.
6.Prophecy: The best example of this gift is found in Job 33 (reading from Amplified). Elihu says, that God speaks in a dream and after that draws a person to the gates of death and then he says: There is hope for that person , if there be one, an interpreter, or a messenger, who can shew that person how to be in right standing with God, then God will heal him. Prophecy is when the Lord speaks through somebody.
7.Discerning of spirits. The ability to a: discern what the Lord wants to do by His Spirit. If He is present to heal, if He is there to save souls, if He wants to move prophetically.
b: discern which spirits are at work. In a meeting discern the difference between a counterfeit or true move of God. Also to discern an evil spirit in a person.
8. Divers kinds of tongues: The one example I know is, when somebody speaks in tongues in a meeting and the Lord gives the interpretation to another, of what is being said. Sometimes the tongue can be a language which is only known by the person, whom God wants to speak to. Also in intercession different kinds of tongues are used as inspired by the Holy Spirit Who prays through us.
9. Interpretation of tongues: Just take note, it doesn't say: Translation of tongues. One could say: I believe that the Lord is saying....
It has also been heard that missionaries in foreign fields have had the experience that while they were trying to communicate, they would begin to speak in tongues and just as on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, the people heard them speak in their own language.