The gift of Faith

BY Argie Simonis

The group of power gifts includes the gifts of faith, healings, and miracles.

The gift of faith is like the faith that every believer receives during the born again experience, but to a very higher degree. It's like when adrenaline enables a person to lift something extremely heavy that in a normal situation they would not be able to do. In other words, it is a supernatural impartation of faith intended to enable supernatural results.

All born-again Christians have faith, by which they were saved:

"For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" Eph. 2:8

Faith is like a muscle that needs practice to get stronger. We must practice it through the renewing of our minds:

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Rom. 10:17

This is why the Scriptures speak of great faith (Matthew 8:10) and little faith (Matthew 8:26).

The faith referred to here as the gift of the Holy Spirit is different from the faith received at salvation, which is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It is a supernatural impartation of faith that does not come through the normal process of renewing the mind and is intended to help those who struggle with doubts or worries and struggle to believe.

What I want to point out here is that the gift of faith is given for a specific problem or at a specific time. Otherwise, if one has the gift of faith, nothing else is needed.

The person who moves in the gift of faith operates over the limitations of mind and reason and can impart this supernatural faith to someone who has difficulty believing.

Usually this gift works together with the gifts of healings and miracles which we will examine later.

We must not forget that the Lord gives us these gifts as a tool to help us, not as a substitute for our personal faith and our relationship with Him. There will be times when we will need the help of a person with the gift of faith, miracles or healings, but the primary way the Lord has set us to receive from Him is through our personal faith and relationship with Him.

On the next message I will talk about the gifts of healings and miracles.

To be continued...