Spiritual gifts are essential for building up the Body of Christ. There are three lists of spiritual gifts given us in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12:8-10,Romans 12:6-8 and Ephesians 4:11).

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, the exercise of spiritual gifts is compared with the functioning of the members of our physical body. A man may have life and yet be blind, deaf, dumb and paralysed. Many churches are like that. Their members are born again; but they have no gifts of the Holy Spirit with which to serve the Lord - and so they are powerless.

The gifts of the Spirit are what enable the Body of Christ to see, hear, talk and walk. Godliness is the life of the Body of Christ. But what can Christ's Body do for others without the gifts of the Spirit? What would Jesus Himself have been like if He had no gifts of the Spirit? He would still have overcome sin and lived a holy life. But without the anointing of the Spirit, He would not have been able to preach the way He did, heal the sick, cast out demons or do any miracle.

Jesus' anointing with the Holy Spirit at the age of 30 did not make Him any holier than He was earlier. His 31st year was not any holier than His 29 th year. But with the anointing of the Spirit, He received power to serve others. If Jesus had merely gone around showing people His holy life, He could not have accomplished His Father's purposes. Neither can the church today accomplish God's purposes by merely manifesting holy living to others. Jesus had both holiness and the gifts. His Body today must have both of these too.

The tragedy in Christendom today is that some groups emphasise holiness of life while others emphasise the gifts of the Spirit. But these are not "either-or" options. The Bible says, "Let your clothes be white all the time (live a holy life at all times) and let not oil be lacking on your head (live under the anointing constantly)" (Eccl.9:8). We need both.

The gifts of the Spirit do not make anyone spiritual. The Corinthian Christians had all the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor.1:7). They exercised "the word of wisdom" (one of the gifts of the Spirit) in their meetings. In spite of that, there was not one wise (spiritual) man among them (1 Cor.6:5). A word of wisdom can come through a carnal person; but wisdom itself is found only in a spiritual person. One can receive a word of wisdom from God in a moment; but wisdom itself can come only through many years of taking up the cross.

We cannot choose our spiritual gift ourselves, because it is God Who determines what gift will best fit us for our ministry in Christ's Body. But we are told to seek earnestly for those gifts that will build up the Body - and especially for the gift of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1,12).