XVIII. DISTRIBUTING THE GIFTS TO THE BELIEVERS
The Spirit also distributes the gifts to the believers (1 Cor. 12:4, 7-11). In order to receive the gifts for service, we need to contact the Spirit through prayer every day. We do not need to know what kinds of gifts, abilities or capacities for service, we will receive. If we pray and contact the Spirit, He will distribute gifts to us. We may not know what these gifts are, but when we come to the church meetings, we will function with a particular capacity. With our physical being, we have a walking capacity and a speaking capacity which come out of our human life. After much praying to contact the Spirit, we will receive some spiritual capacity; that capacity becomes a gift, and that gift brings in a kind of function.
XIX. FILLING THE BELIEVERS INWARDLY
The all-inclusive Spirit fills the believers inwardly (Acts 6:3, 5; 7:55; 11:24; 13:52). Before I come to speak, I need to ask the Lord to fill me up with Himself as the Spirit. Without the filling up of the Spirit, the pneuma, we will be like a flat tire. We can experience being filled with the Spirit inwardly by spending time with the Lord in prayer.
XX. FILLING THE BELIEVERS OUTWARDLY
The all-inclusive Spirit also fills the believers outwardly (Acts 2:4a; 4:31; 9:17; 13:9). The Spirit’s outward filling is the outpouring of the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out. Fifty days before that time, on the day of resurrection, the Lord Jesus came to the disciples to breathe the Spirit into them (John 20:22). Then the Spirit became the inward Spirit. On the day of resurrection, He breathed the Spirit into the disciples as the pneuma, as the breath, as the Spirit of life. Then fifty days later, the ascended Lord poured out the Spirit upon the believers as the Spirit of power. The Spirit of life is the essential Spirit for our life and living. The Spirit poured out upon us is the economical Spirit for our move and work. The economical Spirit is for our authority to accomplish a work according to God’s economy.
(The Christian Life, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee)
