Be Open to the Unfamiliar, Not the Unbiblical

As I began to grow in my walk of learning to flow in the supernatural, I discovered a common “sticking point” or hindrance most people deal with when starting to move out in the gifts of the Spirit. That hindrance is being hesitant to receive from certain ministries because the way they operate the gifts is unfamiliar to them. 

When I first moved to Decatur, Texas, to assume my second assignment as pastor of a church there, I reached out to a number of pastors in the area. One of the pastors I met and connected with I will call Phil. Phil and I connected immediately and he, one other pastor in the area, and I began to meet together once a week for coffee, prayer, and fellowship. 

Phil was really hungry for God and the move of the Spirit. He had come out of a denomination that did not believe in healing, the gifts of the Spirit, or the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He had recently been filled with the Spirit and was like a child in a candy store where it came to healing, the gifts of the Spirit, and the supernatural power of God. He attended every conference and meeting by every healing evangelist and minister who moved in signs and wonders within 100 miles of our area.

During one of our weekly pastor’s fellowship meetings, Phil came in with some serious questions for us. He had attended a healing meeting with a renown healing evangelist in the area the weekend before and was very disturbed about what he had observed. He said in one of the services he was in, the evangelist did not even preach the Word. He said all he did was lead the congregation in worship and call out a few specific types of diseases people were being healed of. Then people started coming forward for either prayer or to testify of their healing. He said the thing that upset him most was when people came up on the stage, the evangelist blew on them to receive their healing. The other thing he did not understand is why everyone he blew on fell down or fell out in the Spirit. 

He declared to me and the other pastor at our meeting, “Doesn’t the Bible say they shall lay hands on the sick and they will recover? He didn’t lay hands on anyone. He just blew on them!” Phil was a real “Word man” and he had to see it in the Bible before he would believe it was real. I admired him for that. What we shared with Phil I believe will help you if you desire to operate in the gifts and the supernatural. 

First we explained to Phil, though the Bible does say the Lord will confirm His Word with signs following, He is not limited in the way He gets healing to people. God loves people so much He gave us gifts of healings, working of miracles, and the gift of faith. He gave us these gifts, members of His body who can operate in these gifts, as well as healing evangelists to help people who don’t have time to hear messages on healing or meditate the Word and receive that way. Some people who only have a short time to live, are ravaged by disease, and are taking so much pain medication they cannot focus on the Word need the gifts of the Spirit. 

Let me share a brief aside here. For those in these type of situations, I still encourage family and friends to play teaching, faith-filled messages on healing in the room where your suffering loved one is. The person’s body and mind may not be functioning at full capacity but their spirit man can still receive the Word!

We told Phil, “Thank God for the gifts of the Spirit and the healing evangelist even if he doesn’t operate his ministry the way we would in that situation.” We asked him, “Was anyone healed at this meeting?” He told us indeed there were scores of people healed. 

We asked him, “Was anyone saved at this meeting?” He affirmed to us again more people than he could count received the Lord that night. My other pastor friend and I proclaimed together at the same time, “Well, praise God! God healed scores of people and saved multitudes of people and did it different from how you would have. That just proves He doesn’t need our permission to do what we all want Him to do in a different way from what we are familiar with.” This seemed to help Phil and settle him down. I then shared a passage of Scripture with him that is found in First Corinthians chapter 12:

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). 

I told Phil these verses have helped me stay open to different gifts, different ministries, and different operations of the gifts. I told him the way the Lord interpreted these verses to me is, “There are different gifts that different ministries operate in different ways. But it is the same God who is working through each of them.” When I shared this with Phil, it was like a light bulb turned on in his heart and he saw it. I went on to tell him these verses were written in the context of instruction to us about the gifts of the Spirit. This is a clear admonition by the Lord for us to stay open to the unfamiliar, but not unbiblical demonstrations of the Spirit when learning to function in these gifts.

Stay Open to Gifts

I believe it is also implied if we don’t stay open to gifts that are operated different from what we are familiar or comfortable with, we will stay ignorant of the various ways He moves through the gifts. Don’t close your heart to new or different manifestations of the Spirit unless they violate the Word. Our other pastor friend who was at this meeting gave Phil the following Scriptures: close your heart to new or different manifestations of the Spirit unless they violate the Word. Our other pastor friend who was at this meeting gave Phil the following Scriptures: 

And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). 

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). 

He said, “Look here in the Word. Jesus blew, breathed, on people and God blew, breathed, on people.” He told Phil he did not operate the way this evangelist did by blowing on people to receive healing and he also was not advocating this for others. But at least there is scriptural precedence for it. In other words, though it was unfamiliar to Phil, it was not unbiblical. 

After sharing these things with Pastor Phil, he was very encouraged and blessed and had new understanding and appreciation for the things of the Spirit. What Pastor Phil learned that day is something each of us needs to understand in order to flow in the supernatural in new dimensions—different ministries operate different gifts in different ways. We need to be careful about judging or despising others who operate in the gifts and flow in the supernatural different from ourselves or our group. What people are not up on, they are usually down on and critical of. 

We need to guard ourselves from closing our hearts to new or different manifestations of the Spirit unless they violate the Word. Whether it is laughing, falling, dancing, shouting, running, prophesying, or giving out a message in tongues or interpretation of tongues, these are all in the Bible. If it is in the Word of God, or at least doesn’t violate the Word, we need to be open to it.

A minister friend of mine, Dave Duell, had a very unique way of ministering healing and deliverance to people. I met Dave at an Andrew Wommack minister’s conference in 1994. Dave told the story of how the Lord spoke to him that his arm and hand would act like a sword in the Spirit realm and cut chains and cords of bondage off people whenever he prayed for them. Dave would make weird noises and chopping motions with his hands and people would fall out in the Spirit, be healed and set free. He was a genuine healing evangelist equipped with gifts of healings who saw multitudes of people saved, healed, delivered, and filled with the Spirit.

The first time an individual experienced Dave’s unique ministry, they could be tempted to turn him off because the methods God led him to manifest the gifts were different from most. But if you understand the primary principle of this chapter—different ministries operate different gifts in different ways—you remain open, learn, and receive. My daughter-in-law, Jessica, went forward in one of Dave’s meetings in Chico, Texas, where one of my sons in the faith, Donald McMaster, was pastor. She responded to Dave’s invitation to be filled with the Spirit. 

After she received the wonderful Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, she started to return to her seat. Dave, by the leading of the Spirit, asked her to stop. He said the Lord had more for her, that He had healing for her. He used his arm to chop all chains of infirmity and sickness off her and she fell to the floor immediately. She could not get up for close to an hour and all she could say was, “My stomach is shaking and quivering and it won’t stop.” 

What Dave did not know was Jessica had been to the doctor just that week and a sonogram revealed scar tissue from cancer surgery and treatments she had several years before. The doctor told her because of this she could not have any more children. After this service that Dave prayed for her, Jessica decided to go back to the doctor because she was certain she was healed. The doctor did another sonogram and was shocked by the results. He asked her, “What has happened to you? You look like you have had an internal makeover. You have no more scar tissue!” 

Jessica replied, “I know what has happened to me. Jesus has healed me!” Needless to say our entire family was ecstatic. And we have three more grandchildren now as a result of this healing miracle and Dave’s unique ministry gift. The Bible speaks many times of the arm of the Lord representing the power of God (Isaiah 53:1). God used Dave’s arm in a unique way to release healing and miracles—God’s power—to people. And one of those people was our daughter-in-law, Jessica, and our family quiver has increased and been blessed because of it. Dave has since gone home to be with Jesus. We miss him and the wonderful way he manifested Jesus’ love and healing power to multitudes.

I realize not every manifestation or ministry is genuine, like Dave’s was. Each of us is responsible to check these things out by the Word of God and by the fruit that is born by that ministry or ministry gift. You have to ask the questions: 

• Is this minister teaching, preaching, and valuing the Word of God? 
• Is the unique way the minister is manifesting the gifts in line with the Word? 
• Are people being saved, healed, delivered, and being discipled through the ministry? 
• Does the ministry draw people to Jesus? 

Unbiblical Manifestations

Some examples of unbiblical manifestations I have heard being promoted in some Christian circles are people barking, feathers falling, and gold dust appearing in a service. There was a revival several years ago that started off pure and degraded to a point where some of the people began barking like dogs in their services. I cannot judge that movement, but I do not see barking in the book of Acts or any epistle in the New Testament. Furthermore, I fail to see the benefit or fruit of that and would declare this a false manifestation.

There was a ministry that moved in the genuine power of God several years ago that saw many salvations and healings. This minister decided to spice the meetings up a bit by releasing feathers in their meetings as a supposed manifestation of the Spirit. It was found sometime later this was being staged and this ministry that was genuine lost its influence. Recently there have been reports of several meetings in churches and ministries where gold dust has appeared. Some close associates of mine have asked me about this. I cannot see this manifestation in the New Testament and neither can I see the benefit of this unless the participants in the meetings could somehow package the gold dust and sell it.

Just because we see false manifestations from time to time I encourage you not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are counterfeits. A counterfeit reveals there is the true and the genuine. There are real manifestations of the Spirit that the church and the world need today. Jesus preached and taught the Word but He also operated in the gifts of the Spirit and various manifestations of the Spirit. And not every manifestation or demonstration of the Spirit He used was familiar to the people.

Real but Strange Manifestations

Did you know that Jesus had a “spitting ministry?” That’s right. Jesus spit on some people to release healing to them. Let’s look at this strange manifestation in the Word:

And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly (Mark 7:33-35). 

So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. …Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly (Mark 8:23,25). 

In these two accounts Jesus actually spit directly on the recipient of healing. In the first case, He spat in His hands and touched the man’s tongue with the spit. In the second instance, it says Jesus spit on the person’s eyes. There is another instance that records He spit on the clay and made mud and put it on the man’s eyes but in these two cases there was no dirt or mud involved. In the Old Testament spitting on someone or something was a sign of disdain for them. It could be Jesus’ spitting was representative of His disdain for deafness and blindness. But in any case, He, nonetheless, released the healing power of God in this unusual way with these two men.

I am not advocating we pick up Jesus’ spitting anointing or gifting. I am pointing this out to show you Jesus did break the mold on normal ministry. He manifested God’s healing power in unique, yet genuine and powerful ways. It was even said of His ministry:

We have seen strange things today! (Luke 5:26) 

Let’s remember as we begin to move in the supernatural and operate His wonderful gifts He is not limited to our flavor of manifestation or the kind of ministry we are familiar with. Baskin Robbins advertises 31 flavors of ice cream. God has more than 31 types of ministry and gift demonstrations He can flow through. Different ministries operate different gifts in different ways. Stay open to the unfamiliar but genuine manifestations of the Spirit and your ministry capacity will expand and grow and you will bless many!

Adapted from Greg Mohr’s Book, Flowing in the Supernatural

Watch Pastor Greg’s television series on Living a Supernatural Life to learn more.