Gifts for war?
Oh, yeah, I remember the gifts: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and some others.
Oops, wrong category! I just listed the FRUIT of the Spirit, not the GIFTS. (see Fruit-tastic)
(Did you catch me trying to fool you?) 
You see, gifts are given by Holy Spirit for a time and a purpose. The fruit develop in us as we live and grow in Christ and they are with us continually.
Additional gifts are listed in scripture, such as the gifts of helps, mercy, and giving. These are commonly referred to as motivational gifts. In other words it’s the gift of an attitude or a strength which leads to service to the Lord. The gifts of the Spirit have been referred to as the power gifts. Could you use more power in your life? Me, too!
God has lots of gifts for His people!
The gifts of the Spirit are properly used in order to “bring heaven to earth” as we discussed in an earlier post. I use this as the broadest definition of warfare simply because we are in a constant battle to not only live as Christ commands, but to bring His life into the world. A soldier doesn’t stop serving his country just because he’s off duty, and neither do we. We always need to be ready to step up and say, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 KJV) and to perform our duties according to His orders.
Paul talks about these nine gifts in I Corinthians 12.
The first gift listed is word of wisdom. It often manifests as a previously unthought-of idea and makes you think, “Wow, that will work. How cool is that?” I’ve also seen it as a counseling behavior when Holy Spirit nudges someone to speak wise advice that comes from God. We can ask for someone to have a word of wisdom when we are seeking God’s truth about a situation.
The next gift is word of knowledge. This gift usually reveals a fact about someone’s life. It’s not given to condemn a person but to encourage them. It generally reaffirms something the person already knew and proves that God indeed knows and loves them right where they are. This gift is often given to prove to a non-Christian that God is real and His love is for them.
Next we have the gift of faith. Have you ever been praying with someone and they suddenly knew the prayer would be answered? They had no doubt that God had heard and that what you’d asked for would be granted. This isn’t wishing or hoping, but strong faith given to the person for that moment. This gift encourages everyone involved. I know many children have stronger faith than adults, but I think that is more the childlike faith Jesus mentioned rather than the gift of faith. The faith and trust of a child can be amazing – I wish I could always believe like that!
Are you getting excited about using the gifts? We’re only one-third through the list!
this is part 7 of a series on warfare
part 1| This Means War!
part 2|The Big “D” of Warfare
part 3|Charge!
part 4|Swing That Sword!
part 5|Worship IS Warfare
part 6|Warring Through Worship
all illustrations courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net