Word of knowledge
For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:8
Yesterday I wrote about the first part of 1 Corinthians 12:8 and today I want to move on to the second part. It is the second in the list of Holy Spirit gifts and it is the word of knowledge. The word of knowledge gift is simply defined as knowing something specific without having learned it by natural means.
Again, Jesus operated in this gift when He talked to the women at the well in John chapter 4. He told her some specific things about her life that he would have no natural knowledge about without the Holy Spirit’s help. I would like to make a side note here that if Jesus needed to rely on the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need His help to reach the world. I know many would argue that He was God in the flesh and of course He knows everything, but Philippians 2:7 tell us that He emptied Himself to take on the form of a servant and the likeness of men. He walked this world as a person just like you and me, only He did it perfectly, with the Holy Spirit’s help.
Another example of the use of the word of wisdom is in Acts 9, when the Holy Spirit gave the disciple Ananias the address to the house where Saul was staying. He said go to the street called Straight to the house of Judas to find Saul of Tarsus there. The GPS doesn’t even get that detailed. Ananias was given a word of knowledge so He could go minister to Saul before he was called Paul. Ananias was not a pastor or a teacher, but he was a Christian.
The importance of the word of knowledge is to minister to someone about something God is doing in their life. It is a confirmation to the unbeliever or new believer that God does actually know who they are and He wants them to turn to Him and trust Him. God wants His people to be able to operate in these gifts by the Holy Spirit’s direction to talk to people that He is drawing unto Himself.
Today I want to encourage you again to talk to your Heavenly Father about the Holy Spirit’s empowerment in your life. Read the scripture and pray for revelation concerning the gifts. Open your heart to receive anything the Spirit of God wants to show you and trust that He will lead you in the path of rightness.
Pray a prayer something like this: Heavenly Father, I want to be an effective witness for You in this world and I want to be a vessel that You can move through to reach people far from You. Empower me through Your Spirit to hear and know the way to touch lives and let people know You love them, and You know who they are and what they need right now. I put away my fear and preconceived ideas and I open up my heart now to anything You want to teach me. Help me to be ready to receive Your direction and move as the Your Spirit leads. I ask this in Jesus Holy name, Amen.
Today’s scripture reading: John 4:1-26
1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John
2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),
3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’
18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
The Daily Dose 