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Hi, my name is Dean Smith and I want to discuss my brief encounter with the Gift of Faith, which is one of the nine spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit handed out to members of the Body of Christ who have been filled with the Holy Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.
This includes the gift of tongues, interpretation of tongues, discerning of spirits, words of knowledge and wisdom, prophecy, miracles, and the gift of faith.
Paul states that every person receives at least one of these gifts or manifestations of the Spirit of God. Of course, some like the gift of tongues or healing are simple to understand.
But how does the gift of faith function? I hope to use what I believe was my one and only encounter with this gift to explain how it works and as well its purpose.
About three decades ago, my wife and I had moved out of the city we had lived in most of our lives due to a work transfer. We were in the new city about a year and a half, when I received a phone call from my boss asking if we wanted to return home.
A lot of good things happened while we were gone, particularly spiritually, and both of us felt it was time to go back.
Of course, we had bought a house in the new city and needed to sell it. As we pondered the sale, we considered the possibility of selling it ourselves instead of using a real estate agency that would charge a few thousand dollars for their service.
While in the throes of making the decision, a brother in Christ, who knew we were moving back, called because the Lord impressed on him, probably through a word of Knowledge, that we should consider selling the house on our own rather than using a real estate agency.
The phone call confirmed what we had been feeling.
Our initial plan was to hold an open house each weekend until it sold.
I made signs to post around the neighborhood and created information sheets to hand out to the people who showed up.
As we prepared the house for sale, I began to experience a horrid struggle with unbelief.
As our first open house approached, I half-jokingly told my wife that I only had faith to believe four people would come through. I made up enough sell sheets and coffee to handle four visitors.
Sure enough, four people came through. But the house did not sell.
During the following week, I was again plagued with these doubts and unbelief. As the weekend approached, I had faith that eight people would look at our house.
I doubled my faith, I guess.
Incredibly, eight people came through. But still, the house did not sell.
As each day passed during the next week, the intensity of my unbelief only magnified. It began to grow within me.
With the next weekend approaching, I remember standing in our bedroom, trying to psyche myself up for 16 people to come through. Doubling what I believed the previous week.
As I was mustering up the faith, I felt the Holy Spirit ask me, “Do you want 16 people to come to the open house or do you want to sell it.”
I glumly answered, “Sell the house.”
At that moment, I distinctly felt something well up inside me, a surge of faith that lasted only a millisecond, and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone.
I can’t over-emphasize how brief it was, but nevertheless, it was very real and then it instantly disappeared. Just poof it was gone.
After that brief surge of faith ended, the unbelief returned and I trudged on preparing for the next weekend’s open house. I was not sure what to make of the experience.
That weekend, only two groups came through — a couple and an older man and his 20-year-old son.
No one made an offer or seemed to show any interest, and we were now considering our next option of listing the property with a real estate company.
It was the middle of the week when a man called saying he was interested in buying our house and wanted to take a second look.
I thought, the couple was coming back, and was shocked when I answered the doorbell and saw the 20-year-old son standing alone in front of me.
He did another quick tour through the house and then told me he wanted to buy. We quickly agreed on a price. Dumfounded, I got out the papers and we started filling out his ‘offer to purchase.’
In the process, I found out he was a truck driver for Coca-Cola.
As we filled out the offer, I asked for a deposit of a few thousand dollars, which is standard for most real estate transactions, as it discourages people from backing away from the deal.
At that point, he said that he only had $500 to put down. When I insisted on more, he said that was all he had, and if I couldn’t agree he would pull out of the deal.
I accepted.
The next step in the ‘offer to purchase’ involved completing the financial arrangements. I asked him how much he would put down as a down payment, and how much would be borrowing from the bank?
He told me that he was going to buy the house with cash.
Initially, I thought he was borrowing the whole amount and told him the bank would require a down payment. He corrected me and said he was buying the house with cash. He would be borrowing no money.
Here was a 20-year-old truck driver for Coke, who only had $500 for a deposit, but now insisted he was going to buy this house valued at the time for nearly $100,000 with cash.
It didn’t stop there.
It got worse.
He then asked for a significantly extended possession date to give him time to cash out his investments.
What investments does a 20-year-old driver for Coca-Cola have, I wondered?
Against my better judgment, I reluctantly agreed. The deal was completed, and he left.
The unbelief and undoubt that had surged through my life the previous three weeks turned into a raging waterfall. We were now in a position where he could walk away from the deal and only be penalized by losing the $500 deposit.
When I turned in the papers and check to my lawyer, he told me that the deposit should have been much larger.
I knew that and was already having problems falling asleep at night worrying about it.
With this deal in our pocket, my wife and I headed back to our home city with the intent of being a new house.
All the while I was consumed with unbelief. I believed the moment we purchased a new house, the 20-year-old would walk away from the deal and we would be stuck with two houses and two mortgage payments.
My wife was well aware of my struggle. Fearing the worst, I was convinced we needed to rent instead of buy. But we looked and found a house. I put in a lower offer thinking secretly hoping they would reject it and we could walk away from the deal and rent instead.
But they accepted.
Throughout this whole time, I was overwhelmed with unbelief, worry, and fear. But incredibly despite my fears, the deal went through. This 20-year-old truck driver for Coke, who only had $500 for a deposit, managed to come up with just under $100,000 cash for the purchase.
Looking back, I realized I had been given a gift of faith that Paul talks about in Corinthians.
The gift of faith is not to be confused with believing faith listed in Ephesians 2:8-9 which tells us that we are saved when we believe in Jesus for our salvation.
Nor is it a fruit of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22 which is a character trait, that speaks of an individual who has a positive outlook on life because of their confidence in God to provide all their needs.
The gift of faith refers to a supernatural faith supplied by the Holy Spirit.
The word gift (which is the Greek word charisma) used to describe the spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12 verse 4 is rarely used in the New Testament era. At its root is the idea of mercy.
Because it is a gift, there are no strings attached. God gives the gift because He loves us and wants to help us.
Once I received the gift of faith, it was a done deal. Though the money was still in the buyer’s bank, in fact, it was in our account.
But perhaps the most stunning feature of this whole ordeal was it didn’t matter how much I disbelieved, after I received this gift of faith my unbelief and doubt could not change the circumstances. The sale of our house was as they say in French, ‘fait accompli.’
I didn’t have to continue believing to see it happen.
We need to understand the gift of faith is completely separate from our own faith. In the middle of my struggle with unbelief, the Holy Spirit threw me a life preserver.
I can’t over-emphasize how brief this gift of faith was when it welled up in my spirit. That surge of faith lasted a millisecond, but Jesus did teach that faith the size of a mustard seed could move a mountain. Something extremely small can be extremely powerful.
There is an interesting encounter in the Book of Acts involving Peter and John, which I believe provides more information on the gift of faith.
Peter and John were heading to the temple to pray in Acts 3, when they encountered a man, lame from birth, asking for alms.
Peter looked at the man and stated, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:6).
Peter grabbed the man by the hand and he was immediately healed and stood up leaping and walking. It was an incredible miracle that astounded everyone who saw what happened as this lame man had been a fixture at the temple.
Peter then turned to the gathering crowd and explained what they had just witnessed. First, Peter talked about how it was faith in the name of Jesus that healed this man.
But then Peter adds a peculiar second statement in verse 16 he says that it is, “the faith which comes through Him (Jesus) has given him this perfect health.”
Notice that Peter did not say the healing that comes through Jesus gave this man perfect health, Peter said that it was the faith that comes through Jesus that healed this lame man.
In other words, this man was not healed by Peter’s faith but rather by Christ’s faith. I believe at this moment, Peter received a surge of the Holy Spirit’s supernatural gift of faith.
But this verse also suggests that the gift of faith is a manifestation of the faith that Jesus functioned with during His ministry on Earth. It’s a portion of Jesus’ faith that He displayed during His three-year ministry.
The Holy Spirit knows our weaknesses and will manifest or release this gift in our lives in our moments of desperation. It was an act of mercy for me and my wife as we tried to sell our house and mercy to the man who had been lame from birth.
I believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, faith, wisdom, knowledge, prophecy tongues and their interpretation, miracles, healing, and discerning of spirits are intended for our personal benefit and as a benefit to the whole church and others.
They are supernatural gifts of mercy given to us because of God’s love. We need to value them and as Paul writes in Corinthians earnestly seek them.
Thanks for joining me on this podcast and we will catch you again.
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