NT24 FastSample

Day 12 by Junior Hernandez, Video/Film Director of UPPERROOM

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 5-16

"Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy." (1 Corinthians 14:1)

I was blessed to grow up in the charismatic movement as a child, witnessing my mother and father earnestly seeking the Father daily and pursuing the prophetic. But I only had a framework for what happened much later in life. One thing that was always evident through Sunday services, prayer sets, evangelistic trips, youth groups, and community group gatherings at our home was the pure pursuit of love and the Holy Spirit.

Seeing the Father rightly, treating the Father rightly, and giving that love received to those around us as a family and as a church was and is the goal. If there was one thing I was aware of, it was that if I had love in my heart, it came from the Father, and people in the world who have no context for Christianity know us by our fruit - how we give of the love we've been given. This sets us apart and draws people to wonder where this love that seems so different comes from and allows us to give glory to the One who loved us before we knew what real love was.

In this same book, the writer Paul tells us, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." In other words, our lives and actions are just an echo of noise in a world that desperately needs sound truth coated in the oil of pure love.

We can't do this without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, who gives us the grace to love this world as the Father intended.

The gift of prophecy also came to me much later in life, which was intentional; I don't know if I could've handled these gifts as a younger boy. But to see the Father, hear Him, catch a vision, and extend the gift of encouragement and edification to a brother and sister is an honor. It's one of the many gifts our Father has given us to express His love tangibly so that others can experience His touch and encounter His heart for them.

It becomes crystal clear why Paul and our Lord so deeply desire us to walk in the prophetic and desire the spiritual gifts - it allows us to see others how the Father sees them. It grows our love for people and draws us deeper into dependency on the Father. We feel His heart, and He reveals Himself more each time we open our hearts, ears, and eyes to Him.

His presence, above all else, is the gift.