Rom 1:11-12 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established —  12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. (NKJV)

Why does Paul want us to be established and what does he want us established in? From this verse it is clear that the establishment and encouragement is in their mutual faith. Remember in Part 4 how we saw that impartation came through one on one sharing? We all know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Why do more people experience the gift of healing when we preach on healing? Because faith for healing comes by hearing about healing. Faith is imparted through words.

Rom 10:8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach) NKJV

We preach the word of faith. It is near us, in our mouths and in our hearts. When you speak the Word of God from your heart, meaning being fully convinced of it supremacy and truthfulness, the people who hear you receive faith to believe for the very thing you are speaking about. That is one of the reasons why you are here: to impart faith to people to believe Jesus.

Rom 10:13-14 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? (NKJV)

You don’t have to be church leader to impart faith. If the Word of God, Jesus Himself lives inside you through His Spirit, you have the ability to impart faith to whosoever hears you proclaim His Word. Back to being established… If I only tell you about healing and don’t demonstrate it, your faith will rest merely on Bible knowledge. Then if somebody else comes along and with their knowledge tells you that healing has passed away and also uses the Word of God as their evidence, you will be thrown into confusion, not knowing who or what to believe. But, if I were to show you healing through scriptures and then also heal you, you will not be easily persuaded that healing has passed away because you have now experienced the power. You have both the knowledge and the experience. You are now established. It will take much more to persuade you otherwise. Look at the case in point below:

John 9:14-25 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. 19 And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.” 25 He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”  (NKJV)

Jesus healed the blind man and the Pharisees tried to convince him that Jesus was not sent from God. They tried to speak lies about Jesus and tried to get the formerly blind man to stop singing Jesus’ praises. The man’s answer in verse 25 is just awesome. “Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know: I was blind and now I see.” Further on Jesus meets up with this man again and reveals Himself as the Messiah. The man had no problem believing Jesus because power always backs up knowledge. Our knowledge is only in part and we might not have all the information, but when power is displayed, knowledge is confirmed or refuted. No matter what the Pharisees told the man, they could not change the man’s faith in Jesus. If the man never experienced the miracle, he would probably have been easily persuaded that Jesus was not the Messiah. That is why we preach kingdom dominion and the need for displays of power when preaching. Paul said the same thing many times:

1 Thess 1:5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. (NKJV)

Power brings MUCH assurance or entire confidence.

1 Cor 2:4-5 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.  (NKJV)

Our faith is to rest in the Power of God, not the theology of man.

Rom 15:18-19 For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient —  19 in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. (NKJV)

There can be no sure establishment in the faith without the demonstration of the Spirit and the Power of God. That is why signs and wonders follow us, that is why we receive power after we are baptized in the Spirit. If your gospel is not followed with signs and wonders, you are not fully preaching the gospel. If you are not fully preaching the gospel, you are not establishing people in the faith. If you are not established, you are double minded, unstable in all your ways and it is very difficult to receive from God in this state. (See James 1:6-8)

Let’s end it hear for now. I wonder if there will be a part 6…

Cornel

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In Part 3 we looked at all the fullness we have received and ended by looking at Rom 1:11 where Paul says he wants to come impart something to the Romans to establish them. In all the verses we looked at he seems to say we have everything yet still wants to impart things to those believers. How can we have all yet still need to be imparted with something?

Rom 1:11-12 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established —  12 that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. (NKJV)

The purpose of the impartation is to bring about establishment. At the end of the word established, there is a hyphen showing he is continuing with his thought and showing the second purpose of impartation: mutual encouragement. So the impartation of this spiritual gift he is referring to is to establish and encourage them in their mutual faith. Before we go on, let’s Greek it up quickly. The words ‘I may’ were not in the original text. They are added for readability. The only word there is the word ‘impart’ which is the Greek word ‘metadidomi’ and it means to give over, or to share. Now I need you to put your thinking caps on. Did Paul and the early church have Bibles to reference out of? No. They were living what we are reading. They couldn’t just publish a book, a teaching series or download mp3 messages with teachings on them. When they learned something their impartation or ‘sharing’ happened through one on one contact. Paul went about and physically taught people the truths he learned. You can learn a lot from books, mp3’s and things like that, but nothing beats physically being with the person walking in a particular revelation.

Let me parablise it: I could easily get into a plane’s cockpit and try to teach myself to fly, or I can get an instructor who already knows how to fly and save myself a lot of frustration and probably prevent me from killing myself too. I can read and study about flying as much as I like but theoretical knowledge can only take me so far. An instructor can impart their knowledge and expertise to me through training me and that will enable me to master flying much quicker. I have the exact same muscles and body parts that the pilot has. He has just trained his to fly. I have the potential ability inside me, I just haven’t applied it. If you want to operate in healing, do you just read about it, or do you go to somebody who authentically operates in it and let them train you? You can try to learn the same truths they did, but it might take you a very long time. If you and I study the word ourselves we should end up with the same revelation even though it might take a couple of years. But when we go to the person who already has the revelation, the learning curve is significantly shortened. You will also come out on the other side less frustrated and probably still breathing too. (Now I am not saying don’t study the Word. Always study the Word.) Jesus actually intended for equipping to happen through personal interaction. He taught thousands of people but trained only 12. Big difference.

So to summarize this aspect of impartation, you have the Holy Spirit in all His fullness. You have all the potential ability to operate just like Jesus did; you just haven’t learned how to do it yet. God is not an evolutionist. He created you complete with everything you will ever need to be light to this world. He made you one with Himself through His Son and Spirit. Now we are to grow up and mature.

Eph 4:11-16 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (NKJV)

We have all, now we need to grow up into all. You had legs when you were born but it took you almost two years of growing up before you could learn to walk and almost another year to learn to run. You weren’t imparted with legs when you were old enough to walk; you just matured into knowing how to use them. You also fell down an awful lot in the process. If you quit after having fallen a few times, you would still be lying on your parent’s living room floor somewhere. If you don’t operate in a gifting perfectly from day one, learn how to do it better. Don’t quit, keep going. Grow up and mature. Don’t let failures lie to you. Here are some of the lies failures try to get you to believe:

1. The impartation didn’t stick, you didn’t get it, and you still lack something.
2. You are not qualified, look at all the sin in your life.
3. God obviously doesn’t want you to do this because if He wanted you to, it would work.
4. This is not from God because if it were you wouldn’t have made this mistake because God doesn’t make mistakes.
5. That person is just more anointed than you. Work harder to prove yourself to God. Pray more, fast longer and you might get more anointed too.

When these lies are being whispered in your ear, that is when you need your gift (apostle, prophet etc) to encourage and establish you. Unfortunately all too often the lie is told to you by them because they don’t know why they are a gift or how to be the gift.

I will continue with impartation in Part 5 and also explain why Paul wanted them to be encouraged and established in the faith.

Learn to fly!

Cornel

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