When I was a junior in high school, the year of 1969 and 1970, God called me to began preparing myself for the ministry. After I graduated from high school I went straight to a Mennonite Bible College in my home town called Pacific College. After I completed a year there, the Lord dealt with my heart that He wanted me to first honor my parents in my education. This resulted in my transferring to Fresno City College, a junior college, and completing two, two year degrees. One in Liberal Arts and another in Electronic Technology. The liberal Arts was an extra unexpected because of extra accumulated credits over five years of college education.

One night in January of 1977, just after completing a chapter in a book on electronics which made my two year study in the program complete, the Lord came to me in my spirit²⁶ and said, "Well done good and faithful servant. Because you have been faithful in little, I am going to put you in charge of much." Then He gave me my calling. He said, "You are an Evangelist-Overseer-Teacher." This was soon confirmed through ministry outreach and release and through the church I was attending at the time.²⁷ This is Jesus’ spiritual calling in my life and will be until the day I die.

When Paul talks about effects in ministry by the Father, he is talking about the way God chooses to manifest our callings in operation. Both Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts were called to bring Jesus’ healing power to man, but the way God the Father manifested these callings in both of their lives was very much different. In Oral Robert’s case God the Father had the power of healing come through his hands. When he placed his hands on people and prayed for them, the power of the Holy Spirit was released for healings of every kind. In Kathryn Kuhlman’s case, though she at times did lay hands on people and pray for their healings, the main way God brought about her healing ministry was through the preaching of the Word. As she would preach the Word of God, the power of the Holy Spirit would fall upon the audience and they would be healed while sitting in their seats listening to the message.

This is true of any ministry calling. You can have a hundred people with the calling of Evangelism and even though the message of salvation is the same, Jesus Saves!, the way God chooses to deliver the message will be different in every case. God called Dr. Bill Bright to spread the Gospel through mainly training others through the use of a tract called the Four Spiritual Laws. Billy Graham was called of God to spread the Gospel through mainly preaching the message through crusades in stadiums. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer was called of God to spread the Gospel by reaching out mainly to the intellectual community through L’Abri Fellowship through the medium of writing, and movie production.

But then in verse seven Paul states, "But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." Paul tells us that though our ministry and the effects of our ministry will be personal, individual and unchanging, yet the manifestations of the Holy Spirit will be given to all of us according to the need of the moment for the common good.

What are the manifestations of the Spirit available to all believers according to the need of the moment? The Manifestations of the Holy Spirit according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 are the following:

Now, any one of these manifestations of the Spirit can be permanent ministry callings and obviously are. Oral Robert's calling is to bring Jesus’ healing power to the nations. This is his permanent ministry calling, and is more than any other gift or manifestation of the Spirit continually manifested through his life. The Evangelist Dick Mills, in his ministry, exercises the gift of knowledge every time he preaches. I know other people who have a regular ministry of tongues and interpretations, prophecy and discerning of spirits.

Even though these nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit talked about in this passage of Scripture can be permanent ministry callings as well, this is not the emphasis that Paul is making in this passage. What is Paul saying here? Paul is saying that when one receives the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for power release in ministry, part of that Baptism becomes a permanent release of these nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit in one’s life as the Holy Spirit wills for the moment.

You may say, "Where in this passage does it talk about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and where does Paul say specifically that these nine gifts are a part of that?" Specifically he does not, but the experience of every believer who has received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that I know, including myself, who has walked in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for any length of time, has confessed experiencing the manifestation of most of these gifts talked about in this passage through ministering to others. These manifestations of the Holy Spirit did not take place in our lives until after we received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

None of these nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit are my permanent calling. I do not exercise regularly the ministry gift of tongues and interpretations as a permanent ministry calling, as distinguished from my spiritual language and interpretations; but when the need was there and no one else was available to exercise that manifestation, the Spirit exercised a spiritual language, apart from my prayer language, with interpretations through me. This is true of faith, healing, knowledge, wisdom, and discerning of spirits and works of power.

Any Holy Spirit Baptized believer has access to these nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit if the need is there. New Testament books further testify to this reality. Take the Apostle Paul for example: he mentions his ministry calling in 2 Timothy 1:11, "for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher." Even though being a preacher, apostle, and teacher were Paul’s main ministry callings, yet as we read through the book of Acts and other New Testament books, we find that when the need was there, Paul manifested the gifts of healing, miracles, tongues, discerning of spirits, etcetera. (Acts 19:11- 12, Acts 28:8, Acts 16:16-19, 1 Cor 14:18).

Even though not everyone has the ministry of Evangelism, yet Paul told Timothy, a Pastor, in 2 Timothy, "But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an Evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Tim 4:5). Even though all of us do not have the gift of Evangelism, yet Jesus has called all of us to do the work of Evangelism.

"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:1-3).

The Apostle Peter states,

"For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye witnesses of His majesty." (2 Pet 1:16).

The Apostle Paul stated,

"For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions." (1 Tim 1:6-7).

Paul here may be referring to people who although they may be sincere and well meaning in their teaching pursuits are not truly qualified to teach because of a lack of experience of seeing the operation of the Word fully in their lives. The Apostle Peter wrote,

". . . and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Pet 3:15-16).