1 Corinthians 12:8–11: “For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as He decides to each person, who produces all these things.”

One of the things I want you to notice is the use of plurals there. Again, this is part of my series going through this list of the gifts of the Spirit, and we are now in verse 10, so we can see some plurals here.

You see, “faith” does not have a plural. The message of wisdom does not have a plural. The message of knowledge does not have a plural. But you have “gifts of healing”—you have plural. “Discernment of spirits”—you have plural. “Performance of miracles”—you have a plural. “Different kinds of tongues.” “The interpretation of tongues.” So we have a lot of plurals here, and the last time we talked about gifts of healing.

Now, what that tells me—because this is the Holy Spirit willing it, not individuals, He produces all these things (verse 11), it is one and the same Spirit distributing as He decides—is that we are all subjected. We are not the initiators. We are subjects in the scheme of things.

So in my mind, when you talk about the gifts of healing, what that tells me is that there can be a healing that is brought in a particular context that is just one gift for one healing, in that context, for that day, even though there might be other needs there. But the Holy Spirit has decided that in that scenario, “I am making available one gift to address one issue for one person.”

So there is no willfulness being expressed there. There is no agenda. There is no vision of clearing out hospital beds. There is no vision like that. We are not being told to allow our imaginations to run wild and to start to prophesy that there is a time coming when somebody is going to go to a hospital and clear everybody there, and there will not be a sick person.

Even Jesus Christ, who has the fullness of the Holy Spirit, did not clear everywhere like that. They came to Him, but He did not just go, thinking, “I can just will it—everybody, oya, nobody is sick again in the whole world.” That is not a gift anymore; it is something else.

Somebody may say, “Oh, the Holy Spirit is going to be so mighty and so…” The Holy Spirit is mighty in Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ said, “The one who believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these as well” (John 14:12). In that scenario, He is saying: “You will do what I have done, and greater ones.” It is not in degrees; it is in kind. “I have done some miracles; you will do them, but you will also do some other things that I have not done.”

He raised the dead; we see the raising of the dead in the life of Peter (Acts 9:36–41). What we did not see with Jesus was Him preaching and thousands of people being saved at once, because it could not have happened. That is why He said, “It is to your advantage that I am going away… if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you” (John 16:7). It marked a shift in how things would operate.

So I am mentioning gifts of healing to say that this is determined by God. In a scenario, look at Jesus Christ going to the pool of Bethesda and not clearing the whole place, but there was a gift specifically—a gift of healing—for one person at that time (John 5:2–9).

So it is not “responding to needs” here. It is not a need‑driven operation: “Oh, there is so much need.” No. God is not man.

So that is that, in my estimation. Remember, in all these series, I am telling you: this is my estimation; it is my best judgment when it comes to how these gifts are supposed to be viewed, because Paul did not give us any definition. But we are going at it based on our own best judgment—specifically, mine now.

God bless you.