Mike Focht 11/28/2025
There is a lot of talk about spiritual gifts today. If you spend time reading or listening to those speaking about spiritual gifts, it will not take long until you begin to hear the complaints. It has become fashionable in our day to gripe about spiritual gifts. The major angst causing these complaints comes from men and women who believe others are repressing their gifts.
However the conversation goes, it all comes back to the same point. Somehow, somewhere, someone is neglecting, ignoring, hindering, or all-out repressing the spiritual gifts that God has given to the grumbler. The grumbler would do more, be more, see more, and accomplish more if humans allowed them to exercise their gifts. In fact, the church as a whole would be better off if humans would open the door for them to glorify God in the particular way they claim to be gifted.
Now, these types of complaints all have a fatal flaw. They make too much of man and too little of God. God gives true spiritual gifts. He empowers and distributes as He sees fit. The Holy Spirit places them in the Body of Christ as it pleases Him. If that is all true, and it most certainly is, then how could it be possible for a pitiful human to repress the work of the Holy Spirit?
The answer here is very simple. No man or woman alive can stop God when He wants to do something. There is no such thing as a human being with the power to stop the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Allow me to put this as clearly as I can. There is no such thing as the repression of God-given gifts empowered by the Holy Spirit. There never has been, and there never will be. God cannot be repressed.
The point here is obvious. If that is true, then how could anyone complain about “people repressing me,” “unopened doors,” “a lack of recognition,” or “not being given the opportunity”? I am not saying that there are no obstacles to serving God. I believe in Satan and spiritual warfare. I believe in the world and its hateful persecutions. I believe in the flesh and its endless series of temptations and sinful desires. I also know that none of these things can stop God from doing whatever He wants, whenever He wants, in any child of God that He wants.
So, if we look for God’s work and see only man’s strength, we are blind to the truth. What should the grumbler do? First, the grumbler should cease His grumbling. God tells us to do all things without grumbling and complaining. Second, the grumbler should look to God and stop looking at humans or the limiting circumstances of their day and age. Maybe the work of God through them is being limited by God and not man. Third, we should quickly turn back to God and, in humble submission, as a slave of Jesus Christ, surrender every hope and desire to His good will.
We lose all power and hope when we begin to look at man and forget to look at God. Did Moses need Pharaoh or the Israelites to recognize his gifts before he did God’s will in God’s power? Did Elijah need another human being to open a door for him to prophesy? Who could stop John the Baptist from becoming John the Baptist? Did Paul need others to give him money or invite him to their outreach so that he could begin preaching the gospel to the Gentiles? So what if George Whitefield couldn’t preach in a church? He went outside, and God took care of the rest.
No true spiritual gift can be stopped by man. That truth should encourage those who want to serve humbly and please God. No man. No woman. No circumstance. No work of Satan can stop the work that God wills to accomplish through you or me. All true spiritual gifts are from a supernatural source which cannot be contained or repressed by natural sources. Any weapon formed against the man or woman of God has as much a chance to hinder God’s work as Goliath did, stopping David.
If you hear someone grumbling about their spiritual gifts being ignored or hindered by refused opportunities, you can rest assured that the gift is not from God.