TD Jakes - Are You Seeking His Fruit or His Gifts?
We spent a lot of time, especially charismatics and Pentecostals, talking about the gifts of the Spirit. Oh my God, the gifts of the Spirit! Oh, and they spoke; it’s the Spirit God gave utterance, and they prophesied, and I’m a prophet—everybody’s a prophet now! Everybody’s a prophet. Everybody the prophet! If they’re not a prophet, they’re an apostle. I won’t even get into tearing all of that down or turning all that up. I’m not saying there aren’t any prophets or that there aren’t any apostles, but everybody is not an apostle, and everybody is not a prophet. But once we hear something, we just reach out and grab it. We don’t even have to know what it means, and we take it in.
Now I’m a prophetess, and I’m a prophet, and all of that. They’re all running around seeking the gifts of the Spirit. They’re holding up the service for an hour and a half, walking around speaking in tongues and waiting for somebody to interpret, or they’re interpreting themselves. All of that is biblical. All of that about the gifts of the Spirit operate; if you read Corinthians, you’ll begin to understand that the gifts of the Spirit do exist. There are nine spiritual gifts, and we understand that they operate in the discernment of spirits. «Y’all not people, I got the gift of discernment; I knew he wasn’t nothing.» No, no, no, no, you’re not discerning people; you’re discerning spirits. The gift of discernment is the discernment of spirits.
Anyway, you go through all of these gifts of the Spirit, and they’re important. But Paul says in Corinthians that if we have all of that, and we have all knowledge, and we do not have love, we are nothing. He said that between the gifts and the love, the fruit is going to outweigh the gifts every time. Oh, this is good! Yet you don’t even hear anybody walking around talking about, «I have all the fruit of the Spirit; all the fruit of the Spirit is operating in my life.» You don’t see it on anybody’s Instagram site; you don’t see it on their business cards. We use the titles of apostle, prophetess, chief apostle, and all of that. Everybody’s running after gifts. «I’m a prophet; you know I’m a prophet! I work miracles; I have the gift of miracles; I have the gift of faith; oh, I have the gift of tongues!»
We see all that kind of stuff, but we don’t see anybody bragging about the fruits of the Spirit. But Paul says that if we have all of the gifts and we have all of the knowledge, and we do not have love, we are nothing. Now, about faith, hope, and charity: the greatest of these three is love. Oh, that’s so good! That’s so good! That’s so good! So if you never discern the spirit, if you never prophesied, if you didn’t do anything but love people, you would have the greatest thing you could have—love! The greatest thing you could have is love, and that’s the very thing nobody’s interested in. It’s not marketing to us; it’s not talked about. We don’t get any talk about it; nobody preaches about it; nobody teaches us about it. Nobody teaches us patience, temperance, and long-suffering and just how to be kind.
Some of the meanest people have the biggest titles. The greatest thing you can have is love! Now, about faith, hope, and charity: the greatest of the three is love. Everybody’s snatching for faith; everybody’s talking about holding on to hope. Everybody’s after faith and hope, and that’s good. I need them too, but the greatest of the three is love. And Paul says if I don’t have love, I am nothing—nothing! Not an apostle, not a prophet, not a pastor, not a teacher, not a CEO, not an executive, not a billionaire, not a millionaire. If I don’t have love, I don’t have anything—no stocks, no bonds, no annuities, no summer homes. He says if you don’t get you some love, you’re broke!
Today, we’re talking about the fruits of the Spirit and the importance of the fruits of the Spirit and how vital it is that you have them in your life. You’d be amazed what it would do to your ministry if you spoke the truth in love. You’d be surprised what a dash of love would do to your service. You’ve got all kinds of head knowledge but no kind of heart knowledge. You’d be surprised how much more effective you would be if you let your heart into it and let your recreated Christ-like heart infiltrate how you lead that church, that business, that ministry. I’m talking to you—real talk. You’d be surprised how it would affect your prayer life if you had the fruits of the Spirit operating in your life, and you stopped praying out of your own selfish agenda, trying to bend the will of God to your ambition.
You’re not interested in doing the will of God; you’re interested in getting God to make what you want happen, happen. You are a God manipulator. Stop saying you’re an intercessor. You’re not an intercessor; you’re a God manipulator because when you really start praying, you get like Jesus and say, «Father, if it be Thy will, let this bitter cup pass from me,» and then you correct yourself and say, «No, not my will, but Thy will be done!» God is not here to serve you; you are here to serve Him! So it’s not about your plans. They’re all messed up, and COVID-19 messed up all my plans too. So what?
I don’t care; it doesn’t matter, because if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. You’ll never hear me sitting up here arguing about something that I planned not going forth. I only want to last in the areas that God ordains to happen. If God wills for it to happen, it will happen, and if God never wills it, it’ll never happen, and I don’t even care because I don’t want anything that God doesn’t want for me. I don’t want a friend that God doesn’t want for me. I don’t want a house that God doesn’t want for me. I don’t want a dream that God doesn’t want. I only want what God has for me.
How about you? This is a result of spending hours with the Spirit of God, changing the spirit of Thomas. Oh yeah, my flesh needs a lot of work; it always has and still does. But I’m telling you it starts in my spirit. If I can get my spirit right, if I can love right, if I can have peace right, if I can have joy right, I won’t have so many thirsts and cravings and frustrations for everything else. It starts with the fruit of the Spirit, and I can’t find anybody who’s preaching about it. Nobody is talking about it, but we need it like we never needed it before!