You Can Have the Meetings You Want

One night when I was going to a youth meeting, I felt the Lord ask me, "Which spiritual gift would you like Me to demonstrate tonight?"

I thought about it for a moment, because in previous meetings we'd already seen almost entire congregations filled with the Spirit and with joy (and laughter); we'd already heard many people spontaneously begin speaking with tongues; we'd seen some interpret the tongues; we'd heard the gift of prophecy; demons were cast out of many; and many were seeing visions.

So I picked one of the gifts which we hadn't seen a lot of yet:

"Discerning of spirits," I answered.

And I didn't tell anyone about my conversation with the Lord.

That night during the meeting, some of the youth started to huddle together in fear, like they were seeing something terrifying in the room. Their spiritual eyes were opened, and they said they could see demons and groups of demons in different parts of the house and near objects in the house.

One young person explained that there was a fierce-looking group of demons standing together on the stairway. Other youth said they saw it too.

Another demon was said to have been seen in another part of the lounge-room. In that part of the lounge room was a certain object. When we looked at the object, we noticed it had pictures of elephants on it.

I had to reassure the youth that they needn't be afraid of demons - demons are afraid of them, because of our authority in Christ Jesus.

The youth told the owners of the house what they saw. The owners were led to renounce things or to repent, as needed. It met a need in the household, and brought relief to their family.

It was all a practical lesson to us about a function of the gift of 'discerning of spirits'.

"...the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal...to another DISCERNING OF SPIRITS..." (I Cor.12:7,10).

God sometimes opens a person's spiritual eyes to see into the (usually unseen) realm of spirits.

On this occasion, they saw demons. Other times a person might see holy angels. Or they might even have a vision of the Lord. Or of people in heaven, perhaps. Activities in the unseen realm.

But it was also a lesson to me that we can have the types of manifestations of the Spirit we desire in a meeting; you can have the type of meetings you desire - as the Spirit wills. You can ask, and you shall receive (see Matthew 7:7).

"...ye have not, because ye ask not" (James 4:2).