But the point remains; that the reason Jesus could not perform any miracles in His hometown was because of faith being absent. We are not greater than our Lord Jesus, and so we will also not see the gifts of the Spirit manifested among us if there is no faith present for those gifts to be made manifest. And so, the examples we have looked at in this section clearly show us that when faith is absent, the gifts of the Spirit are not manifested. There are certain churches and ministries however, where supernatural manifestations occur without any faith toward God being exercised. It happens in their meetings that members of the congregation, while seated and listening to the minister speaking about no subject in particular, are overcome by some form of supernatural power that comes upon them completely unexpectedly, thus causing them to react in various ways, either through laughter or shaking or some other form of physical manifestations. Those meetings are not displaying the power of the Holy Spirit however, as no faith is being exercised by the recipients of that power.
Michael E.B. Maher
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