Spiritual Gifts Without the Spirit: How to Tell the Difference
🌿 Gifts Remain, But the Spirit Can Leave
“The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” — John 6:63
How can you tell a gift that still carries the Spirit of God from a gift that is running on its own? Many believers have never been taught to ask that question, and many pulpits, prayer lines and prayer closets are paying for it. This teaching is about the language God actually hears, the gifts that stay after the Spirit steps back, and the quiet damage that hurt and offence do to the one who carries them.
On this page
- Which language does God actually hear?
- Why the gift stays when the Spirit steps back
- Fruit, not gifts: what Jesus said in Matthew 7
- Test the spirits
- Body, soul and spirit must work together
- Refuse to be offended
- Nature hates an empty space
- Soul-led or Spirit-led: the difference side by side
- Practical application: keep the Spirit in your speech and your gifts
- Prayer
🗣️ Which Language Does God Actually Hear?
Many Christians today use the language of the street to pray. It is the same language used to gossip, to tell stories, to do business and to argue politics in town. It is mostly the language we sing in. People also use it to rebuke, and it can sound smoother than the language of the Bible. “Jesus is Lord, I am telling you, Jesus is Lord, yes, amen.” Every word is correct, the voice is confident, and still nothing moves. Today’s language, on its own, cannot hear from God, cannot speak as God wills, cannot create and cannot deliver. You are only talking to the air.
So the question is simple. Which language are you using for communion with God? God hears the language of the Bible. And the language of the Bible is not trapped on the written page. Prophet TB Joshua said it plainly:
“The living Word is not in the book nor is it on the written page. The living Word is in the lips of the believers.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Paul describes the same thing when he says the message is close to you, on your lips and in your heart. The belief in your heart is released by faith out of your mouth.
“Salvation that comes from trusting Christ, which is the message we preach, is very close at hand. It is on your lips and in your heart. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” — Romans 10:8-10 (NLT)
This is why there is power in your mouth. But notice what the power depends on. It is not the vocabulary. It is the Spirit behind the vocabulary. In Acts 19, seven sons of Sceva copied the exact words Paul used and tried to drive a demon out in the name of Jesus. The evil spirit answered them back.
“I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” — Acts 19:15 (NLT)
The words were identical. The speaker was not. That is the difference between today’s language and the language of the Bible. One is a sound. The other is spirit and life, because the Spirit of God is speaking through a yielded person. Paul says the same about his own ministry: “we speak words given to us by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:13). If the Spirit is not the source of what we say, we may be loud, but we are not heard.
🎁 Why the Gift Stays When the Spirit Steps Back
In the world today, Christians focus on gifts more than character, yet character is everything in the Kingdom of God. Here is a truth many have never been told. When someone begins to misbehave, God does not take back the gift. The Spirit of God simply steps away.
“For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.” — Romans 11:29 (KJV)
God does not repent of what He has given. So a person can keep operating in the gift, perhaps now with some manipulation added in certain areas, because the anointing that once overflowed is no longer overflowing. That overflow is the work of the Spirit of God. Without it, what remains is real ability with nothing behind it.
Remember where our personality, our character, our gifts and our disposition live. They live in the soul. A man can be gifted, and can operate in the latent power of the soul, while the Spirit of God is no longer in it. The gift stays in the soul realm even when the Spirit leaves. He can keep using it, but the spirit behind it is no longer the Spirit of God.
“In order to maintain God’s gift, we need God’s character.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Scripture gives us two sobering pictures of this.
Samson: strength without the Lord
“He thought, ‘I will do as before and shake myself free.’ But he did not realize the Lord had left him.” — Judges 16:20 (NLT)
Samson still had the muscles, the reputation and the habit of winning. What he no longer had was the Lord. The most frightening line in that verse is not that God left. It is that Samson did not know. He kept moving in his gift, so everything felt normal.
Saul: a crown without the Spirit
“Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and the Lord sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear.” — 1 Samuel 16:14 (NLT)
Saul stayed on the throne for years afterward. He still gave orders, still led armies and still stood before the people as king. The office remained. The Spirit did not. And another spirit came in to take His place.
Rise up to the occasion, child of God. Many have been Sunday school Christians for twenty years. It is always difficult to grow, but character is everything in the Kingdom. To many of us gifts are everything, and we forget that God does not take His gifts back. It is the Spirit who leaves, and another spirit can come and minister through you using those same gifts. That is why Jesus warned that many will stand before Him and say, “Lord, we prophesied in your name.”
Here is the other side of the coin. Everybody is gifted. You are gifted too. If you doubt it, it is probably because you have not discovered your gift yet. But you have one. So the goal is not to chase a bigger gift. The goal is to follow character, and to carry the gift you already have under the Spirit.
🍎 Fruit, Not Gifts: What Jesus Said in Matthew 7
Jesus did not tell us to identify people by their gifts. He told us to identify them by their fruit.
“Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” — Matthew 7:20-23 (NLT)
Read it slowly. Nobody in that passage is accused of lacking power. They prophesied, they cast out demons, they performed many miracles. The problem is not the gift. The problem is that the person behind it was never known by the Lord, and their life broke His laws.
What is the will of God, then? Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive one another, just as you have been forgiven. Be patient with one another, as Christ showed His patience toward you.
Now consider how this can happen. If a person is ministering by a false spirit, you can pray for somebody and a demon can leave, and the crowd shouts, and the person on the platform knows deep down that this is a performance. The demon left, but the power was not from God. This is what Jesus meant when He said some would say “I cast out demons in your name” and hear back “I don’t know you.”
So what are the actions that show who we are? Jesus gave us the list in Mark 7:
“And then he added, ‘It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.’” — Mark 7:20-22 (NLT)
Slander, abusive speech, pride and envy: these are the true measure. Not how loudly someone prays, but what comes out of them when they are offended.
🔍 Test the Spirits
God does not leave us without tools. He gave us 1 John 4 so that we could test the spirits. He gave us Jeremiah 29 so that we could be careful about people who prophesy in His name when He has not sent them. He gave us the Scriptures to tell right from wrong, and light from darkness.
“Dear friends, don’t believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.” — 1 John 4:1 (NLT)
Many of us have a soul that is functioning without our spirit. That is why John says not every spirit is from God. And the testing is not only for church. There are false apostles, false evangelists and false businessmen, too. False everything. Many people have handed money to someone who promised to sell them a house, or took payment for a car that did not exist. Every spirit a person speaks by must be tested, whether in the church, in business or in a career.
The trouble is that you cannot see a spirit with your physical eye. What you see is a body. You see a smile, a suit, a title and a voice. So the Bible tells us to test where the spirit comes from, not to admire how it looks. Paul even warns that this can be dressed up nicely:
“Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” — 2 Corinthians 11:14 (NLT)
The name of Jesus is above every name. It is very attractive, and everybody seems to believe in it. So Satan has to use that name to pass himself off. This is happening in many places of worship, in businesses and in many careers: people speaking in the name of God while another spirit speaks through them.
One test: where is the message coming from?
Many people sit and listen to a pastor who is wounded or embittered because another pastor is doing better, and who uses the pulpit to express that anger. People of God, when a pastor preaches according to what is trending on the internet, he is not speaking by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit. He is speaking from himself. The Holy Spirit speaks as He wills, not according to trending issues. We are vessels, used by God to carry the mind of God to His worshippers. When the Spirit of God is absent, the pulpit becomes an open door that the devil can use, because what is being said is now based on feelings and emotions.
Another test: is it consistent?
If a man’s preaching is based on the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, it remains true forever. God is infallible, so there is no need to correct yourself some years later. Today we see pastors who say one thing and mean another when confronted, and who depend on other people to defend and explain what they meant. The Holy Spirit’s word is consistent. He does nothing without His word. That is how you know a person led by the Spirit of God: by the consistency of their words.
Faith belongs to the heart of man. Faith is not a feeling. When we base our assessment on what we hear, what we read, what we feel or how our circumstances look, we are being controlled by forces outside us, and a person controlled from outside can never be constant. Such a man may be a Christian who is still controlled by satanic devices.
“When we are led by our intellect, feelings and emotions, we may confess faith in the Word but keep denying it in action.” — Prophet TB Joshua
We need to be very careful. If you or your pastor grieves the Spirit of God, another spirit can take over and keep working in the name of God.
🧬 Body, Soul and Spirit Must Work Together
Why does all of this happen? To answer that, we need to look at how God made us.
“Man is a spirit, has a soul and lives in a body.” — Prophet TB Joshua
That is who we all are. When we die, the body is buried and the spirit returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7). But while we are on earth, the Bible keeps telling us that these three must work together every day, until Jesus comes. That is the purpose of God’s Word, to bring the triune nature of man into agreement.
“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (NLT)
Here is the order. God speaks to your spirit. Romans 8:16 says that His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. The Holy Spirit tells us when we are wrong, tells us we are children of God and tells us that what we are doing is good. That is the role of our spirit. Our spirit receives the message from God’s Spirit and delivers it to our soul. Our soul passes it to our body, and the body obeys.
The soul is the facilitator. It is where our personality lies, where our character lies, where our spiritual gifts lie and where our disposition lies. Everything God gives you in your spirit has to pass through your soul before it can be released into your life and into other people’s lives.
So what happens when the soul is wounded? Each time you become offended or hurt, you grieve the Spirit. He steps back, and the soul remains by itself. Whatever you receive from God in your spirit cannot be facilitated and released. You can still receive. What you receive cannot be passed on.
🛑 Refuse to Be Offended
This is why Jesus said:
“God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.” — Luke 7:23 (NLT)
And why Paul wrote:
“And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” — Ephesians 4:30-32 (NLT)
Notice where Paul puts the warning about grieving the Spirit. It sits right beside bitterness, anger, harsh words and slander. It is the offended heart that grieves Him.
“We resist the devil by not becoming offended.” — Prophet TB Joshua
When you are hurt or offended, your spirit and your soul are no longer working together. You can still receive from God in your spirit, but because the soul is the facilitator, what you receive will not be released. So when you are hurt, wounded or offended, do not trust your dreams. Test them, and do not act on them. Look at what usually happens. People hurt you, and then you dream: “I saw him dying. I saw him in an accident.” Everything about them is bad, bad, bad. That is not heaven talking to you. That is Satan feeding a wounded soul that is cut off from its spirit.
The same goes for your speaking in tongues. When you are in pain and bitter, it can be dangerous, not only to you but to your hearers. There is one exception. When your dreams and your tongues are pressing you toward repentance, you can trust them. Otherwise, forgive them. Release them. Let them go. Forget about it, even when you are in pain.
The same applies to a pastor. When he is offended and expresses that offence from the pulpit, you are in trouble just for being under that roof. Cover yourself with the blood of Jesus, because, in the words of Apostle David Poonyane, “a wounded soul pollutes the purity of God’s word, not only in his own life but in the lives of those listening.”
Three people who refused to be offended
Joseph had every reason to be bitter. His brothers sold him, a false accusation put him in prison and a friend forgot him there. Yet when his brothers stood before him years later, he said:
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.” — Genesis 50:20 (NLT)
An offended man could not have said that. A man whose spirit and soul were still working together could.
Jesus was nailed to a cross by the very people He came to save:
“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” — Luke 23:34 (NLT)
Stephen followed the same pattern, even as stones struck him down:
“Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” — Acts 7:60 (NLT)
Three people, three situations of real pain, and one response. They refused to carry the offence, and the Spirit of God kept flowing through them to the very end.
🌱 Nature Hates an Empty Space
Nature cannot contain a vacuum. If you do not plant your yard, grass grows. If you do not plant vegetables and fruit, anything comes up. If you do not use the ground you were given, something else will use it without asking your permission. That is why many people who are not planting in their yards keep fighting weeds. They ask, “Why did this thorn come? I never planted thorns.” You did not have to. You only had to leave the space empty.
The spirit works the same way. Jesus described it in Matthew 12:
“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.” — Matthew 12:43-45 (NLT)
The house was clean and in order. What it lacked was an occupant. If you do not use your spirit to work together with your soul and body, another spirit will take over. Your real self, your spirit, is grieved, and another spirit comes and forms a union with your soul and body. That is where we see rebellion everywhere: in homes, in churches, in businesses and in nations.
An empty life is not a neutral life. Something will fill it. Either the Spirit of God fills your spirit, soul and body with His Word and His fruit, or something else will move in and use the gifts you thought were yours.
📊 Soul-Led or Spirit-Led: The Difference Side by Side
| Speaking and ministering from the soul alone | Speaking and ministering by the Spirit | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of the message | Feelings, emotions, trending topics, personal opinion | The Holy Spirit’s suggestion and the written Word |
| What the gift produces | Display, manipulation, applause | Fruit that matches the character of Christ (Matthew 7:20) |
| How the words hold up | Change when pressure or opinion changes, and need others to explain them | Consistent over time, because God does not need correcting |
| Response to hurt | Bitterness, dreams of judgment on those who offended, anger from the pulpit | Forgiveness, release and repentance (Ephesians 4:31-32) |
| Relationship to prayer | Many words, pleasant sound, nothing moves | The language of the Bible on the lips of a yielded believer |
| End result | “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23) | “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21) |
✅ Practical Application: Keep the Spirit in Your Speech and Your Gifts
- Examine the language you use for communion with God. Is it the language of the Word, spoken from the heart, or the language of habit and performance? Pray the Scriptures back to Him until His words become yours.
- Value character above your gift. Ask not only “What can I do?” but “Who am I when nobody is clapping?” Gifts are given freely. Character is built.
- Judge every voice by its fruit. Include your own voice. Look at the actions Jesus listed in Mark 7 and ask whether slander, pride or abusive language are showing up in what you say.
- Test every message against Scripture. Whether it comes from a pastor, a prophet, a post or a business partner, measure it by 1 John 4:1, not by how impressive it sounds.
- Check whether your pastor’s message is consistent. The Holy Spirit’s word does not need to be explained away years later. Pay attention to a minister whose words keep changing depending on who is listening.
- Deal with offence the same day. Name it, release it and forgive. Do not take wounds to bed, because the soul that carries them is the soul that stops releasing what the spirit receives.
- Do not trust your dreams or tongues while you are bitter. Let only the ones that press you toward repentance guide you. Everything that points at the guilt of others, hold loosely and bring it to the Word.
- Plant your yard. Fill your day with Scripture, prayer and fellowship, so that nothing else can occupy the ground God gave you.
- Give yourself to repentance when you notice a drift. The Spirit is not a distant judge. He is the One who prompts the conscience, and He returns where He is welcomed.
🙏 Prayer
Father, I thank You for the gifts You have placed in me. Forgive me for every time I valued the gift above the Giver and the platform above my character. Teach me to speak the language of Your Word from a heart that is yielded to You. Search me for every offence I am carrying, and help me to forgive, release and let go. Let my spirit, my soul and my body work together in agreement with Your Spirit, so that nothing else can occupy the ground You gave me. Give me discernment to test every spirit, including my own. Keep me from using Your name without Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Good Morning 🌄 and PROSPER ✨ today!
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Related Teachings
Why God Values Your Character More Than Your Spiritual Gifts
Can the Holy Spirit Leave You?
Who Has Offended You and Whom Have You Offended?
Is Your Speech Profitable to Others? What Your Words Reveal About Your Heart
Who Is a Prophet? Understanding God’s True Spokesperson
Understanding Dreams and Familiar Faces
References
🌿 What Spirit Is Behind The Gift?
🌿 GOSW: What Spirit Is Behind The Gift?
Published by SpiritWorshipGen – A Generation of Spiritual Worshippers
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