A Power Gift…Terry Dashner……....Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013
More than 50 years ago at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a young sociology professor assigned his class to a city slum to interview 200 boys. They were instructed to predict boys’ futures on basis of their findings.
Shocked at what they found in slums, students estimated that 90 percent of boys interviewed would someday serve time in prison.
Twenty-five years passed. The same professor asked another class to try to locate survivors of 200 boys and compare what had happened. Of 180 of original boys located, only four had ever been to jail.
Why had predictions not turned out? A common denominator was sought in their lives, some value or influence that may have marked difference. Through more interviews, it was found that over 100 of men remembered having same high-school teacher, a Miss O’Rourke, who had been a tremendous influence on them at time. After a long search, Sheila O’Rourke was found in a nursing home in Memphis, now 70 years old. When asked for her explanation, she was puzzled. “All I can say,” she concluded, “is that I loved every one of them.”
Many times believers ask me how to determine spiritual gifts. Believers want to know what their gift is to develop and use it. That’s wonderful. But, I think we miss point of “giftedness.” God has gifted us by His Holy Spirit. That is true; however, many believers want “power gifts” —miracles, healings, signs and wonders. May I share with you greatest gift a believer may possess?