I observed that most believers in our generation often measure spirituality and maturity with giftedness. There is an assumption that once a man is gifted with any spiritual gift, he is mature and very spiritual. The problem with this mentality is that it makes people follow blindly.
The moment they come under someone who manifest the gift of the Spirit, they don't mind the fruit his life produces and they take what that person says as law and even pattern their lives after such a person. The believe is that if God is not pleased with the person, why is he gifted? They think the manifestation of the gift is a divine validation of his life.
This is why there is always blind obedience around gifted people. What they say becomes law.No one is checking to see if what they say aligns with scriptures. I have seen gifted preachers take advantage of ladies. The aphrodisiac of some women is gifted men. The believe is that they can't be wrong.
People who think this way are using the wrong metric to judge the acceptability of man's action before God. Let's examine the Corinthian church. In the opening text, Paul says, "Now you have every spiritual gift you need..."
This church was not lacking in any spiritual gift. They had it all. However, as gifted as they were, carnality was their emblem. Of all the churches under Paul's apostolic oversight, they gave Paul much problem due to their carnality yet they had all the spiritual gifts.
In 1 Corinthians 3:1, Paul spoke to them saying, "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ".
In fact, this church had strange practices within her that was shameful, something that was not common among worldly people: a young man slept with his step mother.
1 Corinthians 5:1-2 (TPT) says, "It’s been widely reported that there is gross sexual immorality among you—the kind of immorality that’s so revolting it’s not even tolerated by the social norms of unbelievers. Are you proud of the fact that one of your men is having sex with his stepmother? Shouldn’t this heartbreaking scandal bring you to your knees in tears? You must remove the offender from among you!".
It was a sectarian church where the people were divided along loyalty lines. Some were for Paul and others for Apollos( 1 Cor 1:12). When they came to the communion table, they got drunk(1 Cor 11:20). Despite all these, the gifts manifested in this church.
The point I am making here is that gift is not a measure of spirituality. If we are to define who a spiritual man is the bible way, it is that man who lives a life that is pleasing to God. Don't queue behind anyone because of gift alone, check the fruit.
Men lacking the fruit of the spirit but possessing gifts can easily corrupt the soul. We humans have the tendency to be attracted to performance and the performer not minding what God thinks about the person. We must exercise caution here so we won't be led astray.
