It is quite easy to be carried away by people’s display of gifts and talents particularly those alien to us. The ironic thing is that people may be exercising gifts with a good measure of results to match when their spiritual life is already downhill. This can be so because the Bible teaches us that the gifts and the callings of God are without repentance. The danger is that people who are out of alignment with God but are still effective with their gifts will hardly take the necessary time to make things right. They are likely to think that if God is not with them why are they getting results?

“A choice to walk in personal holiness will command such victory over the forces of Satan and his devils. As far as the faith walk goes, holiness is not optional; it is the pathway to becoming invincible to the gates of hell.”

Something comes before our charisma; and that is character. Charisma is about our gifts, but character is about Christlikeness. Stressing the importance of character, Robert Murray McCheyne said: “It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.’’ The same man wrote to his friend, Reverend W. C. Burns: “I feel there are two things it is impossible to desire with sufficient ardor—personal holiness, and the honor of Christ in the salvation of souls.’’ It wasn’t the power of Jesus that made the devils tremble; it was His holiness that they found unsettling. A choice to walk in personal holiness will command such victory over the forces of Satan and his devils. As far as the faith walk goes, holiness is not optional; it is the pathway to becoming invincible to the gates of hell.