But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (I Corinthians 12:31-13:2)

Last Saturday, a group of us gathered at Forks Road East United Church in Wainfleet, Ontario to prepare for a “Treasure Hunt.” For those of you who may not be familiar with the terminology, let’s demystify it with this definition from Kevin Dedmon, widely acknowledged as a pioneer in this form of outreach:

“A group of people (three to five per team) asks God for words of knowledge about people’s names, clothing, appearance and prayer need(s). They also get words of knowledge about locations and other unusual things. They write these down on a paper called their Treasure Map and go to the locations on their Map to find “treasures”…people who correspond in some way to the clues that the team has written down. When they find someone, they show him or her their map and ask if they can pray for him/her.”

When we first started doing Treasure Hunts last summer, we had two Bethel School of Ministry graduates, Taylor Woodburn & Melissa Egerter leading us through some Activation exercises before we broke up into teams and headed out on the hunt. This year, the responsibility fell on my shoulders. I vaguely recalled what we had done last summer, but, to be on the safe side, messaged Taylor and Melissa on Facebook to provide guidance.

Here is the first part of Taylor’s instructions: Talk about how the main idea is love, then do a “Love Activation.” Have them get into groups of two, and one person focuses on receiving and person two focuses on giving love. Then break the love connection. Repeat by switching roles.

 

That is exactly how we began our Activation exercises. If it is true that “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5), then we simply needed to release that love from one heart to another.

It was exactly the right way to begin preparing for an Outreach. Since we had done Treasure Hunts before, we knew that once we got out there and started identifying our “treasures”, accurate prophetic words would flow, healings would be the order of the day and commitments to Jesus would follow.

However, if we were to embark on a Treasure Hunt focusing only on the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit flowing through us and getting people saved, we could be missing the boat! As Paul reminds us in the passage quoted above from I Corinthians, without love, the gifts don’t mean a blessed thing.

The starting point is love. The force that carries us through the outreach is love. The ministry that happens and the decisions that follow are all undergirded by love. That is why we started out with the Love Activation.

Dear DWOD friend, please bear in mind that as you advance toward your destiny, demonstrating the supernatural in your daily life with signs, wonders and miracles following…you too will come against attempts by the enemy to offer resistance and make you respond out of your flesh. You could be tempted to retaliate, take offense, spew venom, hurl insults, act out of spite…you get the idea.

The greatest proof of the supernatural active in you in moments such as these is how you resist the temptation to respond according to the flesh and choose instead to live by the Spirit.

That response will always be one of pure, unadulterated love, the kind of love that Jesus showed everywhere He went. And that is as supernatural as it gets!