It is possible to enter into the operation of a spiritual gift by faith. For example, the Bible says that if there is no interpretation of tongues, a person can pray to operate in the interpretation of tongues. Nevertheless, faith works in line with the word of God. What is contrary to the word of God cannot be of faith. The gifts of the Spirit are available to someone who has been baptized or filled with the Spirit, and not to someone who has only been born again or justified by faith. To operate in the gifts of the Spirit, he needs to also receive the Holy Spirit.
A person who has only been reborn or justified can obtain anything that has been promised to faith and the name of Jesus. For example, any Christian is able to heal the sick by faith in the name of Jesus, but someone who does not have the baptism of the Spirit would not operate in the gifts of healing. That is, he can heal the sick by faith and by the name of Jesus, but not by the gifts of the Spirit. But the baptism of the Spirit is itself promised to faith, so any Christian can obtain it by faith, and then this would be the door to enter into the gifts of the Spirit. A Christian can heal the sick by faith before he receives the Holy Spirit, but after he receives the Holy Spirit, he can also heal the sick by the gifts of the Spirt.
A gift that functions as a regular and permanent ministry is different from working miracles by faith or by isolated manifestations of the Spirit. The Bible does not only refer to spiritual gifts as such, but it also refers to the gifts as ministries. It teaches that each person has his place in the body of Christ, and that in a corporate situation, we need one another. It says that these ministries are given by the Spirit “as he wills,” and that God has arranged each person in the body “as he chose.”
If you have received the Holy Spirit, you can do the things that an apostle can do by your faith, but you cannot become an apostle or compel God to give you a certain ministry by your faith. Through faith and diligence, you can improve your performance and effectiveness in teaching, in evangelism, in healing, and in any function that a Christian is supposed to do, but you cannot become a teacher or evangelist by faith and diligence alone. You can perform any function by faith because you are a Christian, but you cannot decide your own ministry by faith, because God is the one who decides your place in the body of Christ.
If you have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, then you have the potential to receive visions and dreams, because this is promised to you. You can indeed enter into these experiences by faith. However, unlike healing, where the need and the solution are obvious, you cannot force God to say something when there is nothing to say, or if it is not the right time to say it, or if you are not the right person to receive the information.
When a child died, the mother came to Elisha, and Elisha said that the Lord had not shown him the problem. He did not find out until he entered the room where the dead child was. Even with Elisha’s advanced prophetic ministry, God could withhold information from him. You can enter into the prophetic in a general sense by faith, and then you will see and hear when there is something for you to receive.
There are false teachers that claim Christians can “activate” the prophetic so that they can operate on demand, but their methods are identical to occult techniques. The results they obtain might not come from God, but might come from demons, or from the perception of the human spirit. The outcome is a curse rather than a blessing.
People are attracted to this kind of doctrine for two reasons. First, they suffer from feeling lost in this world. They need direction and assurance. Second, they desire to feel spiritual and to be admired as spiritual. The solution is to establish our lives and thoughts on the word of God, and learn who we are to God and to the world because of our faith in Jesus Christ. This develops direction and assurance in us. And it develops confidence in our place before God.