Exposition
The people around us, our friends and family, can affect every aspect of our lives, including the manifestation of our spiritual gifts. We must therefore be careful of the people in our lives so that we don’t make dormant the gift of the Holy Spirit in us, but rather strongly manifest them.
In our reading, there was a group of prophets and teachers at Antioch, waiting on God through fasting, prayer and worship. In that fellowship, the Holy Spirit directed that Saul and Barnabas be set apart for a special assignment. They heeded this and subsequent directives and wherever they went, the gifts in them operated mightily to bring glory to God. We need to involve ourselves in the right fellowship to activate our gifts. Such fellowships must be those that whet our appetite to want to know more about the Lord, grow in Him and bring glory to Him. It must not be one that seeks personal glory, does not discuss Christ-like issues or one that gossips or focuses on worldly issues. If we find ourselves in the wrong company, they take our attention from God and so we will not be able to receive the right direction from the Holy Spirit for the manifestation of the gifts.
God speaks through the right Christian fellowship. Associate with likeminded God-seeking people and your soul and spirit shall be aligned with that of God for you to be empowered and led to express the spiritual gifts.