CHAPTER 5 - Using Your Spiritual Gift
In Chapter 1 we discussed all the things that happen when you get saved and one of them was that God gives you a spiritual gift to use to help the body of believers that you have joined in Chapter 4.
7" Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." 1 Cor. 12:7, 1 Peter 4:10
These are different than talents or abilities that you had prior to being saved. Those can still be used to benefit the body but you need to be careful because those can make you proud and pride was Satan's downfall and can easily be ours. You see, spiritual gifts are something given supernaturally that wasn't you prior to being saved. That way God gets the glory not you. The Bible speaks of 13 different gifts active today which may or may not be exhaustive (there may be more not listed) It's important to realize that we are all to grow into all of these to a certain extent, but the person with these gifts will excel and thrive in their use. Here they are with a brief description.
Faith - willing to do the "impossible" for Jesus without much doubt
Discernment - acutely aware of what is true and what is false
Wisdom & Knowledge - giving wise counsel to people either from the Bible or from understanding God's will as it applies to the situation
Evangelism - looking to share the gospel with everyone they meet probably with better success than the rest of us
Prophecy - speaking forth the truth of God usually meant to influence people in a black and white way not caring if it offends
Teaching - skillfully instructing people from the Bible in a winsome and effective way
Encouragement - coming alongside someone to help them not give up
Mercy - the passion to help the needy whether it be the poor, widows, shut - ins, etc.
Shepherding - the desire to oversee and be responsible for believers so they continue to grow and not stray
Serving - when there is a job that needs to be done, usually a thankless one, you always want to assist.
Giving - if your basic needs are met you are willing to give every other cent away to God's work
Administration - you like to be the CEO of the body.
1 Corinthians 12 compares the fellowship of believers to a body. If you have a gift and you aren't using it, it's like a body missing an arm or leg for example. A lot of people will say, "I can worship the Lord without going to Church". We looked at the fallacy of that in Chapter 4 but you can also see that if you do that, some body is missing an ear or eye because you aren't there.
The question is, "How do I know what my spiritual gift is?" The best way is to look for a need in your church and fill it. You may really flounder in that position and really not enjoy it but give it time. If you don't grow into it that is probably not your gift. Try something else until you find something that you like and are getting good at. Chances are others will notice your giftings and affirm you.
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