Spiritual Gifts

When we accept Jesus we are all given a Spiritual gift and we should use it. The gifts vary but all are useful and needed in the church.

There are several listings of the various Spiritual gifts included in the Scriptures. Just a few are Romans 12, Ephesians 4, I Corinthians 13-15, and elsewhere.

I don’t really have column space to go into a detailed analysis of each and every Spiritual gift, how to properly use them and so forth. But I will say that a ministry that is being led by the Lord and will bear fruit is one that functions according to whatever gift and calling God gives. This is a ministry based on abiding in the Lord and seeking after Him. Our gifts are given at the moment one passes from death to life in Christ. Our mission is one of discovering what our particular gift or gifts happen to be.

How do you discover your gifts? It has been my experience that sometimes it is just something that falls into place in the natural course of things. It is not something we “seek” or take a psychology minded skills assessment test to determine our “talents” or “natural ability”. We discover our gifts by simply seeking after the Lord and walking through the doors the Lord opens more often than not.

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

This verse from Ephesians sure applies to me. Personally, I have a habit of stumbling into open doors by being available or willing and then doing my best to seek the Lord's leading.

Have I tried things before and found out that was for certain not my talent or calling, yes. But often in these times it is something that I want to do or think I would be good at only to find out in hindsight that I was operating in the flesh.

For example, my professional career involves substantial experience in finance, tax law and accounting. But the odd thing is every time I have served on church finance committees or things of that nature I literally hate every minute of it. These positions are a burden of unimaginable proportions and not enjoyable at all. Instead of being a blessing they always feel more like a curse. That is because in those situations I am relying on my professional abilities and not on the Lord. This is an area where I am trained in a secular sense but it is not my Spiritual gift. I am often recruited for such things because people assume I would “be a natural” for the position but the Lord doesn’t want us where we are “comfortable” He wants us where we are relying on Him.

Usually if I fall into something or an opportunity for ministry falls into my lap it is later that someone else will say, “man you really have a natural ability for this” while I am still thinking I am totally not qualified. But thinking I am totally not qualified tends to keep me relying on the Lord so that is not such a bad thing.

Often times we discover gifts by accident or just over the course of time with experience and growth.

For example, many have told me I have a gift of being able to discern things. To be honest, a lot of times I just don’t really see that but if people want to believe such a thing then I guess that is ok by me.

But then I think back and wonder has there been times this would appear to have been true? I can think of one time that I was at the church I attended back in high school. The pastor and the church secretary were there eating lunch and something about the way they were talking and looking at each other just seemed “off” to me. I dismissed it thinking no way, you must just be silly or imagining things or something. At the time I was about 17 years old, immature in every way and had no clue about Spiritual gifts or insight that the Lord sometimes gives.

In hindsight, I sure wish I had pulled that pastor aside and had some frank talk with him about abiding in Jesus and repenting. Several months later it was exposed that the pastor and this woman were sleeping together when the pastor’s wife caught them.

Would it have made a difference if I had spoken the truth in love to this pastor before he was caught? Maybe not since he would likely have just lied and denied keeping in the very typical M.O. of a cheater. But then again if he had realized it was the Lord sending him a message via some young punk it just might have gotten his attention. However, we will never know because I was too immature or scared to speak up when God showed me something. I would sure think a spouse would be more willing to forgive you if you stopped something like this and confessed instead of them catching you. It just might have made a difference. Many times since then I have felt bad about not having spoken up. I have felt like I let that man down because when the truth came out it ran through his family that I was very close to like the black plague causing some to loose faith, teen pregnancy for one daughter, divorce, financial problems you name it.

And that is the real issue regarding why we should seek and discover our Spiritual gifts. We will miss out ourselves but worse yet is that our failures to recognize and use our gifts just might have an adverse affect on others.

An evangelist led most of us to the Lord. What if that evangelist had never discovered their gift and started using it?

Is there something you need to be seeking the Lord on then putting a gift into practice? You could well be having a negative impact on someone you know, perhaps even you.