Spiritual Gifts - Part I

Questions we have:

• What is God's will for my life?
• How can I know God's purpose for my life?
• How can I find fulfillment in God's world?

These are the kinds of questions people will ask when they come to the realization that there is more to life than just enjoying themselves, and that there must be a way to impact the lives of others while they are on this earth. We all get to that point in our lives where we begin to think that there must be something more. This is why we come to the church and to Christ in the first place – we have finally listened to the voice of God speaking to us, telling us not to be like everyone else but to be ourselves and to be like Christ.

But now we are in the church and we have to wonder – why are we here? What was God’s plan bringing me here? Well, today and next week, we will be discussing this and seeing if we can figure out what we are supposed to be doing with our lives.

Too often, we recognize that God has a plan for us, but we don’t know what that plan is or what we need to do to fulfill that plan. Here is the answer: God has given each and every one of His children Spiritual Gifts. In fact, more than that, He has given each and every one of us His own Spirit. The Holy Spirit, God Himself, lives within each one of us who have accepted Him and given our lives to Him. The gifts of the Spirit are the manifestations of the Spirit living within us. So to be technical, He hasn’t really given us Spiritual Gifts – He has given us Himself!

That said, this manifestation of the Spirit within us, results in our being able to perform certain tasks that we would not be able to do without Him. These abilities are what we refer to as the Spiritual Gifts. These are not abilities that we have without the Spirit of God within us. Those are what we might call our God-given talent. Everyone has talents; but a talent is not the same as a Spiritual Gift. There is a difference between someone who has the talent to play the guitar and does so in his own power (usually for his own purposes) and someone who really doesn't have the talent to play the guitar but yet plays beautifully because the Holy Spirit within him enables him to so.

So why the focus on Spiritual Gifts? Well there are many reasons – here are four of them:

• Prioritization. We know what to put first in our lives. We stop going against the grain. We stop trying to do everything. We know our priorities, and concentrate on those.
• Saying “No”. When we know our gifts, we can say "no", because we are saying "yes" to God's will for our lives. When we know how God has gifted us, we can recognize our job in His church and we become free to do those things and not necessarily everything that needs someone’s attention.
• No more burnout. When we do too much for too many and care too little, we often burnout. When people burnout, it is usually because they are doing things that are outside the gifting that God has given them.
• Feeling good. That’s what happens when you accomplish something that you know God has called you to. Even better, is the feeling you get when you do something you never thought you could. That’s what happens when you work within the gifting that God has given you, using that gift to perform more than you ever could yourself!

So now that we understand the need for Spiritual Gifts and the advantages we receive from them, let’s delve a little deeper and see what the Bible tells us about these gifts. We will read about these in four specific passages, though depending on your personal preferences, there may be other passages that speak to you about the Gifts of the Spirit.

• Romans 12:3-8
• 1 Corinthians 12: 4-12, 18, 27-31
• Ephesians 4:7-16 (11-16 specifically)
• 1 Peter 4: 10,11

What do these passages tell us about our Spiritual Gifts?

• 1 Peter 4:10
• Every Christian has at least one Spiritual Gift
• Using our gifts imparts Gods grace
• Romans 12
• The gifts we have are from God, by His grace, not of ourselves
• We are to use whatever gift God has given us – even if to us, it seems insignificant – and even if He hasn’t yet given to us the full amount of the gift
• 1 Corinthians 12
• Spiritual Gifts are to build up the Body
• No one has every gift
• God decides which gift to give each person
• There is no gift that everyone has
• Gifts are to be used with love

Send mail to david@TheArkNY.org with questions about the church or comments about this site.
Last modified: Sept 23, 2007