What Are My Spiritual Gifts?

The study and understanding of spiritual gifts has always been a passion of mine. Spiritual gifts are God-given to those who are followers of Christ. It is true that each person needs to use the spiritual gifts that God has given so that the body of Christ is built up and strengthened.

Prophecy - speaking truth with faith
Serving - serving people like Christ
Exhortation - encouraging others
Giving - giving generously
Leadership - responsibility of leading others
Mercy - showing kindness towards others

My main spiritual gift is Exhortation. Exhortation is to call upon people to follow God’s truth. At times, my strength can easily become my weakness. I tend to over communicate when I speak at times. I’m learning that I am simply a messenger and that God will do the work in the hearts and not do it based upon how eloquent or passionate I am when I speak to people. My desire is to lift people out of their self-doubt or discouragement and seek to follow God with all of their heart. One of the ways I have begun to accomplish this is by spending more time in prayer before I speak or minister to people, so I am being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

My second spiritual gift is leadership. I thoroughly enjoy helping people get to reach their potential for Christ in their lives. The word leadership to me means to “guide” people into following God and seeking Him above all else. Leadership is an ongoing focus of leading people to a desired destination. Learning the difference between leading people and not pushing people to do something has been a process.

My lowest gift on the "test" is mercy. My wife is a mercy gift and I’m grateful for her to help balance me from focusing on the “right” things and to focus upon “how” I talk about what is right or wrong.  Mercy is being able to feel the pain of others and be sensitive to their needs. I plan to begin learning how to watch how I come across to others so that I can effectively show the love of Christ. I pray that I develop more mercy in my life to show to others and to my wife.

One of the most sobering thoughts is that many Christians are living their lives without the knowledge of the gifts God has blessed them with and they are not serving. It is the responsibility of the leaders in every church to equip and help people find their spiritual gifts to bring glory to God. I plan to focus a considerable part of my life into developing people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. My desire is that God’s mission would grow and people would find their spiritual place of service to glorify God.

If you are looking for a way to to begin the discovery of your spiritual gifts, check out this inventory! 

What are your spiritual gifts? How important is it for people to grow into how God has shaped them?

One Excuse that Limits our Lives

We all have excuses don't we? Excuses of why we don't want to do the dishes or excuses of why we made a mistake. One of the biggest excuses I see is this one, "why go overseas to reach people when we have so many people here that need to be reached?"

To start off, Jesus didn't believe this thought process. Jesus said this in His final words before heading home to Heaven:

"Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.

I'm sure you have read or heard of this passage before. I believe it is the foundation of the mission of the church. It is Jesus' marching order for the church in every generation.

Notice Jesus did not say, "Go and make disciples of Jerusalem" or "Go and make disciples of the country you live in" but went with a global mission rather than just one-dimensional.

The big excuse is to limit the mission of the local church to be one-dimensional.

Look at the layers of mission that the early church began with in Acts 1:8:  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The kind of mission Jesus called churches to seek to become is making disciples of all nations.

Why?

First, Jesus commanded it. Second, it teaches us to not become comfortable reaching people we are comfortable reaching. Third, Jesus has a heart for all people to be saved, not just Americans. Fourth, the local church exists to reach everyone. Fifth, Heaven will be populated with every nation.

Finally, I believe one of the biggest ways to help develop mature disciples is to give them a worldview of the gospel.

Lead people to go on mission to experience it short-term so when they return they will live with a better understanding of how God is moving all over the world.

A God-sized mission that doesn't include missions outside of America doesn't live up to the mission that Jesus delivered moments before returning to Heaven.

Let's always ask God to help us reach people that are far from Him locally, nationally and internationally.

The question instead of "why" should change to "why not" in reaching beyond the shores of America to the world.

Avoiding the Machine of Ministry

If you are in ministry, you might at times feel tired.  I like to think of it as the machine of ministry. The machine of ministry looks like this: - You are exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually most of the time. - You go through the motions of ministry work. - Your only concern is the attendance, and you’re not that excited about stories of life-change. - Worship is hard to get into because you “already know these songs.” - You compare yourself with other churches and leaders. - Your appearance gets more attention than your spiritual heart.

I’ve experienced these feeling at times in my own life.  How do we avoid falling into a robot of ministry where we lose sight of the sensitivity of God’s Spirit?

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