Applications Of The Spiritual Gifts

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware.
–1 Corinthians 12:1

This week we are concluding our series on discovering and using your spiritual gift. There are several applications of what we have learned so far about spiritual gifts.

First of all, don’t worry if you have not yet identified your spiritual gift. How many of you reading this would say, “I know what my spiritual gift is”? How many of you would say, “I have got it narrowed down to two or three”? Don’t worry if you don’t yet have your spiritual gift identified, because the fact is, we are supposed to do all these things. We are all to be merciful. We are all to be serving others. We are all to be prophetic. We are all to be givers.

There are three reasons you may not know what your spiritual gift is yet. The first reason is a lack of involvement in ministry. If you are not involved in ministry–if you are just sitting in the pews soaking it in every week–then you will have a hard time knowing what your gift is. When you get involved in ministry, you will start to learn what gifts and ministries energize you. You also might learn which things God seems to use in a special way. The second reason you may not yet know your spiritual gift may be that your attempts to imitate other people are confusing you. You may have a parent, a Sunday school teacher, a pastor you really admire, and you think, “I want to be like them,” so you are trying to imitate their gift when it really is not your gift. The third reason you may not know your gift is that comments by other people can confuse you. People might say, “You definitely have the gift of such-and-such.” That may or may not be true. They don’t know you as well as you know you. So take comments other people make about your gifts with a grain of salt.

A second application of spiritual gifts is this: distinguish between your gift and your ministry. There is a difference between the role you are in and your spiritual gift. Take the example of being a greeter in the parking lot of your church. You might think that to be in that ministry you need to have the gift of serving. Not at all. For example, somebody with the gift of prophecy might want to be a greeter. He might say, “I want to get as many sinners in here as possible so they can repent and turn to God.” That is their motivation. Somebody with the gift of mercy might say, “I hate to see those young mothers struggling with their little kids, and I want to be there to help them out.” Somebody with the gift of teaching might volunteer in the parking lot and think, “How could we make this traffic flow even more orderly?” You can have all kinds of different motivations for serving in your ministry.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Using Your Spiritual Gift” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2014.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.