Introduction to Your Spiritual Gifts

Lesson 1

Throughout the Scriptures, God seeks to instill within His people the truth that He has a plan and purpose for everyone who claims Him as their God. He first spoke this to the Jews under the Old Covenant, and then, through various passages in the New Testament, God used different writers to address the question of spiritual gifts and the believer in Jesus Christ—revealing how these gifts connect to His divine plan and purpose for His people. You may ask, then: What is God's plan for me? What are my spiritual gifts? That is what this study is all about!

What is a Spiritual Gift?

Definition of Spiritual Gifts: "A spiritual gift is a specific God-given ability for Christian service."

Before you were born, God knew you. Before you were born, God chose you. And before you were born, God called you. He called the prophets under the Old Covenant, Jesus called His disciples, and He called the Church under the New Covenant, and that is YOU!

Foreordained or Foreknowledge

As an omniscient God, Almighty God foreknew you long before you were born. Although He gave mankind free will to accept or reject Him, we must not assume that God foreordained (predestined) the path of every person made in His image. In other words, God does not choose who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. He allows each person the ability to make his or her own choices in life.

Yet He is an all-knowing God who sees down the corridors of time. Because of this, God foreknew that one day you would accept Jesus as your Savior. With that foreknowledge, God knew you, then He chose you, and finally, called you before the foundation of the world.

Giftings Transformation

Even before you were born on this earth, God placed within you a unique personality, endowed with various gifts and talents. A natural gift, then, is one that a person receives genetically—such as musical ability, athleticism, a bent toward science or math, the ability to draw a crowd, fix things, show compassion, or any number of talents that stir your motivation. When you became born again—experiencing the new birth in Christ—God took those natural motivated abilities that inspired you and anointed both you and your gifts for Christian service. Why? So that you could minister to others.

1 Cor 1:7 so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ...

1 Cor 7:7  For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.

Motivational Gifts

Without exception, every believer has at least one gift that motivates them—and likely more. Your motivational gift is the underlying driving force that compels you to act the way you do. It inspires you, fulfills you, and brings you deep satisfaction. This gift flows from your God-given personality. It is the natural ability that stirs your desire to serve and create. God wants you to understand your motivational gifts and learn how to use them for the advancement of His Kingdom.

Though we all operate in our giftings differently, each expression is uniquely beautiful. God created every person as distinct and special, yet designed us to work together in harmony as the Body of Christ.

As you discover your motivational gifts, you’ll begin to uncover your spiritual gifts—those given by Jesus to the Church. These will be explored further in the lessons to come.

I Cor 12:4-6 AMP Now there are [distinctive] varieties of spiritual gifts [special abilities given by the grace and extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit operating in believers], but it is the same Spirit [who grants them and empowers believers]. ⁵ And there are [distinctive] varieties of ministries and service, but it is the same Lord [who is served]. ⁶ And there are [distinctive] ways of working [to accomplish things], but it is the same God who produces all things in all believers [inspiring, energizing, and empowering them].

While God is the source of all giftings, under the New Covenant, God entrusted Jesus to give them to the Church so that individual believers can serve one another with the gifts that God has entrusted to us.

Epn 4:7-9  CJB  Each one of us, however, has been given grace to be measured by the Messiah’s bounty. ⁸ This is why it says, “After he went up into the heights, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to mankind.” ⁹ Now this phrase, “he went up,” what can it mean if not that he first went down into the lower parts, that is, the earth? ¹⁰ The one who went down is himself the one who also went up, far above all of heaven, in order to fill all things.  

Discovering our Spiritual Gifts

Let’s now look at five reasons why Jesus gave us His spiritual gifts.

Eph 4:11-16 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

1.     For the equipping of the saints for the work
    of the ministry.

2.     To edify the body until we are all established
    in the unity of faith.

3.     We adhere to sound doctrine instead of
    being tossed to and fro by every wind of
    doctrine.

4.     Speak the truth in love

5.     Grow up in our faith under Christ Who is our
    head.  

Jesus Christ is our Head, and we are His hands, feet, and body—together forming the Body of Christ here on earth. Each gift, without exception, is important to the Lord. Every gift works in harmony with others to bring unity to the Church—one Body under Christ. No gift is better or more important than another; each has a distinct purpose.

It is important to note, however, that while the gifts God has given us individually are for us to use, they are not meant for personal possession or self-serving purposes. Our gift—or gifts—are meant to be used for the benefit of others. They are intended to serve and strengthen the Body of Christ.

Following Jesus' resurrection from the dead, He walked the earth for 40 days to minister to His disciples. At the end of the 40 days, Jesus ascended back to heaven to resume His divine glory as God. Ten days later, as the Feast of Pentecost began, He fulfilled His promise to His followers by giving us His indwelling Holy Spirit. When He did, He also gave us our gifts—to be used in service to others.

John 14:15-17 If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Acts 1:8  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

This promise began with the 120 disciples of Jesus when the fire of the Holy Spirit came down on the Day of Pentecost and rested upon—and then within—the disciples. The evidence of this indwelling was that they all spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. It was at that moment that Jesus gave gifts to men through His Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit continues to give His gifts to believers, distributing them as He wills for each one of us.

1 Corinthians 12:11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

There is one crucial component that is deeply needed within the Body of Christ, no matter which gift or gifts we operate under. 1 Corinthians 12:31 tells us to desire the greater gift—the one or ones He has given to us individually. In other words, we must never covet another believer’s gifts. And as we operate in our own gifts, 1 Corinthians 13:1 reminds us to do so out of love—for God and for others. Without love, our gifts cannot be used effectively for the Kingdom of God.

Personality versus Character

What is the difference between our personality and our character?

• Your personality is how God created you – the perfect you!
  
  Psm 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. NIV
  
  
• Your character is the person you have become through man's sin nature and the experiences and conditions in life.
  
  Rom 3:23 For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
  

Only through Christ and the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit can man come to discover who they are in Christ to then purpose to become all that God has created him or her to be and to do!

Romans 12:2 And be not conforms to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may know what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

Let’s talk about the perfect you—the person God created you to be. God created you full of life, with a purpose, and designed you to be effective in your life for God's use. That was His gift to you and within you! You are so special, loved, and important to God. Because of this, He wants you to discover your purpose—your God-given purpose.

Maybe God gave you the musical ability to play an instrument or sing like an angel. Perhaps you are an intellectual, gifted in inventing or solving problems. Or maybe you love to create or work with your hands. Whatever you giftings, you are motivated to do things in ways that are uniquely yours. That motivation is a gift from God to you! Whatever your natural inclination, your personality has been divinely built within you to inspire you to become the best version of yourself—the person God created you to be. That foundational design does not change. What motivates you is meant to be used for God, for He chose you and placed within you specific gifts to be used for God and His purpose for you.

Ephesians 1: 4 “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love…”

Sadly, sin entered the world—and through the rebellious act of Adam and Eve, that sinful nature has been passed down from generation to generation. We live in a fallen world. As a result, our perfect personality no longer fully reflects all that God originally intended. Our character is shaped by our environment—both the positive and the negative. Because of the sin nature within us, compounded by the brokenness of the world around us, we develop many flaws. Even in the best of environments, humanity’s sinful nature is expressed through envy, jealousy, hatred, anger, unforgiveness, greed, self-centeredness—the list continues on.

Our character is constantly being formed, and it profoundly affects our lives. In a world filled with evil and sin, the flaws in our character often overshadow the beautiful personality God originally created. We begin to express our developed character through the lens of our God-given motivational personality. As a result, our character flaws bind us and shape us into something different from what God intended. Yet even then, our character is still driven by the personality God placed within us. Tragically, we often take the positive aspects of ourselves and allow them to become negative forces—a sinful force operating in our lives within a sinful world.

The Character of Man Under the Old Covenant

Under the Old Covenant, those living outside the Law—meaning everyone except the Jews who followed Judaism—were bound by character flaws shaped by their circumstances. This highlights how profoundly our environment influences the way our lives unfold. Even those living under the Law, that is, the Jews, were unable to completely free themselves from the bondage of sin. Despite strict obedience, humanity remains bound by a sinful nature and a propensity to sin.

The Character Available to Man Under the  New Covenant

Then came Jesus—who came to redeem mankind to God by bearing the weight of our sins on the cross. When God rose Jesus from the dead, Jesus released humanity to live in freedom through faith in Him, enabling each person to become who God originally created them to be. That is our God-given purpose in life. God desires that you and I use the motivations woven into our personalities to grow in Christ and serve the Body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:1–7 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

When God raised Jesus from the dead, He gave gifts to men for the benefit of the Body of Christ—the Church—so that we could grow together in the unity of the Spirit and become all that God has called us to be.

When you became born again—accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior—a miracle took place within you. The Holy Spirit came to dwell in you, giving you the desire, first and foremost, to know God, because He now lives within you. The Holy Spirit wants to help you discover who you are and how the beautiful gifts within you can be used for the Kingdom of God. You are no longer bound by those character flaws. He will then develop those gifts to be used for God's plan and purpose on the earth. In Christ, you are now free to know God and to develop the gifts He gave you to their fullest. How does that happen?

1. Get to know God through His Word

2. Spend time in prayer

John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

Prayer is communicating with God. You speak, you listen, He speaks, and you have communication going back and forth. In other words, you are getting to know God through intimate fellowship with Him.

Spend time in worship and enjoying His presence as you petition to Him, listen to what He is telling you, and then trust and obey what He is saying.

Getting to know God in this intimate way is awesome as you begin to see how He works in your life. You are actually becoming more creative, more intelligent, more loving, and more like the person God created you to be. As such, you are slowing getting the mind of Christ.

1 Cor 2:16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

3. Get involved in church

Heb 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

We all need each other. God wants to us all to mature in our personality by correcting those character flaws, which we all have. Sometimes, it takes working together to discover areas of our life where we need to grow in – sometimes to give us a kick in the pants, and other times, we need a word of encouragement to spir us on.

The Church is designed to love and serve one another with the gifts and callings that God has given us. Remember, God so desires that we become the person He created us to be – not the one that our character flaws have distorted who we really are. We need each other.

Click here for Lesson 2 of Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts