What is a spiritual gift? How should a Christian view spiritual gifts? - Podcast Episode 161

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Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. Joining me today is Gwen. She's the volunteer coordinator, also the administrator for compellingtruths .org,

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and Nelson, who's the director of video content. So, Nelson, Gwen, welcome.

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Today, we're gonna be talking about spiritual gifts. If you search our website, you'll find many, many different articles related to spiritual gifts.

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So we wanna kinda start the conversation with what is a spiritual gift, what are the spiritual gifts, and maybe talk a little bit about why it's important to know how

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God has gifted you spiritually, but also discuss some of the misconceptions that are pretty common around spiritual gifts based on the type of questions we're asked.

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So, Nelson, why don't you start us off? So, according to the Bible, what is a spiritual gift? A spiritual gift is a gifting that God gives believers to edify the church and to glorify himself, to bring glory to himself.

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So these are gifts that he gives, and they're many different gifts, and they're listed in several different places in scripture, and again, they are to empower the believer so that the believer can build up the church and glorify

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God. Now, the main passages that you point to for the spiritual gift, there's a list in 1

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Corinthians chapter 12, there's another list in Ephesians chapter four, there's a list in Romans 12.

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So there's a list of, depending on how much overlap there is, possibly as many as 20 different spiritual gifts mentioned in the

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Bible. There's different ways that God empowers believers to serve the body of Christ.

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And every passage that talks about spiritual gifts also emphasizes how they're designed to promote unity, that no gift is more important or more valuable than any other.

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But like I said earlier, it is important to know both what the Bible teaches about spiritual gifts, but also it's important to know how

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God has spiritually gifted you. So Gwen, based on the type of questions we receive, what are some of the most frequent questions that people have about spiritual gifts in terms of knowing what gift you have and what that actually means for how you serve

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God? Well, I think the important thing to knowing what gift you have, well,

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I guess, let me backtrack a little bit. What I see come up in churches sometimes is people want to get involved and want to be part of the ministry, but maybe aren't really sure where.

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I mean, there's so many opportunities and what should they do and so often that's when people offer a spiritual gifts test because it can just help you have some direction.

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And I think even in going forward, if you kind of have an idea of, oh, here's where God really uses me, maybe here's how he's wired me naturally, but how he then like really enables it for the good of the church, both through your own observation as well as the observation of others in seeing you and seeing what you do, can help give you some direction in terms of where to serve and what to look for.

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So for instance, teaching, if you seem to be a really good teacher, maybe in your

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Bible studies, every time you share something, people are like, oh, wow, I really get it now. That can be a flag to, well, maybe this is how

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God has gifted me. Maybe I need to seek some opportunities to teach or to learn more.

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So I think it just really helps give people sort of a framework to be able to know where and how they might plug in.

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You were talking about how those passages often emphasize unity and they do, they talk about we're all one and they often also use the body metaphor and how we are all each a part of the body and we all each need one another.

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And so I think sometimes having an idea of which part of the body you are can just be a helpful way to really fully function in that calling and yeah, and fully serve the

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Lord and glorify him in it. And I think also just one more thing. So in 1

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Peter verses 10 and 11, it says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.

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Whoever speaks has one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything,

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God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. So I think knowing your spiritual gift can sort of give you the courage to live it out to God's glory.

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I mean, it's all meant to be done in humility and for the good of the church. So here, let me go to this question next it's for both you and Gwen and Elsa and I'll answer as well.

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One, have you ever taken a spiritual gift test? And if so, what gift or gifts did the tests say you had?

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I took, I think most people probably took some spiritual gift tests. I've taken it in the past and there's different tests and oftentimes the different tests have different results in a sense of focus and how they really explain each one or how much detail goes into each one.

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But I tend to, I've received the gift of teaching and of pastoring were part of my gifts.

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Also, there were other things that are mentioned in there. Usually these tests have scales and things like that but those are typically the ones

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I've received feedback on most. I have, it's been so many years.

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So what's recently in my mind is more just generic strengths tests. But when

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I think about spiritual gifts, I think that for me it's encouragement or sometimes helps and that fits in perfectly to what

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I do and I do pay attention to that and so I actively seek opportunity to encourage.

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Or I recognize that I help clean up my church. We meet in a school and so we have to set up and clean up every week and that's part of my personality but maybe is also part of like, yes,

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I was kind of designed to be a helper, behind the scenes person is where I thrive and so I seek and enjoy those opportunities.

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So for me, every spiritual gifts test I've taken has indicated some gifting along the lines of teaching.

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And for me, that always confused me because I'd always equated teaching with public speaking, like teaching in a classroom setting or preaching on church on Sunday, neither of which

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I do very regularly but eventually was communicating, no, you can teach through writing, you can teach through other means other than public speaking.

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So most people who have gotten to know me and observe me or serve alongside me say, no,

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Shay, you have a gift at taking complicated theological biblical concepts and explaining them in a way that's easy to understand, which again is what one of the main goals that got questions is help people to understand the

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Bible better. Say, when I'm asked, I typically say that my primary spiritual gift is the gift of teaching but that expresses itself primarily through writing, not through public speaking or other oratory type gifts.

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So now it's always interesting. I've also found that those gift tests, they're just like any other personality test, they can tend to be influenced.

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You can push them a certain direction. So it's really important to answer them as objectively as possible.

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And then also, if you're looking for ways to serve God and you really don't know what your spiritual gift is, say, ask the people who know you best to identify what spiritual gift that they've observed in you, what way they see you serving

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God and truly having an impact because it's that impact piece that really communicates while God is doing something amazing through you in this area, that might be your spiritual gift.

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And I think sometimes too is also like just try something. I mean, especially I'm thinking for new believers, maybe there isn't really a whole lot of experience with the church.

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So there hasn't been an opportunity for other people to observe that impact and to point out like, hey,

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I noticed that anytime this happens, God really works through you. So sometimes it's just try stuff and see what happens.

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And I think to Nelson's point of the spiritual gifts test, they really do all list different stuff and different definitions of it.

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And even within the Bible, there are various gifts and various words. So I think there's sometimes a sense of maybe the

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Bible isn't really a comprehensive list. It's like the Holy Spirit has given each one a gift like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but there are other things there.

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So you don't necessarily have to be pigeonholed into like this test said this gift is this definition, like to your point,

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Shay, of teaching. And so in your mind, that means oratory and public, but isn't the way that God's gifted you.

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So, but he has gifted you with teaching. So kind of being using those tests as a tool, but being sort of open -minded to what it really means in reality for you.

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I've always found when people are questioning, what gift do I have? Or I don't know what gift I have, or I've never taken a test.

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I know as a pastor, people would come up to me all the time and they would be getting started in the church and they looking for where to serve.

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And they always hear you should serve in your gifting. You should serve in your gifting. But some of them say, I don't know what my gifting is.

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And so a lot of the feedback we often give back would be, what do people say about you? Do they learn from you?

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Are you a communicator? What are the areas that you seem to thrive in? A lot of times you don't really need a written test and you just talk to your closest friends.

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For those who are married, you can talk to your spouse. They know you the best. And you can ask them, what areas do you see that I'm just naturally good at?

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Or you think that God has gifted me to be effective in? And a lot of times that feedback is just golden.

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It's really helpful. And sometimes other people don't have feedback. They don't have someone to ask or they don't feel like they can really trust anyone around them or they don't know enough people.

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Maybe they're new in the area. And for those types of situations, it's always good just to try different things.

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Now, especially in the church context, when we come together and meet together, there are many different things to do and ways to bless one another and glorify

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God. And so try some different things. Maybe start out in childcare. Maybe start out in reading.

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Maybe ask if you can do announcements and perhaps teach a Sunday school class. And then as you go through these different things, you'll find that some of them will completely drain you and you won't like it.

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It'll be difficult. You won't feel like you're naturally clicking in it. But then there'll be some other areas perhaps where you are really thriving in.

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I mean, you walk away from that experience. Maybe you're tired, but you still walk away from the experience thinking like, wow,

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I really enjoyed that. I feel like I did something important. I feel like I was doing something effective.

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And so a lot of people question like, oh, should I work with the youth? I have no ability to work with the youth in our church.

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And like, you'd be really surprised if you have a gifting for teaching or for compassion, for just being a good listener to some of these students, you'd be amazed at the effectiveness you could have on that team.

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Your gifting may not look like you think it should look like or what it might typically look like.

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And we do that way too often. We look at the people around us and we think, I want that gifting, or it'd be good.

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I don't have that. So I can't do that ministry. I'm not like so -and -so, so I can't do that. And I think that's a dangerous place to be.

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I think God will use you in the place that he's gifted you in. Even if you don't look like the people around, because maybe your church needs someone who looks different to be doing the things that he wants you to do within that context.

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And so again, if you don't know what gift you have, just ask the people around or be able to try some different areas and see where you gravitate towards, where you see things happening, where the

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Lord is working through you in that context. Absolutely. Well, I think that's such...

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Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. I think that's such an important point of that sometimes when we look around and compare, and I think having a concept of spiritual gifts can help us with that, rather than look around and wish we were like somebody else or think we have to be exactly like someone else, to look around and recognize these are different parts of the body.

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And so to celebrate that, of like, wow, look, that guy's an ear over there. Isn't that great?

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And not be being like, oh, well, too bad I'm a hand. That's kind of a lousy deal.

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So when we have that concept of God has designed people and equipped people differently for a purpose so that we can all together compliment one another and move forward,

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I think is, yeah, is a helpful way for us to stay humble and also to celebrate one another.

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And we keep talking about asking other people what your spiritual gift is. I think we can also be people who, maybe it's as an encourager

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I'm saying this, but we can be people who specifically call that out and encourage other people. When we notice someone functioning in a spiritual gift to say, hey,

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I noticed God really gifted you this way and it's really blessed me today. Absolutely, I love the body analogy that Paul gives in 1

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Corinthians 12, where the context of this is in the Corinthian church, and I'm sure many other churches back then and today, certain spiritual gifts were getting all the attention.

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In the Corinthian church, it seems to have been the gift of tongues and prophecy and the miraculous gifts.

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So again, this is not the focus of this episode, but everyone in the churches of Corinth wanted those gifts.

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They wanted the flashy, showy ones. They wanted the ones that are most clearly demonstrating God's miraculous power.

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Paul's counter to that is, look, if everyone was a mouth, where would the sense of sight be?

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If everyone was a foot, everyone was a hand, or an eye, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, no, just like a body, all the parts need one another to function optimally, so do we in the body of Christ need different people who are gifted in different ways, and none of the gifts are more important or more valuable than any other.

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Today, it almost seems in some churches that the spiritual gift of teaching gets all the emphasis, that those who are teaching, those are the most important people in the church, and that's understandable with the sermon being such a big emphasis in our churches, as it should be, but the gift of teaching is not the most important gift in the church either.

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We need people with gifts of compassion, gifts of service, gift of help, the gift of faith, the gift of giving, et cetera, et cetera.

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I've read many Bible commentators, as I've studied for this this week, who don't even think the spiritual gifts listed in the

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Bible are all of them, that there may be other spiritual gifts that the Bible doesn't specifically mention, so don't even restrict yourself to serving necessarily in the ways that the

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Bible explicitly mentions. There could be other ways, other gifts. There's no way we can know that Paul was intending.

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This is a comprehensive list, so rather than focusing so much on a gift that you want or a gift even that you necessarily, just through church needs, focus on what is a need in this church?

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How can I meet that need? How can I serve God in such a way? There's a saying that God's calling is

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God's enabling, and what that means is that if God's calling you to do something, he will enable you to do it.

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We could talk some about whether God gives each person only one spiritual gift and one spiritual gift for their entire life, or if we have multiple spiritual gifts, all can function at the same time, or depending on what stage of life we're in or what

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God's calling us to, does God give us different spiritual gifts at different times? The Bible doesn't answer any of those questions explicitly, but if God is calling you to do something, he will give you what you need to be able to accomplish that purpose in a way that glorifies him and that encourages others.

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So one of the, probably the primary faulty question that we see a lot of God questions is people trying to limit themselves by what spiritual gift they have or what spiritual gift they think they have.

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That, well, God has given me the gift of this, therefore that's the only way I can serve God, and that is completely foreign to the passages in the

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Bible on spiritual gifts where the focus is on unity, on serving alongside, on encouraging one another, doing things for the health and growth of the body, and nowhere does it say that you are limited to one spiritual gift at any one time or for your entire life.

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So it's a mindset change. Just look for opportunities to serve, and if we have a spiritual gift that's been clearly identified and it's been demonstrated by its effectiveness in lives being changed, people being encouraged, let's find ways to serve

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God in that, but not use that as an excuse to limit ourselves to that one area.

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I was talking with one of our other staff members about this prior, and she mentioned one helpful thing for people sometimes is to frame whatever it is they need to do through their spiritual gifts.

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So sometimes you might legitimately feel like this is not my gifting, and yet this is the need of the moment, but looking at that through the lens of, okay, well, what is my gifting, and how might

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God be equipping me for this need of the moment just through himself, but even also, how can

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I bring that gift to bear in it? So the example she provided was someone who was asked to do administrative work who's like,

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I don't really like doing administration, but she felt like she had the spiritual gift of serving. So in her mind, she said it as, well,

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I'm serving my church through providing this. Yeah, that's a great way to look at it.

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I think sometimes we might want to, you know, say no to different things just because we're like, oh, I'm definitely not gifted in that.

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Well, but God did give you time. He put you in this place. He gave you the ability to do it.

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Maybe he is calling you to do that right now because in the end of the day, you're serving the others here at the church and you're glorifying

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God. And so it's not that you have to feel like I only do the thing that I feel specifically gifted at.

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There could be many different areas. And you may find as you work in an area where you previously thought you were not gifted, that God uses you in tremendous ways.

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And perhaps all of a sudden you might see like, wow, I truly am gifted in this certain area.

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Just like me counting, like maybe I can't stand numbers. I don't like doing it. But the fact that I can help my church keep its books straight, that the pastors are content and that everything is right and legal, that they don't have to worry about that, that other people can focus on other things in the ministry.

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That's amazing. And you enable that by the work that you're doing. And so we should definitely not put aside work or say no to different things just because we think we might not be gifted in it.

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The Lord is calling you to it. Or if someone else is saying, hey, why don't you give this a shot? Sometimes we should just try to give it a shot and see what we can do.

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It reminds me of a Psalm, Psalm 70, I'm sorry, Psalm 37 verses four and five.

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It says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your ways to the

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Lord, trust in him and he will act. And I think that is applicable in our scenario here where you just serve

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God lovingly and serve the people around you lovingly and you will find joy as you see him working in the lives of the people around you.

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And just because you may not like accounting, for example, you could even find great delight and great joy in that because you were serving the

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Lord, your God in a meaningful, impactful way. And I will say,

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I mean, to that, yeah, I think it is like when your heart is really set on that and is set on God and serving him and serving others and paying attention to, yeah, to him and to where he's calling.

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Cause like Shay said, you know, God equips the people that he calls. But then I think there's also the other thing, the need is not the call.

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So it is true that sometimes there might be a need in your church and you might not be the one who's called to fit it.

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And like, just because there's a need doesn't necessarily mean God is calling you to it. He might be calling someone else and you might need to be patient and let them wait.

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But yeah, but if God definitely is calling you to something or like Nelson said, someone else has asked you to give it a try, often the excuse of, well,

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I'm not spiritually gifted in that isn't really a great one. Yeah. It's interesting.

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I've been doing a study in the qualifications for deacons and elders recently. And what's interesting about that passage in first Timothy three and Titus one is that in other places in the new

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Testament, all of us are called to exhibit each of those qualities. And very similarly with the spiritual gifts, if you look at the spiritual gift lifts in Romans chapter 12, some of them are serving, teaching, encouraging, giving leadership and mercy to varying degrees.

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All of us are called to do all of those things. The spiritual gifts lifts in Corinthians, giving words of wisdom, words of knowledge, having faith, the gift of helps, the gift of administration.

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All of those things are things that we serve Christ in, minister to others in.

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So the fact that we were only maybe spiritually gifted in one or two areas, again, doesn't limit us to those things because we are called to give.

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We are called to serve. We are called to lead at times. So again, let's look at the spiritual gifts in the lists and the tests and the wisdom we receive from others as empowerment.

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It's like, this is an amazing way God has designed me and equipped me and empowered me to serve him.

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Not as like an exemption from serving him and all the other ways. Some gifts that seem to be, we can maybe do a future episode on whether all the spiritual gifts are fully active or are they functioning exactly the same?

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So not every person has every gift, that's clear. But the Bible nowhere says, as I said earlier, that we're restricted to one or two gifts at any given time or for our entire lives.

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So use the spiritual gifts as encouragement to find ways to serve God in ways that he's gifted you, not as a, again, as a restriction on how you might be able to serve

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God or how you might be used effectively of God. Absolutely, I think at the end of the day, we all have the same goal, right?

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To glorify God and to build up the church. And we have the great commission that tells us to go and make disciples.

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So whichever way you can do that, go and do that. A lot of times we sit on the bench and we're waiting for some sort of miraculous thing to happen.

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We're waiting for God to call down from heaven or an angel to speak to us miraculously. And instead he's already spoken to us in his word with power and with truth.

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And he's calling us to go, do something, go get up and make disciples.

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And who knows what that's gonna look like? Who knows what role you're gonna play at your church doing that or in other places maybe as an evangelist or whatever it might be.

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But the point is to get up and get working and God will guide you through that. He will speak to you as you move.

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And as long as you are dependent on him in that process, you will quickly find areas where you're effective and that he's using you.

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And you can just keep moving along that journey. But to sit on the bench and to wait for some test results or some weights for someone to tap you on the shoulder to volunteer or to wait for a particular spot in the church that looks perfect and just made for you.

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A lot of times you just need to go and make disciples. I love the story of, not the story, the saying of, you can't move a parked car.

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Sort of heading in a direction and God is far more likely to divert you once you're already moving into the area he wants you to serve rather than just you're just sitting there not doing anything, as Nelson just said.

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Yeah, and I think of like, I mean, isn't that so exciting that God invites us into his kingdom work?

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I mean, it's when we're saved, we become a child of God. We become part of the body of Christ and we're invited to really live it out in meaningful impactful ways, going and making disciples, building up the body.

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So I think it's kind of the encouragement for believers is God has invited you into his work and he has equipped you for it.

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So be a part of the body. So Gwen, Nelson, thank you for joining me today.

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Great and very important discussion. I encourage our listeners, if you go to GodQuestions .org,

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do a search for spiritual gifts, you will find a plethora of articles on the individual spiritual gifts, spiritual gifts in general, what they mean, what they are, spiritual gift tests, spiritual gifts lists, et cetera, et cetera.

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Questions about spiritual gifts are very, very common. So look for ways to serve

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God. If you find that God has gifted you in a spiritual way, seek to serve him in that way, but don't limit yourself.

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Remember that God can use you in multiple ways, can empower you in ways that you would never imagine.

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So our encouragement to you today is yes, absolutely. Try to discern the areas where God has gifted you, but also don't limit yourselves to a spiritual gift or gifts.

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Be willing, be ready, be able to serve God in whatever way he provides you with the opportunity.

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So it's been the Got Questions podcast on what are spiritual gifts. Got questions, the