By Stephen Phinney"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The Holy Spirit is just as much alive today as He was when the New Testament was written. Before we move forward in exploring the dynamics of our spiritual gifts and God’s miraculous economy, we need to accept all the work of God through the Holy Spirit in modern times, just as the disciples were called to accept the work of the Holy Spirit over 2000 years ago.
IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS
Understanding and knowing what God says about spiritual
gifts is the starting place of our conclusion of Finances & the End-times. Even though man has many opinions about the
topic, God has plenty to say about His gifts to us – after all, He is the giver
of these gifts.
Many Christians choose to “stay in the dark” as to the full
understanding of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Ignorance is not bliss! If I were
to give you a gift and you chose not to open it, you would never have the
privilege of using the gift for its intended purpose. The same thing goes for our spiritual gifts;
we were given these gifts upon the day of our Salvation and God expects us to
open the package and use the gift to accomplish His purposes.
A FEW THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
There are four requirements presented in the Scriptures that
each of us will need to embrace before we can discover the fullness of His
gifting in us:
- We must have the Holy Spirit living within us (be a born-again Christian).
- Do not to be afraid of having the Holy Spirit live and operate through us in the capacity He desires to manifest through us.
- We should desire to have the Body of Christ function in the capacity it is intended and designed to operate – being willing to allow God to use us to edify one another.
- We should join God where God is at work, not following our flesh or using God’s gifts to benefit ourselves.
USING YOUR ELDERS FOR UNDERSTANDING
The Lord Jesus reveals to us in 1 Timothy 4:14: “Do no
neglect the spiritual gifts within you, which was bestowed upon you through
prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery (church
leadership)” [parentheses mine].
It is my desire for each person going through this series to
experience the fullness of His gifting within him. It is the responsibility of
your church leadership to help you discover your gifting. Do not hesitate to contact your pastor to get
your questions answered. This series is
to start the process of you embracing all that God has for you regarding His
spiritual gifts.
DO NOT LOOK DOWN ON YOUR YOUTHFULNESS
Many people do not think they are mature enough to use their
gifting or they think that they have not been saved long enough to be used by
God fully. Nothing could be further from
the truth! Once a person has received
the Holy Spirit upon Salvation, he is qualified to be used by God.
1 Timothy 4:11-16 tells us: “Prescribe and teach these
things. Let no one look down on your
youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show
yourself an example of those who believe.
Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to
exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect
the spiritual gifts within you, which were bestowed upon you; through the
prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in
them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your
teaching; preserve in these things; for as you this you will insure salvation
both for yourself and for those who hear you.”
God wants us to be prescribing and teaching these
things. This means: prescribing (writing
them down) and then teaching them to the Body of Christ. We are being called by God to know our
gifting. We are not to look down on our
youthfulness. He wants us to speak with
the power of God, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through us. He allows the fruit of the Holy Spirit to
show through our conduct, His love, the appropriation of the measure of faith
He has put within us, and our walk in the purity of His light while we live. In fact, we are to be examples to those who
are Christians, teaching them by example how to walk after the Spirit and
operate in the fullness of His gifting within us.
How do we accomplish this?
It is accomplished by being devoted to the Scriptures. Since the Word of God is alive and sharper
than a two-edged sword, by teaching what God’s Word says, we will exhort one
another to function in our God given gifts.
God wants us to take pains with these things – take this
matter on as a burden. He desires for us
to be absorbed in them, soak them up like a sponge. This is how we reveal our progress in our
walk with Him to the world around us.
When people see God’s gifting flowing through us, they see God!
Lastly, God wants us to pay close attention to our teachings
regarding this topic; it needs to be handled by God through us. Many churches have been divided over the
topic of spiritual gifts. The gifts are
for unity, not to bring more division.
DISCOVERING GOD’S ECONOMY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS
You have just begun the process of discovering your
spiritual gifts. Some of you have known
for many years and some may be just “looking into it.” In either case, God knows you are interested
in knowing your spiritual gifts. Here is
a list of items to keep in mind as you explore the realities of God’s gifts:
- Be willing to explore what God has for you. Read each of the Scriptures stated in these articles and use this series as a Bible study. Pray through each Scripture. Learn what the gifts are, how they are used, what characterizes them, and how they function within the Body of Christ.
- Don’t lean upon your feelings. Many look to their feelings to label their gift. God will reveal your gift(s) through the presbytery (elders) of your church. The Spirit will bear witness with the process and the location of the gift if it is of God. It is true that when you are functioning in your gift, you will “feel” like you have found your “niche.” When, or if, you are functioning in a task that is not your gifting, you will “feel like a fish out of water.” You just won’t be able to function in a comfortable and free manner. It is a true statement that God does not strap you with a gift you will not enjoy.
- When functioning in your gifting, you will see the positive results. Since spiritual gifts are designed to benefit the Body of Christ, not yourself, you should see the fruit developed in the lives of the people you are helping. You will not see a positive result if you are using your gift to exalt yourself or by using a gift you really don’t have.
- Expect confirmation from the Body of Christ. It is a good idea to allow the Body of Christ to be a part of the process of confirming your gifting. God speaks through the Body. People observing us are equally as important as the Spirit’s revelation in our prayer time. That’s because it is the same thing. If you believe you have particular gifts and no one else agrees with you, then you should go to the presbytery (church leadership) for confirmation.
- The Lord is the One to lead you to discovering your gift. Even though God uses the above process, God reveals His gifts in you. Remember that He is the gift Giver and He knows what is in His “gift bag.”
- As God reveals more of His supernatural ways, you openly accept His manifestations of the Spirit in a manner that is worthy of His calling. Do not limit God to your human reasoning – let God be God even in your gifting.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Before you can move forward in knowing your spiritual gifts,
you need to be willing to be sacrificed.
Allow me to explain. Romans 12:1
tells us: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service. And be not conformed
to this work; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
Before God moves through us mightily, He needs to know that
you and I are willing to be used in any way He desires. We must be holy (walk after the Spirit) and
acceptable to God (in His Son). When we
are doing things of the world (walking after the flesh), we can pretty much
forget about our gifting being manifested within us by the Lord. God will not use His precious gifting to
better the world. He only uses His
gifting to better the kingdom of God.
Of course, that leaves us with a small problem; what if the
mind is worldly? Then it is time for
renewal. Our lives are transformed into
the image of Christ through the process of having our minds renewed. There is nothing we can do to renew our
minds; reading, praying, talking, listening, or having hands laid on us will
not renew us. This renewal process is a
Spirit work. As we set our minds on
heavenly things, we then are allowing the Holy Spirit (who lives within us if
we are saved) to renew our minds. When
we set our mind on worldly things, we act worldly. When we set our mind on the Spirit within us,
we then experience being spiritually minded, having spiritual thoughts, and
then spiritual words (1 Corinthians 2:13).
When we lay our lives down as a living sacrifice and then
allow the Holy Spirit to renew our worldly minds, then we can prove to the
world (and fellow Christians) what is good, truly acceptable, and what the
perfect will of God is. This is
accomplished by and through God using His gifts within His children.
THINGS TO COME
Here are a few topics to look forward to:
- Discovering your spiritual gifts
- The Body of Christ is like a toolbox
- Who gets these gifts?
- What is a spiritual gift?
- Understanding the Occupational Gifts
- Understanding the Manifestation Gifts
- Spiritual testing
Scripture 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.
