What Are Spiritual Gifts?Sýnishorn

Love

Knowing what our spiritual gifts are is an amazing thing. We get to impact other people with a supernatural ability given to us by God’s Spirit. We get to be the hands and feet of Jesus in someone’s life. We get to serve, encourage, teach, and pastor our fellow Christ followers. But it is all for nothing if we don’t have love.

The all-familiar chapter of 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 describes the perfect picture of love. It says that love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, and not proud. Love honors, is selfless, isn’t easily angered and doesn’t keep score of wrongs committed. Love hates evil, rejoices with the truth, and it always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. 

A love for God and others must be the motivator behind our gifts and using them. Let’s take the gift of serving, as an example. When we see things that need to be done and we have no agenda, we do it. That’s serving. But when we come in and say, “I don’t want to do that,” we have made our gifts selfish. If we do what we want and what is convenient for us, that is not using our gift in love. Gifts are not meant to be self-absorbed.

Possessing an extraordinary gift from God does not mean we are mature believers. The mark of maturity is how well we are walking in the fruit of the Spirit. Often, the question asked is, “How much of the Holy Spirit do we have?” When the question should actually be, “How much does the Holy Spirit have us?” Meaning, how much of our lives does the Holy Spirit control? Do we allow Him to rule us instead of trying to rule ourselves and others?

Learning about our spiritual gifts and how to use them to impact people is a lifelong pursuit. There will be times in our lives where our day just hasn’t gone as we’d hoped yet someone is still needing us to build them up with our gift. So we do it. That’s not fake, that is simply choosing to do what God has called us to do despite our fluctuating feelings. 

Our gifts will develop over time. We can keep learning about our gifts and look for ways they can be developed so that we can make the biggest impact in people’s lives. This comes when we seek God with our whole hearts and allow His Spirit to lead us. 

Reflect

• Have you discovered a spiritual gift you have? If so, what is it and how do you see God using you to build others up?
• As you finish this Plan, look for ways to use your gift. Listening to podcasts, reading books, talking to your church leaders about ways to get involved, and serving in your community at different non-profits are some great beginnings.