Discovering Our Gifts
We’re students who care about discovering and developing our spiritual gifts. We’re excited to see how the Lord can use us as tools (like paint brushes) to paint a beautiful Kingdom for the Lord. Through the study taught by Pastor Chip Ingram, we’ve been able to learn about the various gifts spoken of in the Bible. We were then able to apply ourselves to the gift which best fit our personalities and characters. This is an exciting journey to uncover the gifts God embodied inside us when we were crafted by Him before we were even born.
Cali:
In Pastor Chip Ingram’s second lesson, he taught the many different types of spiritual gifts. He focused on the description of each, using Biblical reference to uphold his opinion and thoughts of the gifts. Each gift was analyzed in a way to which we, as students, could apply one or more of them to our own lives. Thus, this was helpful in determining the spiritual gifts God has given us. One great example he used was a party or reception where a waiter came out and dropped a whole platter of meals. The person with the gift of service immediately began clearing up the mess and helping in a physical and tangible way. The person with the gift of teaching gave a good reason why what he was doing that made him trip and fall could have been avoided, and thus teaching a better way to avoid trouble. The person with the gift of giving decided that the place needed some touch ups anyway so he determined to give money to repair the rug and facility. Furthermore, the person with the gift of mercy was compassionate on the person, and tried to ease his/her embarrassment for their own relief of anxiety. There are a couple more, but these are just some to give an idea of how the different gifts work together for the good of the Kingdom of God. One, singular gift can’t do everything, that’s not how God designed it. His design was to be a network.
Then as I listened to Pastor Chip Ingram’s third lesson, he described the different primary and motivational gifts, and it became very clear which one was given to me. I determined without a doubt that my primary gift is that of mercy. The strong confirmation came to me from my previous conversations with my mother, and others who know me very well. They often told me of the traits of mercy that I execute throughout my life. I always misunderstood the implication of mercy, thinking my gift was of some other name. This is what is called my primary motivational gift. Other gifts such as helps, wisdom, and discernment are displayed in my life within the context of mercy. It’s been so exciting to learn about these gifts and to apply them to my life. I do not wish, by any means, to boast about them in sharing with you, the reader. My primary goal in publicizing my gifts are to express the joy I have in discovering them, knowing God can use them in me more effectively now that I’m aware of their presence in my life!
The fourth lesson by Pastor Chip Ingram regarding spiritual gifts was focused on the warning called: Beware of Spiritual Gift Abuse. This section consisted of four major cautions. The first was to beware of the person who claims the saying, “…Thus says the Lord.” This is not to say that this saying is of little value, but rather that it can be misused. Another warning concerned people who say “follow my formula and I guarantee you will receive [the following]…” 1st Corinthians 12:6 states that, “there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” Although there are many methods of which God ministers to his people, they all remain under the authority of the Lord God and he works them… not the person who has the gift. Another warning is that person who says there is a “universal evidence gift” that determines whether or not someone is a Christian. This is not true and no where in the Bible does it state that a person may attain salvation by a spiritual gift. It is by grace through faith alone. 1st Corinthians 12:29-30 asks many questions regarding whether all have the gift of teaching, prophesy, miracles, healing, etc. The answer is no, everyone has a different gift. To say that there’s one, universally, ultimate gift and that if someone doesn’t have it, he/she isn’t a Christian is false teaching. The fourth “beware” is to focus on the gift more than the bestower of the gifts. In other words, do not get caught up in the acts of healing, miracles, prophesy, and encouragement that God, the bestower of all gifts, is robbed of his due glory. He deserves all the praise and glory for the gifts he gives and the fruit of them.
Loveroflife:
The angle from which Chip Ingram comes at the topic of spiritual gifts is different from most that I have ever heard of. Instead of a person having the “gift” of healing, they have the gift of compassion and healing is a by product that God sometimes chooses to move in to prove the authenticity of both himself and his servant.
One idea that he put forth was that every Christian is like a painting tool. Some are meant to paint major walls in no time flat, while others are intended to draw intricate details. Both are extremely important in order to finish the “whole picture”, but if the roller tried to do the brushes job or vise verse, they would fail terribly at it. Using this terminology, someone such as Billy Graham would be considered a roller, because he has the ability to affect vast numbers of people. Graham however lacks the calling to deal one on one day to day with the tiny details of a persons lives. Dis is intended to neither party because they operate in cohesion with each other. If we had only one or the other we would either have thousands of very shallow Christians, or dozens of extremely deep Christians. Utilizing both characters God is able to affect the entire world on both a shallow and a deep plain.
You see, there has been no one (Bible times included) who without fail healed EVERYONE that they came into contact with. Even Jesus sometimes did not heal people (What I mean by this is that he did not try to either). God chose when he would heal someone to authenticate Jesus or not, Jesus however was perfectly in-tune with the will of his father, and therefore he knew when the mercy of God was reaching out to someone, and he made himself the vessel of that mercy. This means that when we are using the gift that God gave us, he will sometimes choose to manifest himself in different ways according to the circumstance, and his will for the situation.
Personally, I believe that my motivational gift is prophecy. When I see that a situation is wrong, I dig to the root in order to correct it. Sometimes God has chosen to speak through me, but that is simply a manifestation of God through my gift.
In my life I have seen an incredible abuse of “spiritual authority”. The fourth part to Pastor Chip’s message that our class watched spoke directly to this issue. According to him, there are ten different most common warning flags that can hail an abuse of authority from a mile off. One of these is that a person says that they can guarantee a certain spiritual privilege or gift if you follow “their” formula. This causes incredible peer pressure often causing people to bow to their own will giving them a self gratifying pleasure that is a result of your “submission” to their authority. A few years ago, I was at a church service in at certain church. At the time my family was having some financial difficulties, and this specific teacher was supposed to have the gift of spiritual blessing that released financial freedom. For the sake of space I will skip a few details, but the short of it is, my own father was pressured by those in authority over him to pay an incredible sum of money so that God’s hands would be untied to free him financially. When he succumbed to this pressure, the freedom never came, and the sum he had given up was now a part of the hole he had been entrenched in. At the time this happened, I was too young to understand, but now I realize that I should have seen the flag and alerted my father. We as the body of Christ must learn to recognize the authority of Christ and the authority of Man. I think that if we study cases like this, and the teachings of such men as Chip Ingram we can learn to interpret where true authority lies.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci:
Lesson 2
I think that knowing and developing your spiritual gift is very important in God’s View.
This is because God gave us spiritual gifts with the intention that we use them. It is irresponsible of
people to knowingly not use them. Spiritual gifts should be valued and excercised on a regular basis. If
a person doesn’t know what their spiritual gift is then they should put a lot of effort into discovering
what it is. A person who isn’t sure can find out by asking people that know them what qualities
they see in that person. Using these qualities you can see in what ways you are gifted. If you are still
unsure then you could even practice using each of the gifts and see which one fits with you the best.
After you discover your gift then you should develop it by finding other people who have that gift also and by studying in the
Bible what God’s original intention for that gift was. But be careful you don’t misuse your gift!
Lesson 3
When a person finds out what their primary motivational gift is the next step is to put it into use.
Your primary motivational gift can express itself through a variety of ministry gifts. Some of these
gifts include: prophecy, apostleship, evangelism, teaching, gifts of healing, tongues, and administration.
The next part is the manifestation of your ministry gifts through works. These include: words of wisdom, words
of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. So, once you
discover your motivational gift then you can develop it by learning about it and then finally deploy it by using
it often.
Lesson 4
Once you know and start to use your gift, you must be very careful that you don’t misuse it.
It is important to make sure you don’t do this because it might turn someone off of Christianity. And it will
give them a wrong impression of how spiritual gifts are supposed to be used. If someone you know is misusing a gift then you should prasy
about how to speak to them about it.