Spiritual Gifts

 

I was talking with a friend the other day and she asked me what I thought my spiritual gift was.  I told her it was serving others.  I had done a spiritual gifts survey a few years back and serving was my strongest gift.  Exhorting was my second.  The serving one was no surprise to me, I have always been one to help  people out whenever I can.  The second one – exhorting – was a surprise because one I did not know what it meant.  This is the definition of exhorting - Verb: Strongly encourage or urge (someone) to do something.  After I knew the definition, I figured it fit well too. 

Have you ever done a spiritual gifts survey?  Do you think these things are necessarily spiritual gifts or are they a person’s natural tendencies… part of their personalities?  What do you suppose a spiritual gift really is?

 

Spiritual gifts are the source of much controversy and confusion among believers. This is interesting and something of a sad commentary, since these gifts are meant to be graces from God for the edification of the church. Even today, as in the early church, the misuse and misunderstanding of spiritual gifts brings division--splitting up, rather than building up--in the church. This resource seeks to avoid the controversies and simply explore what the Bible says about spiritual gifts. (Read the whole article here -http://christianity.about.com/od/holyspirittopicalstudy/a/spiritualgifts.htm)

--  A couple of websites that have spiritual gift surveys you can take (Jordan is taking one right now):

http://mintools.com/spiritual-gifts-test.htm

http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/  (Jordan says this one is not as good… I haven’t done either them.)

--  From the bible – Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Peter 4:10-11

* now there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit gives them (1 Cor 12:4)

*  moreover, to each person is given the particular manifestation of the Spirit that will be for the common good. (1 Cor 12:7)

*  one and the same Spirit is at work in all these things, distributing to each person as he chooses. (1Cor12:11)

*  but we have gifts that differ and which are meant to be used according to the grace that has been given to us.  (Romans 12:6)

*  as each one has received some spiritual gift, he should use it to serve others, like good managers of God’s many-sided grace…  (1 Peter 4:10)

--  My favorite blogger, Alan Knox, has done a series about spiritual gifts -- http://www.alanknox.net/2010/11/spiritual-gifts-series/

--  Jordan finished the survey.  His highest scoring gifts are service, mercy, leadership and exhortation.   I did the survey too (the first one I listed) and mine turned out with serving, teaching, exhorting as the high scores.   I did not like how they worded some of the questions in the survey.  I think most of the time our spiritual gift is pretty clear by our everyday actions.  I don’t think we need to take a survey. 

Well that is all the time I have for this topic for now.  Perhaps I will chime in with more later.