Transcription
Have you ever wondered what is my spiritual gift? Some people think that spiritual gifts are only for super spiritual Christians or for pastors, but it's not like that.
Have you ever also noticed that some people can sing? When they minister, nothing really shifts. And then there's somebody else. They're not even super polished. Yet when they open their mouth, people get convicted, healed, delivered, encouraged, and you can feel something is shifting. Why is that? Because not everything that looks gifted is actually a spiritual gift. And not everything that's a talent is actually anointed.
Here's a scary part. A lot of believers spend their whole life trying to develop what God never deposited and they end up being burned out, frustrated, and comparing themselves to everyone else. So, what if the reason why you're exhausted is not because you're doing too much, but it's because you're doing the wrong thing outside of your grace.
In this teaching, I'm going to show you the difference between talents you inherit and the gifts you receive. Why gifts don't come from your genetics, but they come from the Holy Spirit and how God can take your natural and add some super into it. At the end, you're not just going to know more about spiritual gifts. You're actually going to start discovering your own. So, let me ask you one question that will expose everything and that is, are you operating out of what you're good at or what you're graced for? Let's get into it.
First of all, let's define difference between gifts and talents. Gifts are blessings and abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit to bless and benefit others. A natural talent comes with your genetic makeup or ability plus practice. Spiritual gifts, they come directly from the Holy Spirit to those who are saved or to those who seek them. Spiritual gifts are received while natural talents they are inherited. You are born with them. Spiritual gifts are matured. You can't really improve them, but you can mature in them. While talents can be developed with expected results, both talents and gifts are blessings from God.
When you are operating in your spiritual gifts, God is adding super to your natural. It's like God's empowerment to you. Though it is true that God can anoint your natural skills and craftsmanship as we see in Exodus 31:es 1-1. Now, one thing that's very important that you must understand is that you need to anchor your life around God's gift on your life. Romans 12:6 says, "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith." 1 Peter chapter 4 10 it says as each one has received a gift minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
The more you understand where you have been supernaturally gifted. The more time you function there, the more you will lose burnout. Unmet expectations will be reduced. Your joy will grow. Comparison no longer really has a place in your life if you anchor your life around ministering, serving, and even working out of the place of your gifts.
Sometimes people get jobs not where their gifts are at, but where the compensation is at. They feel burned out. They feel don't not motivated. Sometimes people do the same thing in ministry. You know it's okay in the beginning where you serve everywhere but if you want to be effective if you want to find fulfillment if you want to change the world you have to try to narrow your life to serving outside of the gifts within the gifts with the gifts through the gifts given to you by God these gifts are given to you on purpose you can change the world through these gifts but if you don't know these gifts you will be busy just chasing chasing your tail, chasing what somebody else is doing and you will not be fulfilled. You will be burned out because you're operating not on the grace, out of the grace. You're operating just through sheer grinding.
Now, when it comes to these gifts, not only you must orchestrate your life, the faster the better to operate from the gifts to serve through the gifts and even work within the area of your gifts. Why? Knowing about the gift of God on your life, you also must understand is there are limits to that gift. So not only I need to know what is God's gift for my life which is crucial. But I also must understand is God gives gifts, he also gives me to that gift. So not only God gives you his gifts, he also determines the influence, the power and the anointing of that gift, the scope of that gift, the reach of that gift.
And this is huge because you look at in the Bible like for example you see Paul and you see uh Peter you know Paul is called to the Gentiles. It's obvious Peter is called to the Jews and Paul even mentions that that Peter is to the Jews and Paul is to the Gentiles. You know what's interesting about Paul is you will see Paul always trying to go back to the Jews and gets beaten by the Jews a lot in every city he goes in. Guess who beats him up? Jews. You know, you don't see Peter being beaten up by the Jews as much. Peter just goes in and ministers to the people that God called him to be.
I'm not saying if you are staying within your gift that you will never experience persecution. Nor am I saying that Paul got persecuted because he stepped out of his gift. No. But the scripture clearly defines that Paul's scope, Paul's measure, Paul's place where God called for his gift to operate were among the Gentiles. So you will spend time comparing and wanting to be someone else or trying to make someone be like you if you don't understand that your gift is powerful and your gift also has boundaries. It has measurements. It it doesn't reach everyone. It's not going to do everything. You're not gifted to be everything and everyone. You're gifted and you must know what that is. And when you know what you're gifted, you must right away clearly define what you are not gifted. And it's okay.
So many people are afraid of that to be able to acknowledge like I'm not called to sing. I'm not gifted to sing. I'm not called toward music and I'm not gifted toward that. Now could I push myself to learn piano and guitar? Yes, I have tried that. But I'm going to be wasting my time that I have very little of to develop the gift and the calling and assignment that I have by being maybe mediocre at best and something I'm not called in. And it will be an uphill battle for me to grow in the area God never graced me in. And so I actually used to lead worship for two years. I wanted to lead worship. I wanted to be a worship leader. Why? Because I didn't know what my gift was. And so I was trying to be whoever I saw on the stage on any given week. So whoever I was, you know, drawn to uh impressed by, touched by, impacted by, that's who I wanted to be. And so I constantly kept switching my callings and my gifts because of that. And it was it was bad until somebody came alongside and I was a teenager, so you know, give me some grace. And they said, "You're not called to sing." And I was like, "Well, but I want to sing. I have a desire to sing. Isn't that a sign that I'm called?" No, you can't sing. But you have a passion, a conviction, something about you when you preach and when you speak. You should focus on that. What would happen if you would take all the focus that you were trying to do to build your singing and your playing and focus on speaking and preaching? You would have been so much further now. And so that became like an insight and I simply narrowed my focus from trying to be a worship leader, a preacher, a pastor to I'm called to communicate and I tried to really narrow everything down.
So I always tell people that don't work on your weaknesses, delegate them, develop your gifts. Now when I say weaknesses, I don't mean pornography, cigarettes, or alcohol. I'm talking about like in the area of skills and talents. The more you know what you're called to do and gifted by God, equally you should know what you are not called to do and not do it and not compare yourself with somebody who is good at it. Period. Develop your gift. Delegate your weaknesses. If you working on your weaknesses, you're wasting time on developing your gifts. You would have been so much further if you would have tried not to work on your weaknesses and only work on your gifts.
The other part that's very important is that while operating in God's gift, you must understand that you must develop spirit's fruit. The fruit is God working in you. The gift is God working through you. If all that you are doing is letting God work through you and you're developing that, you're growing in that. and you don't let God work in you, meaning God's work inside of you is plateaued, but God's work through you is constantly growing. You will collapse sooner or later. Lack of fruit in your life will catch up. Fruit and gift are like two wings of the same plane. It's like two legs of the body. It's like two hands of the body. It's like two eyes and two ears. Both are equally important.
But what begins to happen is that gifts are fun. Gifts are exciting. Gifts they touch the world. Gifts they bring jolt of joy and enthusiasm. Fruit is slow. Fruit is inward. Fruit is you know why your family complains about your attitude, about your punctuality. It's why your friends complain about lack of consistency in your life, lack of discipline. And it's the fruit we tend to neglect. The reason why is because it's the gift that puts us on the stage. But it's the fruit that people in our proximity to us eat off. They feed off. You know, fruit feeds people. But gifts, they impact the world. And God works through the gifts in you. But he wants to work in for the fruit inside of you. Because if you only have one and you don't have the other one, you're going to be abusing the gifts. You won't be ministering with love. You'll not be ministering with pure motives. And you'll be pretty annoying to people that actually know you closely. You will be anointed to the people that don't know you and very annoying to the people that actually know you. And that's a problem.
Now there are three types of gifts. You can take all the gifts of God and break them down into three categories. And actually it comes from 1 Corinthians 12:4-6. It says there are diversity of gifts but the same spirit. So spirit gifts. There are differences of ministries but the same Lord. So there are ministries and there are Lord and there are diversities of activities but the same God who works all in all. So if we take all of the gifts we can break them down to three categories.
One is the gifts of the father which are activities. They are operational gifts and they are generally given to everyone and sometimes we call them talents. In Romans chapter 12 it lists nine of those gifts. A lot of times they are serving and they're motivational in nature like prophecy for example not necessarily thus says the Lord prophecy but people who kind of have a prophetic insight into the future into the economy into people and other things ministry it's people who love to meet practical needs of other people setting up helping and doing behind the scenes work with joy who are not even in church and who do things for charities and do things for their communities teaching it's people who love to explain things very clearly and accurately bringing understanding and really just helping to put things on in the shelves. There are sometimes teachers in universities, teachers in schools, and people who just are able to articulate complex things in simplicity. There's also exhortation or encouragement. It's when people are able to pull people higher, comfort them, push them forward with hope, giving, it's when people have the gift of generosity. Uh they love to resource, you know, charity and all of these things. They're not always in the church. Sometimes they're outside of the church and they just love to give leadership. It's when people can organize and mobilize, build teams, systems, and carry responsibility and create order and direction. And a lot of times you see people build companies and have a gift of leadership. That's the gift of the father, the gift of operation, the gift of activity, mercy. It's when people are drawn to hurting, broken people, overlooked people, and compassion flows through them. And so these are the gifts of the father. Many people are born with these gifts. Many people are given these gifts from God and they are natural to them. And it's something that is they're so drawn by that.
Second category is the gifts of Jesus. These are ministry gifts. Ephesians chapter 4 has a breakdown of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Now, these roles that Christ gives, I want you to notice that it's not something you choose like I want to be a pastor. It's something that is chosen for you. Jesus chooses you to be an apostle. Jesus chooses you to be a prophet. Jesus choose chooses you to be an office of a teacher in his church. So these are not something you choose. As gifts of the father, you're you're born with them. God just gives them to you. You don't have to pray about them. You don't have to feel a call. You just kind of have a natural drawing and and gifting in that area. The gifts of Jesus, Jesus calls you into that. And so most people, that's why who go into ministry, you will feel this common testimony from them is that I didn't want to do it. And so, but God called me and so I said yes to that. So it's less me wanting it, more Jesus wanting it for me um for the benefit of his church. So the ministry of Jesus or the callings of Jesus or the gifts of Jesus are specifically for the equipping of saints for the work of ministry.
Now uh somebody used an example one time that a good way to remember the the gifts of Jesus the five of them are actually like the five fingers on your hand. Apostle is like a thumb finger. It touches all other fingers and it holds things. Prophet is like the index finger. He gives direction. Evangelist is the middle finger. He stands taller because his goal is to do outreach. A pastor is the ring finger because of his affection to the church. A teacher is like a little finger who knows how to get into your ear. Um, and we have to welcome and celebrate these gifts of the church if we want the church to be equipped for every good work.
And the last category of gifts are the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are given to all believers as Holy Spirit distributes them. And they are mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. And there's nine of them. The word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the gift of faith, the gift of healings, the gift of working of miracles, the gift of prophecy, the gift of discerning of spirits, the gift of kinds different kinds of tongues, the gift of interpretation of tongues.
So now as we wrap this up, I want to quickly highlight four steps that I like to use when it comes to discovering or how to know your gifting. And I like to say like this. There's a deposit, there's a discovery, there's a development, and there's a deployment. God deposits these gifts. In 1 Timothy 4:14, it says, "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of hands of eldership."
Now, I believe that the way we receive spiritual gifts from God is, you know, if it's gifts of the father, things were born with, there's also the gifts of Jesus, God specifically calls us and the gifts of the Holy Spirit where the Holy Spirit gives those gifts to us. But there's one underlying umbrella when it comes to receiving spiritual gifts and that is visitation from God and impartation from the men of God. So it's how they get deposited. They get deposited when you have a visitation from God. You God just supernaturally visit you or you get an impartation from the man of God.
Interestingly, you see this in the scriptures where Moses received his gifts from God supernaturally when God encountered him. But Joshua received his gifts from God when Moses laid hands on him. You see, Samuel encountered the gift of God when he encountered God supernaturally. David received the anointing and his gift when Samuel laid hands on him. Elijah, we don't know how he became a prophet, but it was most likely supernatural. Yet Elisha became a prophet when somebody laid hands on him. Elijah, same thing with Jesus. Jesus was anointed by God, but disciples received that power from Jesus. apostles, you know, received that Holy Spirit's anointing with 120 people during the day of Pentecost. But then you see disciples going around apostles laying hands on others to receive the spirit. You see, Paul has an encounter with Jesus and receives impartation, receives these gifts, but Paul lays hands on Timothy and he says, "Timothy, you got a gift inside of you through laying on of hands." So sometimes there's a visitation that happens. God just marks you. He just calls you and sometimes somebody actually prays for you and God transfers that gift into you. That's why I believe in the power of impartation and laying on of hands which one of the doctrines of the Bible.
Now, so the first thing is that it's deposited by God. It could be deposited through a hunger encounter with him or somebody laying hands on you. The second step and that is you discover it through serving. Now I mentioned there's going to be five ways you can discover it. So one of the one of them is desire. What are you drawn to? What do you have a strong desire for? And now I would be very careful. Desire is not the only way you know what your gift is. Though the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 14 to desire spiritual gifts. We got to be careful because not everything we desire strongly is actually we are gifted or deposited by God inside of us. That's why the second thing I would do when it comes to discovering it. So there's a deposit. There's a discovery. God deposits it. I discovered it. Desire is one of them. Fruit is another one. The way I discover it is where does my ministry consistently help people? That's huge. The third way I discover it is confirmation. Do mature leaders affirm this gift or they direct me in a different way? Like for me, for example, my pastor is the one that first called that gift out. And then there were other people who actually called out the dimensions of my gift and said that's you're not called to do that. Why are you wasting time when you could be spending time building this up? So a lot of times there will be a confirmation. So desire, fruit and confirmation. The third one is serving. A lot of times these gifts they become more evident and polished and visible through serving. Rebecca received the gifts by watering the camels. As you water the camels, as you serve in the ministries, they begin to polish. They begin to surface. And sometimes it's by prophecy like it happened with Timothy. Paul says, "You got this gift by prophecy. Somebody prophesied and says, "God called you to do so and so." And bam, they lay hands on you and boom, you you already know now. Not only you got the deposit, but actually you know, okay, clearly you're called to do ABC D.
Now when you discover the gift, God deposited it, you discovered it, there's a third step you must do and that is you must develop it. You must develop this gift, mature this gift, mature yourself in this gift through consistency and correction are two things. Now it's important to understand when you begin to develop your gift, there must be an order you submit to and accountability. The Bible says people who prophesy should be judged um corrected. Somebody should listen to it and say uh this is off. So we must not feel like our gift is developed right away. That's why people who say well but I hear dreams from God all the time or I hear voice from God all the time. You still need community. You need correction and you need consistency to constantly grow in it. Because if you don't grow in it, you might actually fall into pride and you might start operating out of other sources afterwards through pride than out of the Holy Spirit. That's why we need a community of believers and that's why we need to practice these gifts, grow in these gifts and allow people to speak into our life to bring correction and practice consistency.
And lastly is you must deploy these gifts. Meaning you got to consistently serve with these gifts to bless other people. Now I'm going to share with you some thoughts that I believe will help you. God will bless what you have. He will give you what you need. But he will only multiply what you give away. You got to pour the oil that you have and God will increase it. That's why Paul tells Timothy in second Timothy chapter 1 verse 6, he says, "I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through laying on of hands." We already mentioned that he received it through prophecy, through laying on of hands. But Paul now tells him in the second Timothy, Timothy, you got the gift through the prophecy. You got to fan the flame. You got to you got to deploy it. You got to release it. You got to serve. And then in the next verse is the famous verse we quote but we don't realize it's actually connected to somebody operating in their gift for God has not given you a spirit of fear. Why? Because when you have a gift, sometimes people have timidity. Sometimes people actually become cowards and they allow fear to block the flow of God's gifts. So to release those gifts, you must overcome the temptation of intimidation. Sometimes the enemy will use the fact that your personal life doesn't have all the ducks in the row. You don't have the breakthrough in this area. Why are you serving with your gifts to other people? But if you're willing to see people, not just your personal problems, these gifts will flow more through you. And sometimes I tell people, you got to serve out of faith in these gifts. And sometimes you got to serve out of obedience in these gifts. meaning you feel like I I don't know if I want to pray for other people right now. You know, Abraham praying for women who were barren. His own wife was barren. You know, Jesus was healing a guy that was lost his ear because Peter chopped it off. You know, while Jesus was being arrested. I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't have the greatest mood at that moment to minister, but he still did it. So, sometimes we minister in our gift out of obedience. And sometimes it's like we have faith flowing. We're so excited to do that. And so if you really want to deploy it and grow in it, you got to it's like a muscle. It grows by exercise. If there is no flow of these gifts in your life, then you must learn to practice faith as well. Stir the gift. Don't shrink in fear. Fan into flame. Rekindle, awake, revive, arose. Accept not only that you got the gift, but you also got the spirit of power, love, and sound mind to operate in that gift.
Another way to deploy these gifts is to be in an environment where gifts are celebrated. A lot of times people end up in environments that are toxic, that reject the gifts of God, that don't allow the gifts of God, that manipulate the gifts of God or control the gifts of God. And lastly, on how to deploy the gift of God. I love this story from King Saul. Samuel prays for him. He receives the anointing. He receives what he needs to operate on the assignment God called him. In 1st Samuel chapter 10:7, it says the following. And let it be when these signs come upon you that you do as the occasion demands, for God is with you. I love this. It's almost like God was saying, when there's a gift on your life and you walk with Holy Spirit and you don't know exactly what do I do, you do what the occasion demands. God's ability, God's gifts are activated through your actions. You do what your hand finds you to do. You do whatever circumstances require. You do what the occasion demands. You do what must be done. When electricity is connected to the house, you can connect really anything into it. And so you begin to connect to that gift by activity, action, doing what the occasion demands.
I would say this has been a huge secret of my life. I've struggled for a long time to know what my gift is. I didn't believe God had gifts for me. And then when I started to serve, my pastor would tell me what to do at church. I was started to serve. And I started to see the impact that it made on people. Specifically when I preached, there were prophetic confirmations throughout my younger years on what God called me to do. And then I made the mistake that a lot of people make as I tried to be involved in everything. Not because there was a need, but because I was insecure. My gifts were not developed. And I wanted to do what other people were doing. And then after a while, I actually honed my whole life narrowed it to doing exactly what I'm called to do. And a lot of times I tell people I'm called to lead and to feed. And so I communicate God's word. You know, you can see this in prayers, you can see this in books, you can see this in videos, you can see this in preachings, you can see this in teachings, you can see this. But really, I'm doing just one thing. I am speaking uh God's word. And God graced me for that. I'm not the best preacher or speaker, not the most eloquent one, not the best looking one, but it doesn't matter. I have a grace on this field. And so I stay within this field when it comes to my life in the church. And when it comes to my life within the leadership, all other areas where I am not as great in, I don't try to become good at it. I don't need everybody to think I am the best ABCD. I just try to focus on the gift and serve out of that gift. It replenishes me. It gives me purpose and fulfillment. And it touches so many people. And so stay within the gift. Don't imitate mine. Don't imitate somebody else's gift. Stay within the gift God called you. Serve out of that gift. Work on that gift. Make it stronger and better because that's where God's grace is at. And remember there are dimensions to that gift. Honor that. Celebrate that. Those are limits. And God will accomplish his work through you. And don't forget, as God works through you by his gifts, he wants to work in you through his grace to develop the fruit to sustain the gifts that he has placed in your life. Please don't rob the world of the gifts that God has for them that he deposited in you. Deploy them today. Develop them today and release them to bless the world.
Thank you for watching this video. Let me know in the comments what you learned today. And what are your spiritual gifts? Do you know them? How are you working on developing and releasing them into the world? Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share this with somebody.
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