It doesn’t matter the occasion—birthday, anniversary, Christmas, a reward, or “just because”—receiving a gift is usually a joyful experience. Gifts may be given tightly wrapped in fancy paper, in a nice gift bag, with a simple bow, or even simply by “closing your eyes and holding out your hands.” When there are multiple gifts, people often look like they are going through the produce section in the grocery store—poking, prodding, and shaking—hoping to learn a bit about what is hidden inside. Typically, there is excitement surrounding gifts; a delight for both the one receiving and the one giving.
Photo by Jess Watters
It is no surprise to learn that God desires to give us gifts (Luke 11:13)—eternal life itself is a gift! Yet, when God gives to His children, He loves to “open the floodgates.” For example, not only does God give us the gift of the Holy Spirit, but He also provides additional gifts through the Spirit. We call them “spiritual gifts.” Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation about these gifts. So I went back to the Bible, set aside what I thought I knew, and studied about them.
Gifts of the Spirit
Paul writes about them in three of his letters (Romans 12:6–8, 1 Corinthians 12:7–10, and Ephesians 4:11). These are the gifts he mentions: apostleship, prophesying, evangelizing, pastoring, teaching, serving, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership, showing mercy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, and tongues and their interpretation. This is quite a list! As gifts, though, none of these can be earned, or purchased, or learned.
The phrase “gifts of the Spirit” helps us to understand that these gifts come to us after we have made a commitment to Christ and have received God’s Spirit. We receive the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit when we are baptized (Acts 2:38). It is after this point that we would expect to receive any further gifts from the Spirit.
Are the gifts reserved only for the leadership of the church or other specially chosen people? Or can we all receive them? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:11, “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” In Hebrews 2:4 we read that the gifts of the Spirit are “distributed according to His will.” Romans 12:6 says, “We have different gifts according to the grace given us.” Basically, they are available to everyone but God is the one who decides who gets what.
Finding Your Gift?
How do we go about finding out which one(s) we’ve been given? Some claim that everyone will get the same gift, so we only need to look for one. However, the passages we just read show that God gives out different gifts as He determines. There’s no passage in scripture that says we will all receive the same gift. Besides, a gift is not the evidence of the Spirit in a person’s life, the fruit is.
Others will suggest that we just fill out a questionnaire and hope it will reveal our gifts. While they can be helpful, there is a weakness in those tests: us. We have the ability to test ourselves into a gift. In other words, we can answer the questions based on who we wished we were rather than who we really are. Besides, was that how the early church learned their gifts?
Revealed When Following
We won’t find a formula for a spiritual gifts inventory in the book of Acts. They learned what their gift was by seeing it revealed in their lives. This is because spiritual gifts are revealed in those who are diligently following and obeying Christ. They are given whenever God’s people need to be built up (Ephesians 4:12, 13); whenever people need to grow in faith or in the knowledge of the Son of God. The gifts are given to us to compensate for our inadequacies when we are doing God’s will.
In other words, you must be actively following Jesus to find your gift. You will never learn what your gift is by sitting in a pew—you have to be out working for the Kingdom of Heaven. Then, when you are in a situation where a gift is needed it will show up.
Furthermore, whatever your gift is, you will discover God’s blessing as you use it. A broken heart is encouraged; a sad heart finds hope; a prodigal son returns to Jesus; a seeker begins to understand Biblical truths. Other people will benefit—they’ll grow spiritually—when a gift is used.
According to His wisdom, God will give us a gift as they are needed. We don’t have to have all of the gifts. We don’t all need to have the same gift. But, if God calls us to do something that is beyond our abilities, He will grant us a gift from His Spirit to complete it. Then, as Peter wrote, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received…” (1 Peter 4:10).