Understanding Your Spiritual Gifts

It’s time, everybody — time for another episode of Faithful on the Clock, the show where every tunnel the ants make is built to get your faith and work aligned. In today’s show, I’m sharing some information I think will be hopefully quite helpful if you want to maximize the influence you have for God in your work, and we’re gonna be talking about spiritual gifts. What are they? Why do they matter? And maybe most importantly, how can you actually apply your spiritual gifts every single day. Let’s break it down, people.

OK, everybody. So I think a logical place to start is to explain what the heck I’m talking about with this whole spiritual gifts thing, because I understand not everybody out there may be familiar with the concept if they’re just getting started on their walk with the Lord. But a spiritual gift is a capability you have that enables you to do God’s work very naturally. And it serves a function that the church needs to be healthy. So, for example, if you think about your organization or workplace, you’ve got some people, you know, they’re just so amazing with people. Or maybe you’ve got some people that are just fantastic at training or analysis. And there can be a lot of distinct skills or talents within that, but you can kind of group people by those broad gifts. So to really make the distinction between gifts and skill clear here, let’s say someone writes really well. Well, the skill is the writing, but the broader gift is communication. Hopefully that makes some sense. So, spiritual gifts work the same way. There are these broad categories, but then within that, you can have many different skills and talents. Now, if you’re wondering where the Bible actually talks about spiritual gifts, you’ll find references in Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 28 - 30, and also Ephesians 4:11. But I just want to go over the gifts really briefly, kind of give an overview. There are 18 gifts altogether, but I’ve grouped them into three big groups just to make it a little easier.

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The first group of gifts is what I’ll call the leadership gifts. And this group includes the gifts of administration, apostleship, evangelism, leadership, and shepherding. So administration, these are the people who do a great job keeping things organized, directing things, or making plans. There’s a lot of love and demand for administrators in the corporate environment because they usually can produce a lot of efficiency. They’re good at getting things to be productive and lean, and that saves the company money and profits go up over time. Leadership, that’s similar, but it’s less task oriented. It’s got a more visionary or a little less pragmatic angle to it, right? Apostleship, you can think of that as leaders of leaders. Like, Jesus’ 12 disciples, they’re going out and finding other leaders, doing church planting, all that good stuff. Shepherding, this is, you know, where you see individual pastors who are guiding and protecting the church. And then evangelism, people with this gift are excellent communicators of the gospel. They do an amazing job of getting the Word out to people.

Now, the second group of spiritual gifts, these are what I’ll call the understanding gifts. These are the gifts that make sure that we’re able to really access God and know who He is and what He wants. This group includes the gifts of discernment, interpretation, knowledge, prophesy, teaching, tongues, and wisdom. So, discernment, that’s basically, can you tell the difference between what’s good and what’s evil, can you tell what’s right or wrong. And I think this gift is super important right now because culture can make it so easy to think that evil things are good, right? So, we really need people who can draw a distinction for us on that. Then you’ve got knowledge. People with this gift, they’re the ones who know scriptures or other information about God like none other. They’re able to see how elements of the Word all connect and how it can apply to all kinds of areas in our lives. Next is wisdom, which is the gift that allows you to apply information or an understanding of right and wrong in really healthy ways. Then you have teaching, where you have people who are educating people, maybe through Bible studies or leading children’s ministry and those kinds of things. And they are so, so important for getting people just this foundational grasp of the story of God and Jesus and for showing them the skills necessary for learning more about Him. Then there’s the gift of prophesy, where God tells people things and they go and tell people what His plans are. I think these people, prophets, I think honestly they’ve got it the hardest in a way, because people really tend to be skeptical and negatively judgmental of them. Like, they don’t really believe that God is really talking through these people. They think the prophets are, you know, mentally ill or things like that. So to all of you doing that work, I kind of have to give you an extra tip of my hat, because I know that’s hard in a way the other gifts aren’t. And I think the next two gifts are hard for the same reason, too. So, finally, you’ve got tongues and interpretation. Tongues is where God gives you a language to speak that communicates some kind of truth or message. And what’s interesting is that often people who speak in tongues don’t even know what they’re saying. But it just comes out. And then that’s where you need the interpreters. Their job is exactly what it sounds like. They take whatever’s been said in tongues and decode it. But I don’t limit this gift just to that. I see this gift as also being able to look at scripture and really translate it in a correct way, even if the interpreter really shouldn’t be able to do that based on, you know, other education or whatever else.

And that brings us to our final big group of gifts, which is what I call the tactical gifts. These are the gifts where a lot of the nuts and bolts or action of the church happens. So you’ve got faith, giving, healing, mercy, miracles, and service. I think probably the most well-known or talked about is service, where people are, you know, setting up the treats in the church cafe or volunteering to do what needs to be done behind the scenes. But faith is important, too. People with this gift are really good at building up the church and making people more confident in God. They just ooze trust in God, and they often are the people that others lean on when things get a little shaky. Giving, that’s another well-known one, where people will want to donate money or other things to meet the needs of the church. Next is mercy, where you have people who, their biggest passion is to care for people who are suffering. They’re fantastic listeners. Then you’ve got healers, where they’re really focused on caring for the sick or those who are physically hurt. Think of nurses and those kinds of jobs, or people who go into the senior homes to support the physical needs people have. And the very last spiritual gift is miracles, where people perform some kind of act that is beyond their power for God. And out of this group, I think this might be the most challenging, because they’re like the prophets or the people or speak in tongues or interpret. What they do is just so out of the ordinary that it’s hard for people to accept a lot of the time. There’s a lot of doubt that hits this gift.

So, having looked at all of these gifts, I do want to stress that these gifts don’t necessarily have to be isolated, OK? So, for example, if you think about Jesus healing the crippled man who was lowered down to Him on a mat, you can read about that in Matthew 9, that used the gift of healing. But it was also mercy and faith, because He really heard how that man was suffering, and Jesus performed that miracle specifically so that people around Him could grow in their belief and know that He really was the Son of God and had authority. And a lot of gifts are interconnected. A lot of shepherds are also really good, wise teachers. It is not unusual at all for a person to have multiple spiritual gifts. But if you know the gifts you’re strongest in, you might be able to have more of an impact for the church. And so having a sense of what really just flows out of you, if we all can get that understanding of our gifts, then what’s gonna happen is, you’ll have the right people in the right jobs in the right ratios for the church, and the church can function at its best. And just like it’s important for a CEO to look at their team and kind of discover where people belong, it’s our job as followers of Christ to let each other know what we’re seeing them excel at so that they have a good sense of direction about how to make a difference.

Now, having broken all the gifts down for you on a really basic level, how do you know which gift you have? Well, probably the easiest way to tell is just go online and take a test. I’ll link to the one at spiritualgiftstest.com, but there are a lot of sites that offer tests on it. Just take a few of those, see what they say. They might not be perfect, but they’re a start. Then, the next step I think is to do some internal reflection. Just think about what you’re doing. Most of the time, if you have a spiritual gift, you’ll naturally be drawn to activities related to it. Those activities should feel pretty good to you. And most of the time, these are also areas where it’s pretty easy for you to get good results, too. So if you find yourself living in the aisles of the library or spending hours researching online, you enjoy that, well, I’d bet money that you have the gift of knowledge. But a third thing you can do to find your spiritual gifts is to pay attention to the feedback you get from others. You know, if people constantly tell you they’ve learned a lot from you, maybe you’re a teacher. Or if people tell you, you know, “Wow, I just feel so encouraged after I talk to you!”, maybe your gift is faith. And sometimes our gifts spill out of us so naturally we can dismiss it, like, oh, that’s no big deal, organizing stuff, that’s just what I do. But when people are telling you how it influences them for good, then it’s probably a gift and you shouldn’t minimize it. Now, related to this, it is well-known in psychology that we often admire or seek out people who have gifts or traits that we admire but either don’t have or don’t feel like we can show. So if you’re just totally wowed by someone’s ability to share a vision, then leadership might not be a gift you have, or at least, it might not be one that you’re allowing yourself to use. So that’s definitely something to be aware of. But then the last thing I would say is, look at what you do in a crisis. Most people will instinctively pull out their spiritual gifts when the you-know-what hits the fan. You’ll want to spring into action using the gifts you’ve got. So if your first instinct after a hurricane is to go volunteer at the local hospital, maybe you’re a healer. Or if your instinct after the hurricane is to pull everybody together and start delegating, you may be an administrator. And I give this tip understanding that sometimes people can live in ways that don’t really match who they are. So maybe they have the gift of knowledge, but they’re in a really mechanical job and they don’t get a chance to show everything they have intelligence about. But in a crisis, you’ll probably feel a tug to act according to your true gifts.

Which brings me to my last point. A lot of times what happens is, because people don’t know their gifts, they get into the wrong positions, both in the church and for their everyday jobs. So, if you really aren’t feeling happy or like you make a difference in your job but the environment, you know, it’s OK, it’s safe, good people around you, maybe the issue is that you’re in work that doesn’t match the gift God gave you. Maybe you got into a job everybody said to go after just because it was in demand or financially stable. So, in terms of career development, every time you have the chance to advance, make sure that there’s that alignment between your gifts and the role you take. And if you take a spiritual gifts test and it comes out really different than you thought it would, don’t necessarily be surprised. I can tell you, when I took a test myself, my top five gifts came out as wisdom, discernment, teaching, leadership, and mercy. Yet, when I think of myself, do I think of myself as all that wise or discerning? Do I automatically think, yep, I’m a teacher? Not even close. I promise you. I’ve just kind of thought of myself as being opinionated and having a hard time keeping those opinions to myself. And I certainly don’t see myself in the same department as the CEOs I write for every day, and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone to bed feeling like the most selfish, non-empathetic person ever. Yet, what am I doing? Trying to use this podcast to teach people about God and help them understand what’s right and wrong and apply it in everyday work situations, and why? Because I do not want people to suffer and be without God. So in hindsight, I can say, yeah, you know what, God led me to work that’s right in line with what He gifted me to be able to do. So, you might have some traits you’re a little blind to or aren’t seeing from a positive perspective. And from the leadership perspective, pay attention to how people interview. You might see a bunch of amazing talents on their resume, and you might know they’re technically capable of doing a job, but keep an open mind so that if you see a spiritual gift, you can say, “Hey, I know you’re applying for Position X here, but we’ve also got Position Y, and I’m really getting the sense you’d knock that out of the park.” But you have to be intentionally mindful and treat spiritual gifts as just as important for fit as anything else.

So let’s wrap this up and just do a quick prayer together.

Lord, every single one of us has a job to do in Your church. But we’re not all equipped the same way. So, God, I ask that You give us clarity about where we fit the best. You know, if someone takes that spiritual gifts test, Lord, make it accurate. If someone is listening to an honest friend about what they’re good at, let that person really accept the truth of that feedback. And Lord, whatever our gifts are, I ask that You will open opportunities in front of us where we can apply them so that, every day, people can see what we do, realize it’s gotta come from somebody bigger than us, and start to have faith. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

I do not have any more treats to hand out off my plate, listeners. So we’ll call this the end of the episode. If you have not done it already, would you please go to faithfulontheclock.captivate.fm and check us out on social media? All the links are up at the top of our main page. I’d love to connect with you on your favorite platforms, so go ahead and do that. I share a lot of really positive original and curated content every day for free, so it is worth going ahead and checking that out. Next time, I’m gonna be giving you a couple of questions you can use to identify truly fulfilling goals. You’ve got two weeks to get ready for that, so until then, be blessed.