Gifts Of The Holy Spirit Series

What makes a spiritual gift distinct from a talent is that God owns the results. A talent can be used for good or bad. The person has a choice in how a talent is used. A spiritual gift is an empowerment of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual gift and will often work through a talent or ability.

Let me try an explain. A person may have the natural talent of public speaking and has no fear of standing before a crowd and can be very persuasive. It is a talent that can be used advocate anything from abstaince to legalized prostitution.

It is a talent that can be used effectively in the church. It is when the Holy Spirit gives us our spiritual gift that the individual talent takes on real life. For example if the Spirits’ gift is “compassion” then the talent of public speaking can be used to move people to respond to a specific need. If one has the spiritual gift of prophesy then one may be lead to preach.

A person may have the talent of music, or sewing, or medicine, or agriculture--bestow the gift of evangelism or helps and you will see these abilities used to lead others to Christ.

What makes spiritual gifts distinct is that God owns the results. God gets the credit, because what is accomplished is beyond our own abilities. This is why I often say that when we clap in church we are not applauding a performance or a person. That is lifting up a talent instead of giving thanks to God for what has happened. He owns the results.

This leads us to another question,

What are the Spiritual Gifts mentioned in the Bible?

The New Testament lists the gifts of the Spirit in four passages: Romans 12:6-8; I Corinthians 12:8-10; Ephesians 4:11 and 1 Peter 4: 10-11 (Peter is a duplicate of the other three). The Ephesians text lists five: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher. 1 Corinthians 12 lists the additional gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, helps and administration. Romans 12 adds these: leadership, exhortation, giving and mercy. As you can see, depending on how you break them down there are somewhere around 19 various gifts.

Each of these gifts are special in their own way. We do not have time to go into a discussion of what each of these various gifts involve. What we need to realize is that if we are a Christian at least one of the these gifts is ours. Each gift is important and is just as necessary as the others.

But "What is the purpose of Spiritual Gifts?"

Surely the Holy Spirit has a reason for giving all these various gifts. The Holy Spirit has a purpose for everything that he does.

In Ephesians 4: 12, Paul stated that the purpose of these spiritual gifts is, "for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry (NIV service), for building up of the body of Christ." In other words, God has given each of us a ministry to perform and supernatural gifts to do it,

In I Corinthians 12:7, the apostle Paul states that the gifts are given "for the common good." We are not to use them selfishly. Instead, we are to use them to encourage and build each other up.