…no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3b - 13 (NRSVA)
In the 60’s, the Age of Aquarius, an age of so-called enlightenment, harmony and understanding, people often asked the question, What’s your sign? The question was an attempt to find out about you – your personality traits.
In astrology, the twelve houses of the Zodiac, your birth date identifies what position the stars occupied (relative to earth) when you were born. Astrologers believe that determines what pathway your life will follow, who you will marry, what you will do for a living, and when you will die. Everything – according to Madame Zahra – is in the stars!
The longer you live, the more you will realize not many things change; the sixties was not a new movement, but an old paganism revisited. It was the religion of Nimrod. Nimrod was the king of what we now call “Iraq”; he built the tower of Babel (Genesis 10). The tower was supposed to set this tribal lord up high –the stars held all the power. Like Sadaam Hussein, Nimrod wanted to be God. He wasn’t!
But we still have Nimrod’s followers in the new millennium. They are on the Internet, TV and radio. You can recognize their identifying marks: a deck of Tarrot cards and a 1-900 number. What they control is your pocket book! They ask, what’s your sign – AND your PIN number!
If the pagans ask what’s your sign, in Christian circles you’re liable to be asked What’s your gift? The question is about spiritual gifts; the question is both good and bad.
• What’s your gift is a bad question when we are talking about Christians identifying themselves with gifts that are more noticeable or popular. It is a kind of competitive-edge thing, or spiritual merit badge collection. To show off our gifts is a sign of pride.
• On the other hand, what’s your gift is a good question when the answer is surrounded by a prayer, Lord; show me how I can be helpful in Your Kingdom.
It is something which should happen frequently in churches. The conversation begins, Pastor, I wonder if there is any part of ministry around here that can use some help. The pastor’s response is, (help me now), What’s your gift?
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers to help them understand the gifts of God’s Spirit. He asked them to remember their pagan past. They had been steeped in idol worship. In that day ecstatic frenzies were part of temple idol worship. Worship that is entirely emotion-driven can wind up in some pretty wild stuff!
Do you recall the Canadian-born laughing revival? The phenomenon came out of a sincere desire for more joy in the Christian community. However, it wound-up a laughing stock (literally), as people simply sat giggling, rolling in the aisles, some running and laughing wildly during “worship”. It was an emotional frenzy, not a God-honoring time of praise.
So-called “spirit-filled” churches that are really emotionally-driven parties need to check up on their motivation and inspiration to see if their purpose is to glorify God, or to have a great time.
Methodists, on the whole, are not in any danger of going off that kind of emotional edge. But, on the other end of the spectrum you do have some extremely formal churches that need to check for a pulse – to see if the Spirit has departed.
Either way – when it comes to spiritual gifts and their use, the main key is: Is there any God in it? An easy way to do inventory on that is to have an honesty check to see how much of “me is in it”. The simple equation has always been, the more of men there is in anything, the less there is of God!
In the light of that principle, let’s look at what we should be doing with our spiritual gifts in this church; let’s examine three actions we can undertake in our lives to be obedient to God’s desire for His spiritually-gifted children:
I. Identify Your Spiritual Gifts
God has gifted all humans with natural talents or abilities, such as math, art, building, healing. Talents are not spiritual gifts. On the other hand spiritual gifts may match-up with the natural talents a person possesses (teaching, wisdom, helps).
When I was young I was terrified of public speaking of any kind (public – as in there being at least one other human being listening to anything I had to say). But in elementary school I was forced to give an oral report, and the exhilaration of communicating was something God used to draw me into pastoral ministry. It was like a moth being drawn to a flame – a love/hate relationship. It still is!
The difference between talents and gifts is seen primarily in why they are used. Talents are generally used to benefit the possessor – a spiritual gift is given by God for the building up of God’s body (Eph 4).
For instance, someone who is good at talking may have a talent. If he serves a church as pastor with that “talent” he may convince a lot of people of his views, and build a great following. Is there any God in it? On the other hand, if his preaching is a spiritual gift, he will be compelled to communicate the gospel and build up the body of Christ.
One way you can recognize a true spiritual gift is when it complements other areas of the Christian life. It’s Mother’s Day, so I asked all my email friends to share about their Moms, and the spiritual gifts they observed in them. I couldn’t begin to read all the responses I got. But in all the responses, although the specific gifts were varied, the observations were tied together at this point – they all observed their mothers strengthening others by virtue of the gift; the gift was not used to promote self, or simply because the possessor liked using it. They were investing in people’s lives, and building the Kingdom.
A music minister or soloist who does church work because they love music is satisfying a personal need to be involved by expressing a talent. A spiritual gift in the area of music will be used to bring glory to God.
In starting to identify your spiritual gifts, a good place to begin would be your sense of motivation. What lights your fire when it comes to serving God? Start with a list of the gifts in 1 Co. 12 – which of those makes your heart pound a little louder?
Be sure of your motivation. If you find your true spiritual gifts and put them to work serving God, there will not be a happier, more fulfilled person in the world. On the other hand, if you attempt to assume for yourself a gift that God has not given you, there will not be a more miserable child of God in the Kingdom than you!
You might have seen the children’s movie Chicken Run; dozens of chickens are held captive in the concentration camp of Tweedy Farms. Rocky the Flying Rooster is supposed to be their savior, teaching them to fly over the walls. Many things happen that are hilarious, but none of the chickens learn to fly. Their Creator did not gift them in that area. [1]
The advice about identifying your spiritual gifts is to identify your gifts, not those of someone you admire, and would like to emulate.
We identify our spiritual gifts, and…
II. Involve Your Gifts in Service
A wise church leader said, there are too many needful things to be done to wait around for someone to feel gifted.[2]
Remembering that spiritual gifts are given by God for the purpose of building-up Christ’s body, the church, we must also say that once you identify your gift (or gifts), you need to put it/them to use in the body.
Tools left in the toolbox gather spider webs and rust; eventually they are thrown out. At the very best they are only a collection, not a blessing.
Involving those gifts can be as simple as showing up at worship and Sunday School each week – ready for whatever God wants you to do. The key words there are ready for whatever God wants! Remember – spiritual gifts are those talents and abilities that have God in them. God somehow takes each of our gifts and uses them for His purposes. But we must make ourselves and our gifts available for God to use them.
Identify and Involve our Gifts is followed by…
III. Improve Your Gifts Through Prayer and Practice
In one of the churches I served after seminary, Granny Parker summed up what I sense is God’s way of helping us along in the church. Granny is home with Jesus now. In this world she wasn’t very impressive; she only completed about 5th grade in school. But she had a heart for God and a PhD when it came to prayer (p.h.d. praying higher and deeper). Her social skills were few – but she could get to the heart of the matter.
After I’d been at the church for five years, our Deacons threw a little celebration party to mark the occasion. Granny was asked to say a few words. She rose to her full 4’11” height, stood ramrod-straight and told about “My Pastor”; she said, Well, I remember the first time my Pastor, Bro. Russell, preached here. I thought to myself, O Lor’, am I a-gonna have t’ listen t’ that the rest o’ mah days? Then, you know what – he started a-growin’ on me; an’ I found I could understand him. He ain’t such a bad preacher after all. He got better.
Granny was right; I did get better. The reason I got better was Granny was praying for me, and I was working hard at getting better. That’s the way it is in the church, and especially with spiritual gifts – it’s a group project!
In that same Ephesian passage (4:3), Paul said we build up the body, but we do it in the unity of the Spirit. You are here to help me identify, involve and improve my spiritual gifts, and I am to help you too.
Mike Royko writes about a conversation he had with Slats Grobnik, a man who sold Christmas trees. Slats remembered one couple on the hunt for a Christmas tree. They were obviously poor. After finding only trees that were too expensive, they found a Scotch pine that was okay on one side, but pretty bare on the other. Then they picked up another tree that was not much better—full on one side, scraggly on the other. She whispered something, and he asked if $3 would be okay. Slats figured both trees would not be sold, so he agreed.
A few days later Slats was walking down the street and saw a beautiful tree in the couple’s apartment. It was thick and well rounded. He knocked on their door and they told him how they worked the two trees close together where the branches were thin. Then they tied the trunks together. The branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you couldn’t see the wire. Slats described it as "a tiny forest of its own."
"So that’s the secret," Slats asserts. "You take two trees that aren’t perfect, that have flaws – might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would want. If you put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful." [3]
That the way God works in the church too; He takes imperfect people – perfectly places His gifts in their lives, and watches over the development to bring about His perfect result.
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ENDNOTES
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1] Chicken Run, written by Jack Rosenthal, Karey Kirkpatrick and Peter Lord; distributor: Dreamworks SKG
2] Leadership magazine Kent Hughes
3] Mike Royko, One More Time (University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 85-87; on PreachingToday.com
