God gives every Christian spiritual gifts, which Christians are personally responsible to manage.
Understanding our gifts is a critical component of developing our Christian identity (1 Corinthians 12-14, Ephesians 4:1-16, Romans 12:1-8, 1 Peter 4:7-11).
The Body of Christ is one unit with many parts, not merely a diverse group that meets together (1 Corinthians 12:12).
- Every believer is equally essential, and every spiritual gift has its time and place (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
The Holy Spirit gives us our spiritual gifts (James 1:17).
- Our spiritual gifts come through Christ, never ourselves (John 15:5).
- We can’t change, improve, or create them apart from His will (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 11).
- We should desire useful gifts that build Christ’s Body (1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:5, 13:12).
Classifications
While all gifts come from the Holy Spirit, He’s given four context-specific types.
A. Church position gifts:
- Given to the New Testament Church collectively, not individuals (Ephesians 4:1-18).
- They symbolically reflect positions Jesus gave to help people grow the Church into a unified Body.
B. Situational gifts
- Given as God sees as appropriate for specific situations (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).
- God freely gives situational gifts when we’re fully surrendered to Him and request them in prayer.
- Situational gifts can magnify absolutely anything a human can already do, so there’s no way to reliably categorize them.
C. Sign gifts
- Given specifically to the Apostles to start the first-century Church (1 Corinthians 12-14).
- Sign gifts are situational gifts, but with much more power and scope (the Apostles showed the most authority and power in all recorded history).
- God gave sign gifts for two specific reasons:
- To demonstrate the Apostles had the same spiritual power as Jesus to prove their discipleship under the risen Christ (Acts 2:22, 2:43, 5:12-16).
- To give authority to demonstrate divine revelation until God’s Scriptures were finished, systematically arranged, and declared absolute (John 17:13-17, Revelation 22:18-20).
- Several types of signs proved the Apostles’ authenticity:
- Sign healing restored limbs and resurrected the dead (Acts 3:1-10, Acts 9:37-40, Acts 20:9-12).
- Sign miracles looked similar to Old Testament miracles, with various powers ranging from protecting a ship’s crew to surviving death from a poisonous snake (Acts 27:31,44, Acts 28:3-6).
- Sign revelation was through an Apostle who gave the same authority and accuracy as Scripture (1 John 4:1-3).
- Sign prophecy had so much authority that it became the New Testament (2 Peter 1:20-21).
- Sign tongues
was the ability to speak in unlearned languages that others knew (Acts 2:4-11).
D. Motivational gifts
- Most references to spiritual gifts among Christians refer to motivational gifts.
- Unlike the other gifts, God gives motivational gifts to every Christian of every age to assist in individual, specially appointed purposes (Romans 12:1-8).
- God designed our motivations from our birth to build up and ultimately strengthen Church members.
- Motivational gifts show the Holy Spirit’s continuous, persistent drive through our personalities.
- The gifts usually start with simple desires, but create supernatural results.
Motivational gifts come directly from our personalities
Teaching wants to dive into the intricacies of God’s Word to precisely and thoroughly communicate its findings to others (Romans 12:7):
- High openness to experience personality, especially regarding intellect.
- Tends to disregard the formalities of a teaching setting.
- Enjoys studying God’s Word, even for long hours and tedious effort.
- Tends to be exceptionally thorough in both studying and presenting Scripture.
- Deep, inner motivation to know the “whole truth” along with a sincere desire to explain it to others.
- Deep frustration with anything in others’ teaching that looks like superficial research, inaccuracies or inconsistent word use.
- Tends to test the knowledge of people teaching them.
- Can explain complicated biblical truths in a way people can understand and benefit.
- Consistently improves their teaching method to help people understand more clearly.
- People influenced by them feel a greater sense of understanding.
Prophecy/declaration wants to declare God’s Word to others boldly, uncompromised, and without corruption (Romans 12:6, 1 Peter 4:11):
- High neuroticism and low agreeableness personality.
- Determined to find and clarify righteousness and confront evil.
- Usually sees moral issues as right/wrong with no gray areas.
- Feels a deep desire to obey God by publicly sharing inner convictions.
- Willing to take a decisive, controversial public stance.
- When people experience their public professions, they feel a deep conviction in their hearts and respond as if God spoke.
- Has tremendous difficulty with situations where people vaguely respond to evil or ignore it.
- Depends on biblical authority when speaking and communicates with an attitude of “thus says the Lord”.
- People influenced by them have more clarity about God’s perspective on a matter.
Exhortation/encouragement wants to encourage and develop others to God’s desired role for them (Romans 12:8):
- High agreeableness personality.
- Determined to encourage and build up others through communicating the content and principles of God’s word.
- Has trouble expressing anything adverse or discouraging.
- Can inspire others to pursue a specific goal.
- Tends to draw out others’ innermost secrets and heartaches and then comforts, encourages and motivates them through the response.
- Can translate biblical truths into practical, real-life experiences that dramatically change lives.
- Consistently gravitates to advisor and counselor roles.
- Frustrated with teaching and truth that seems impractical or difficult to translate into Christian growth and inspiration.
- People influenced by them feel better and stronger after the discussion.
Serving wants to meet others’ needs with very little self-interested consideration (Romans 12:7, 1 Corinthians 12:28):
- High conscientiousness and low openness to experience personality.
- Determined to help others by meeting their practical needs.
- An intuition of others’ physical needs and immediately responds to meet them.
- Relentlessly able to joyfully serve others without complaint.
- Willing to do what other people might consider menial.
- Loves serving without any recognition, especially when it helps leaders.
- People influenced by them feel touched by their selfless work.
Giving wants to take care of others’ material needs without praise, as a challenge to others, and without fear of financial consequences (Romans 12:8, 2 Corinthians 9:10-11).
- High conscientiousness and high openness to experience personality.
- Sensitive to the material needs of others and for God’s work.
- Wants to give anything they have to meet others’ needs without considering personal consequences.
- Enjoys giving anonymously without drawing attention to themselves or the gift.
- Believes that everything belongs to God and only sees money as a means for God’s work.
- Carries a pattern of success in handling personal finances and almost instinctively acquires wealth.
- Once matured, they’ll acquire more possession that God will use for giving.
- Wants to lead others to give through example.
- People influenced by them will have physical needs met, though they might not know where or how someone could have known.
Mercy wishes to comfort heartbroken, grieving, exploited, and downtrodden people (Romans 12:8):
- High agreeableness and high neuroticism personality.
- Determined to reach out to suffering people.
- Can stay cheerful, show mercy, and not grow discouraged from hearing others’ suffering.
- Can feel others’ pain where they know someone cares for and hurts for them.
- Loves ministering to others’ hurt by openly sharing time, talent, and possessions.
- Intuition for when others are hurting, even with few or no outward signs.
- Aches inwardly for others, sometimes to the point of crying when hearing of others who were hurt.
- People influenced by them feel accepted and comforted that someone else understands what they’re experiencing.
Ruling/administration wants to order, organize, lead, and manage the Church’s affairs (Romans 12:8, 1 Corinthians 12:28):
- High conscientiousness and low openness to experience personality.
- Wants to see things done in an orderly, efficient way
- Feels severe unease and frustration with chaotic methods and procedures.
- Enjoys sorting out a messy management system, structuring it, and making it work smoothly.
- In the absence of structured leadership, tends to assume responsibility for organizing things.
- Intuition for important details others overlook and understands the subtler elements that make plans succeed.
- Driven to complete projects as fast as possible, needs tasks with clear finishing points, and hates never-ending or extremely long-term tasks.
- Has a fair, unbiased approach to the various components and viewpoints of a great solution with little influence from feelings or desires.
- Willing to carry out plans others have created.
- People influenced by them are amazed at how smooth and well-organized things run.
Faith wants to implicitly, radically trust God in every situation and lead at showing God’s trustworthiness (1 Corinthians 12:8):
- High openness to experience and high neuroticism personality.
- Doesn’t waver at overwhelming obstacles or contrasting evidence.
- Always driven to trust God in everything.
- Can operate with little to no visible resources, with confidence that God will provide what’s required.
- Has a vision for what God can do and sincerely grateful to Him for it before seeing it physically.
- Consistently expects God is and will be working while facing significant obstacles.
- Trusts God will work a miracle even with little to no prior evidence of His work.
- Driven to motivate others’ implicit faith in God and join in expecting miracles.
- Stays unshaken even everyone else feels the situation is hopeless.
- People influenced by them will first think that person’s crazy, then will trust God more later.
An example
A group of believers is eating at a table when someone drops an expensive gravy dish. The gravy dish breaks, spills the gravy on the floor, and ruins a new suit.
- SERVING grabs a towel and rushes to clean up the mess.
- RULING/ADMINISTRATION directs someone to get a mop, someone else to get a bucket of hot, soapy water, and a third person to help move the table while explaining the need to get to the spots on the floor.
- EXHORTATION/ENCOURAGEMENT informs the person how we all have accidents, how they all know he didn’t mean to drop it, then shares how God will make it work for the best (Romans 8:28).
- PROPHECY/DECLARATION will share how man is born for trouble as surely as sparks fly upward (Job 5:7).
- MERCY will empathize on how it ruined the suit and how embarrassing and disappointing that person must feel.
- FAITH will pray with the person for a new outfit and new gravy dish, and encourage the person that God will provide.
- GIVING will slip an envelope under the table with a hundred-dollar bill and an encouraging note.
Downsides
God built motivational gifts into a person’s spirit.
- Non-believers can still demonstrate some of those traits (a bit like moving a corpse) when provoked by human goodness, but the Holy Spirit activates them when people come to Christ.
- People develop motivational gifts through the Holy Spirit’s power, which comes from spiritual maturity in daily living.
Motivational gifts are driven by our decisions, which create the unfortunate result that believers are capable of directing their gifts away from God’s guidance and toward selfish ambitions.
- When they’re directed incorrectly, motivational can cause tremendous damage to the Church.
Misused teaching can make someone an intellectual snob:
- Desiring study and knowledge can become intellectual or doctrinal pride.
- Knowing God’s Word can create a critical attitude to generally unteachable or less intelligent people.
- The desire to know things in-depth can become an obsession with unimportant Scriptural details with little practical value.
- Knowledge of Scripture can start useless arguments (2 Timothy 2:23).
Misused prophecy/declaration can make someone a jerk:
- Revelations can bluntly hurt others without love.
- Can become self-righteous by clarifying evil to others while overlooking personal shortcomings.
- The desire to see sin judged can lead to them assuming that role instead of God (Psalm 50:6).
- The desire for things to be either right or wrong can blind them to other relevant factors, circumstances, or motivations.
Misused exhortation/encouragement can make someone a flake:
- While avoiding potentially discouraging things, they may refuse to confront others’ failings or apparent sins.
- The power to develop others can also manipulate, control, discourage, or guide others into a dependent relationship.
- Their advisor role can use others’ privileged information unwisely or maliciously.
- The desire to give constructive counsel can motivate giving unsolicited advice that harms their reputation or causes division.
Misused serving can make someone a guilt-tripper:
- Their self-perceived selflessness can create a martyr or self-pitying attitude.
- Their desire to serve might get them tangled with responsibilities or situations they have no authority or permission to operate in.
- They may see others that don’t observe or act on service opportunities as uncaring or lazy.
- They might overlook others’ deeper spiritual or emotional needs in trying to meet physical needs.
Misused giving can make someone a power-monger:
- They might try to control or abuse power with their ability to finance.
- Their pride might look for recognition in giving and will lose their reward with God (Matthew 6:5).
- They might become bitter at people that consistently ask for money instead of joyfully handling the inevitable result of their gift.
- Their material blessings from God may sway them to greed, attachment to material things or wasteful living.
Misused mercy can make someone a sucker:
- Their sensitive spirit that creates their gift might quickly turn into constant hurt feelings, frequent crying and hypersensitive frailty.
- The desire to show mercy can blur the need to hold others accountable, give appropriate discipline or practice tough love.
- They might become bitter at perceived insensitivity in others, especially from prophecy or ruling/administration.
- Their desire to help others in need can make them gullible to anyone with a sad story against wise counsel, no matter how phony or exploitative.
Misused ruling/administration can make someone a bureaucrat:
- They may abuse their ability to see the many necessary details of a task to inspire resistance to all plans with unpredictable results or solutions, even God’s.
- They might prioritize order or efficiency more important than people or their needs.
- They could become bitter at others with motivations that add unpredictable elements to systems.
- Their need for clear project ends might make them unwilling to work in long-term efforts with unclear end-points.
Misused faith can make someone a reckless fool:
- The desire to trust God for giant things might inspire foolish plans that presume God’s provision and dishonor Him.
- The desire for faith can inspire an unwise course against all counsel to prove their faith.
- Their ability to see a great idea’s completed vision or dream can create destructive ignorance about practical obstacles.
- Their ability to motivate others to believe in a dream can exploit people when hard, concrete facts make the idea impossible.
Your spiritual journey will unveil your gifts
There are spiritual motivational gifts inventories, but it’s not reasonable to assume that the Bible describes the only spiritual gifts a person may have.
- It’s entirely possible God may give spiritual gifts to people as they require, without any precedent or classification.
- For example, Samson technically had a spiritual gift of “physical strength” (Judges 13-16) and Solomon was technically gifted with “wisdom”.
- If you simply keep showing up to fulfill needs as God leads, you’ll discover them without trying.
Pay close attention to the good habits you keep practicing:
- You’ll be thinking and acting on a motivation most of the time, even without anyone expecting you to or seeing any results from it.
- You’re able to work on a specific sort of task for a very long time with little to no fatigue.
- Mature Christians are stunned or amazed at what you were capable of doing with those tasks.
More walking with God will create a feedback loop of more desire to exercise that motivation and more apparent results.
God has a reason for spiritual gifts
Love should be the only motivation for any of the gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7, 12:31-13:3).
- Christian love is to concern yourself for someone else’s well-being more than yours (1 Corinthians 13:3-7).
- Genuine love requires freedom from unconfessed sin, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and openness for God to use your motivational gifts (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20).
- God has created all the spiritual gifts, uses all of them, and should always receive praise from their use (Colossians 1:15-18).
The whole purpose of spiritual gifts is to benefit the Body of Christ as a whole (1 Corinthians 12:12-20, Ephesians 4:16).
- Assuming people use them correctly, every church has more than enough gifts to do what God wants (1 Corinthians 1:4-7, Ephesians 4:7-13).
Boldly use your gifts with authority.
- God will clarify if you’ve behaved wrongly (Romans 12:6-8).
- As you mature in Christ, your spiritual gifts will grow along with more and better gifts (1 Corinthians 13:11-13, 1 Corinthians 14:20-21, Ephesians 4:14-15).
- Using our spiritual gifts is time-critical in our present age (1 Peter 4:7-11).