Spiritual Gifts

Yes, lately I've been obsessed by this topic. It has consumed alot of my thinking and speaking time. But, it has changed my life. I used to think that "spiritual gifts" was speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, healing, etc. It wasn't until my life-changing mission trip to California that I realised there was much more to the list (see below). Now that I have a better idea of what gifts I have to serve God and the church I can focuse energy and time on strengthening and using these gifts.

Spiritual Gifts:
·Administration: The ability to organize and guide human activities in such a way that Christ's program is carried out (1 Cor 12:28).
·Creativity: The ability to forward God's Kingdom through creative skills such as music, drama, graphic arts, writing skills, painting, sculpting (Exodus 35:31).
·Discernment: The ability to distinguish between truth and error, to know when a person or act is of God (1 Cor 12:10).
·Encouragement: The ability to motivate people through encouraging words to live practical Christian lives (Romans 12:8).
·Evangelism: The ability to present the Gospel to unbelievers in a clear and meaningful way which calls for response (Ephesians 4:11).
·Faith: The ability to envision what God wants to happen and to be certain He is going to do it in response to prayer, even when there is no concrete evidence (1 Cor 12:10).
·Giving: The ability to support the Lord's work materially with generous, timely, and cheerful contributions (Romans 12:8).
·Hospitality: The ability to welcome and graciously serve guests and strangers (Romans 12:13).
·Intercession: The ability to pray faithfully for others and to identify specific answers to those prayers (Colossians 1:9, 10).
·Leadership: The ability to lead members of a group with caring concern and foresight (Romans 12:8).
·Mercy: The ability to empathize with hurting people and to translate that into cheerful acts of service (Romans 12:8).
·Prophecy: The ability to proclaim and apply God's truth so that believers may be edified, encouraged, and consoled, and non-believers convinced (1 Cor 12:10, 28).
·Service: The ability to help others in their ministries by aiding them in practical ways.
·Shepherding: The ability to oversee the spiritual lives of others and care for their spiritual needs by teaching and guiding them toward maturity (Ephesians 4:11).
·Teaching: The ability to communicate knowledge to others for the purpose of upbuilding (Ephesians 4:11).
·Knowledge: The ability to receive from God knowledge.
·Wisdom: The ability to see from God brings perspective.
·Healing: The ability to be the one through whom God brings healing.
·Miracles: The person through whom God performs extraordinary.
·Tongues: The Holy Spirit takes control of the tongue to bring forth utterances previously unknown to the speaker.
·Interpretation of Tongues: The ability to interpret Spirit-filled utterances into a known language.
*Note: definitions are taken from Christian Reformed Home Missions and Christian Reformed Publications.

God's Servant

Lately, I've been into reading children's literature and short stories. So I decided to turn to the Old Testament for my devotions. Yesterday I was reading the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. I had to stop at the part where Moses was called "God's Servant." Wow, what a name to be called. It made me think of my own title. Am I truly being God's servant?

A little bit later, at breakfast the same morning, I came upon a book at the kitchen table I was interested in...the autobiography of Billy Graham. As I was reading his preface, it made think back to my devotions that morning about being God's servant. I was thinking about Moses and Billy Graham being God's servants and how they must of totally turned over their spiritual gifts to God's control. What if we were to completely allow our spiritual gifts to develop? To focus on developing them? What if we were to allow God to have complete control over them?

As I was thinking this (and continuing to read), Billy Graham turned to the topic of spiritual gifts. He wrote about his own being the gift of evangelism and what that required of him. The part that really hit me was when he wrote, "the evangelist is not called to do everything in the church or in the world that God wants done. On the contrary, the calling of the evanglist is very specific."

This reinforced the concept of letting God have control of my spiritual gifts. If God was allowed to control mine, and yours, and everybody else's all the pieces would fit together and "everthing in the church or in the world that God wants done" could be accomplished.