How Do You Know What Your Spiritual Gifts Are

An important question that every New Believer wonders and asks themselves is How do you know what your spiritual gifts are?

In a previous article, I spoke to you about the importance of serving in the Church.

In order to effectively serve in your church, you need to know what your Spiritual Gifts are.

So how do you know what your spiritual gifts are?

Now before we get into that, I want to differentiate between Spiritual Gifts and Talent.

There is a huge difference between them.

Scripture on Spiritual Gifts

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ² You know that when you were pagans,somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. ³ Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

⁷ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,^[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.^[b] 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

1 Cor 12:1-11

What is the Difference Between Spiritual Gifts and Talent

Every person in the church has 3 different kinds of ‘giftings’ and we need to know the difference or we can end up being confused.

Everyone has Talents, Skills and Spiritual Gifts

1. Talents

These are things are we naturally good at. These are things that we were born with and we are basically better than a lot of people in it.

An example can be the ability to sing.

Some of you are naturally good singers.

That’s a talent that you were born with.

However, we need to develop it if we want to determine whether we are just good or great.

2. Acquired Skills

Another thing that we have are skills that we acquired as we go through life.

For example, I am an IT guy in a school. I did a degree in Computing.

As a result of this, I acquired skills in repairing computers and helping people with their tech challenges.

These are not skills I was born with but I acquired them through learning.

Some of you can cook or draw or know how to counsel etc as you have learnt how to do those things.

3. Spiritual Gifts

This leads us to our third area which is Spiritual Gifts.

These are not gifts that you were born with.

They were given to you as a gift from the Holy Spirit to help edify the Body of Christ.

People tend to confuse Spiritual Gifts with Natural Talents.

They are not the same thing.

You don’t have to be a believer in order to sing.

The ability to sing is a natural ability. The ability to lead Worship is a spiritual gift.

Just because someone can sing well; doesn’t mean they can lead people into the presence of God. 

Natural ability can help though eg if you can’t sing then maybe you shouldn’t be leading worship.

Knowing your spiritual gifts is key to defining your spiritual job description and knowing where you fit into the church.  

Spiritual gifts are special abilities; distributed to the believer empowering them to carry out certain assignments. 

How God has wired you are going to match the work he has for you.

God is not going to ask you to Preach to the multitudes if speaking is not the gift that he has blessed you with.

 God doesn’t give gifts for purpose of it not being utilized.

God will expect you to use your spiritual gifts.

For you and I to be effective in Ministry we need to use all 3.

Not just Spiritual Gifts.

God is going to use all 3! 

Your spiritual gifts are for your life and not just the church.

If you have the teaching gift not only can you teach in church but you can teach students in schools.

You can make an impact not just in the church but in your workplaces as well.

2 Views on Spiritual Gifts

There are 2 Schools of thought when it comes to Spiritual Gifts. Some say we have access to all the gifts and some say we only have access to the gift God has blessed us with.

1. Situational Gifts

All believers have access to all gifts.

2. Constitutional

You are given specific gifts and you need others to assist you with theirs. Thus you are inter-dependent.

I believe in both. Both views are correct in my opinion.

There are primary and secondary gifts.

The primary is constitutional which you use most of the time.

However, you may not have the gift of healing but God may use you some time to bring about healing.

Saul didn’t have the gift of prophecy but he prophecied sometimes. 

God didn’t give you your gift for you.

He gave you your gift for me.

He gave you your gift for the entire body of Christ.

When you don’t use it you are robbing me of its impact. 

I have the gift of teaching.

I don’t teach myself. I don’t go home and teach myself. I may read and learn from other people. 

I don’t go home and say “Brian let me teach you something.” 

These gifts don’t just work in the church but in the world as well.

Your church will try to find a Ministry that your gift will work. 

But your gift is for the World as well and not just the church.  

Daniel did not work in a church he worked in Government.

He worked for the King.

Daniel is a prophetic book. 

Joseph was in the Business Sector and government as well. He worked for Pharaoh! 

He used the gift of wisdom to tell them we gonna store up for when the famine comes.

The Word desperately needs your spiritual gifts as well.

4 Simple Ways To Grow In Our Giftings

1. Learn Your Gifts – This is what I said under discover. Learn what your gifts are. This is key to figuring out how to know what your Spiritual gifts are.

Ask people what they think your gifts are. There are people who see things in you that you can’t see yourself. We tend to look down on ourselves and our abilities.

Pray about it. Ask the Lord to reveal to you what your gifts are.

Take Quizzes. There are many free online quizzes you can take online that can help you to discover what your Spiritual Gifts are. Just go on Google and search for Spiritual Gifts Tests.

2. Leverage Your Gifts – Use it for the Honor and Glory of God. Don’t just hold on to your gift. A lot of people have gifts and just want to hold on to it and not use it. Don’t let that be you.

3. Love other people’s gifts – In Sports, people tend to make fun of the waterboy who is not a player. The waterboy plays a very important role.

If he doesn’t have the water the players would be dehydrated and unable to play well.

Don’t think your gift is not good enough.

No matter how small there is a need for your gift.

We need to learn to love other people’s gifts.

Tell them you are thankful for them.

Send them a WhatsApp saying I am thankful to you. I have been blessed by your gift. You can do things I cannot do.

Let’s not be jealous of the giftings of others.

4. Look to God’s Gift – God gave you his son. You matter to him. You have value to him. There is no need to be jealous of other people. You have a role and a function that Jesus paid a high price for.

Never forget that the greatest gift God gave you is his Son.

Spiritual Gifts Vs Spiritual People

Now just because someone has a spiritual gift and operates in it doesn’t mean they are spiritual people.

Today we have a lot of emphasis on Spiritual Gifts and not so much on Spiritual People.

God is more concerned with your spirituality than your gifting.

This is more important than trying to answer how to do you know what your Spiritual gifts are.

No one cares if you can speak in tongues if you always lying in English.

Being Spiritual is more important than being gifted.

1 Corinthians 3:1 (NIV)

3 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:1

1 Corinthians is the Chapter where Paul speaks of Spiritual Gifts to the Corinthian Church but as we can see from this verse is that they lived as Carnal Christians.

In the 11 Chapters before he spoke of Spiritual Gifts he was speaking of their spirituality.

The way they lived their lives.

They were a church that messed up badly.

Here was a church that had divisions, and with the divisions there came contentions. It wasn’t just that they had a difference of opinion; they were actually at one another’s throats

They were divided. They were contentious.

Now, they were not spiritual at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, how many of you would say, “I’d like to be like that New Testament church”? You just can’t imagine. You say, “Could they even be saved?

I mean, were they even born again? Did they know anything about Jesus?”

They did, but they were so carnal. And, for eleven chapters he’s dealing with the carnalities, one after another after another.

Now, the point I’m making is this: we need to understand that you can have a spiritual gift and not be spiritual, right?

There are a lot of people who say, “Oh, I can do this, and, therefore, I’m one of God’s super-saints.” I just refer them back to the church at Corinth.

The principle that I’m trying to make to you, my dear friend, is this: that spiritual gifts and spiritual living are not necessarily synonymous.

The church at Corinth proves it clearly and plainly.

So follow these simple principles as you are curious in finding out how to know what your spiritual gifts are.