(Go to Spiritual Gifts YouTube Playlist)

(From Institute in Basic Life Principles, 1986)

(Go to Motivational Gifts Summaries)

Important Points from Introduction to Spiritual Gifts

Why It’s Important to Understand Spiritual Gifts

• It helps us understand why other Christians have “insensitivities” or “blind spots.”
• It helps us understand why others get irritated at our insensitivities or blind spots.
• It helps us avoid wearing ourselves out trying to function like someone else with the gift to do what we are trying to do without the gift.
• It helps us make wiser choices of people to do certain jobs.
• It helps us balance the body of Christ.

Evidence That We Receive One and Only One Motivational Gift

• Romans 12:6-8 seems to indicate that we are to concentrate on it. It seems to imply a single point of focus.
• Gifts are compared to body parts. 
• In 1 Pet 4:10 the singular is used: “As everyone hath received a gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God”
• Having only one gift helps us realize our need for each other. Rom 12:3-5 implies that people with many motivational gifts might be tempted to “think more highly of themselves than they ought.” If one person had all 7 gifts, he would be self-sufficient and not need the others.

Keys to Discovering Your Gift

• You must be saved.
• You need to be experiencing victory over sin. (Romans 6-8 comes before Romans 12:1.) It’s difficult to discern our spiritual gift if we are not walking with the Lord.
• Concentrate on the needs of others. It is impossible to identify our gift in a vacuum. The gifts are for others.
• Try to understand your true motive in helping others. What is the real reason I do what I do?
• Identify what other Christians do that tends to irritate you.
• Understand the three categories of gifts: Motivational Gifts, Ministry Gifts, and Manifestation Gifts.

The Three Categories of Gifts

• Motivational Gifts: Given by the Holy Spirit at salvation. An inner drive, desire, tendency, and power to edify the body of Christ with one of seven particular gifts.
• Ministry Gifts: Given by the church as various opportunities to serve the body of Christ in various particular ways. (Includes Officers, Ministers, Teachers, Various Age Group Workers, Committee Members, etc.)
• Manifestation Gifts: Given by the Holy Spirit when and to whom He chooses as a way to supernaturally bless us and other believers with specific blessings in specific times and places.

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Motivational Gifts with Characteristics and Misuses
Prophecy, Serving, Teaching, Exhorting, Giving, Organizing, Mercy

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Prophecy

Characteristics

A need to express themselves

Tendency to make quick impressions of people

Alertness to dishonesty

Desire for Justice

Openness about their own faults

Wholehearted Involvement

Concentrates on loyalty to truth (rather than to people)

Willing to Suffer for what is right

Persuasive in defining the truth

Misuses

Exposing without restoring

Jumping to conclusions

Reacting harshly to sinners

Being unforgiving

Condemning themselves

Being impetuous

Cutting off people who fail

Lacking tactfulness in rebuke

Dwelling on negative

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Serving

Characteristics

Sees and meets practical needs

Enjoys freeing others to achieve

Disregard for weariness

Difficulty in saying “no”

Alert to the likes and dislikes of others

Needs Approval

Likes short-range projects

Puts “extra touches” to jobs

Meets needs quickly

Misuses

Giving unrequested help

Letting Things become more important than people

Working beyond physical limits

Neglecting God-given priorities

Reacts to overlooked needs

Resents lack of appreciation

Working people around their schedule

Being frustrated with time limits

Interfering with God’s discipline in others

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Teaching

Characteristics

Need to validate information

Checks out with other teachers

Relies on established resources

Presents truth systematically

Gathers many facts

Requires thoroughness

Uneasy with subjective truth

Perseveres with accepted teachers

Clarifies misunderstandings

Misuses

Becoming proud of knowledge

Despising lack of credentials

Depending on human reasoning

Criticizing practical application

Showing off research skills

Rejecting scriptural presuppositions

Exalting mind above teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit

Taking teachings to extremes

Arguing over minor points

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Exhorting

Characteristics

Committed to Spiritual Growth

Able to see root problems

Sees steps of action

Raises hope for solutions

Turns problems into benefits

Desires to be transparent

Gains insight through experience

Urgency to act on clear steps

Desire to share face-to-face

Misuses

Keeping others waiting on them

Looking to themselves for solutions

Being proud of visible results

Starting projects prematurely

Treating people as projects

Sharing private illustrations

Presenting truth out of balance

Setting unrealistic goals

Giving up on unresponsive people

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Giving

Characteristics

Able to see resources

Invests self with the gift

Desires to give high quality

Hopes gift answers prayer

Wants to give secretly

Concern that giving will corrupt

Exercise personal thriftiness

Use gifts to multiply giving

Confirm amount with counsel

Misuses

Hoarding resources for self

Using gift to control people

Forcing higher living standards on others

Feeling guilty about personal assets

Rejecting pressure appeals

Giving too sparingly to his own family

Giving to projects (instead of people)

Causing people to look to him (instead of God)

Waiting too long to give

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Organizing

Characteristics

Able to visualize final results

Needs loyalty in associates

Ability to delegate

Withstands reaction to tasks

Makes big job look easy

Very alert to details

Complete tasks quickly

Able to be decisive

Completion involves cleanup

Misuses

Viewing people as resources

Building loyalty with favoritism

Uses delegation to avoid work

Being unresponsive to proper appeals

Putting projects ahead of people

Overlooking workers serious faults

Failing to explain to, or praise, others

Forcing decisions on others

Losing interest in finished job

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Mercy

Characteristics

Deeply loyal to friends

Need for deep friendships

Empathize with hurting people

Decisions based on benefits

Deeply sensitive to loved ones

Attracts people in distress

Desire to remove hurts

Measure acceptance by closeness

Attracted to prophets

Misuses

Taking up offenses

Becoming possessive

Tolerating evil

Failing to be firm

Leaning on emotions

Defrauding opposite sex

Reacting to God’s purposes

Failing to show deference

Cutting off insensitive people

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