Discover and Deploy Your Gifts

“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Nobody in the body was skipped, and nobody was handed someone else’s part. This page is here to help you find the grace God put on your life and put it to work.Eph. 4:7, NET

1Two Things That Are Both True

The lists of gifts in the Bible are not meant to be exhaustive. They are samples of the ways the Spirit builds up the church. So hold two things together.

• You have access to the Holy Spirit for whatever the body needs. Every believer does. When there is a need in front of you, you are not disqualified because it is not “your gift.” Ask him and step in.1 Cor. 12:7
• There is extra grace on people for certain things. God puts a particular grace on each life for the encouraging, building up, and equipping of the saints. That is the part that keeps showing up through you.Eph. 4:7, 11-12 · Rom. 12:6

2The Gifts Named in Scripture

Four lists, twenty distinct gifts, and no two lists match: Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:28, and Ephesians 4:11. The line under each gift is not a definition. It is a mirror. If it describes something that has actually happened through you more than once, pay attention to it.

3How to Discover Yours

• Your part is how you build up the body. Look for where you build people up again and again.Eph. 4:12, 16
• Show up. You do not find your gift by studying it. You find it by serving. Nobody discovers a gift from the bench.
• Pray on the way in: “Lord, how can I build up the body this Sunday? How can I build up my group this week?” Then do what he shows you.
• Ask for more. “Pursue love and be eager for the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” Prophecy is a good one to ask for, because Scripture tells us to.1 Cor. 14:1, NET

Three witnesses confirm it

• Burden The need you cannot walk past. What bothers you when it is left undone?
• Fruit When you do it, people are strengthened, and more happens than your skill can explain.
• The body Other people name it in you.1 Tim. 4:14

4How a Gift Comes

• Given Sovereignly, as the Spirit decides. You may already be carrying one.1 Cor. 12:11
• Asked for You are allowed to want more. Paul even tells a believer to pray for a specific gift.1 Cor. 14:1, 13
• Imparted Through the laying on of hands and prophecy, inside the family of the church.2 Tim. 1:6 · 1 Tim. 4:14

5Ways to Put It to Work

• In the gathering Pray for the person next to you, bring the encouragement you sensed, serve where the body is short.
• In your group and through the week The meal, the visit, the phone call, the mercy nobody posts about, teaching, giving.
• Outside the walls Your job, your street, your kids' school.

6Two Wings: Gifts and Fruit

Think of the two wings of an airplane. One wing is the gifts of the Spirit. The other is the fruit of the Spirit. We need both to fly. Paul puts both in a single command: pursue love, and be eager for the gifts.1 Cor. 14:1 · Gal. 5:22-23

Gifts without fruit can wound the people they were meant to build up. Fruit without gifts leaves the body short of what Jesus gave it. Ephesians 4 is built the same way: it opens with humility, gentleness, and patience, puts the gifts in the middle, and closes with a body that “builds itself up in love.”Eph. 4:2, 16

A true word carried by an unhealed heart can still wound.

7Keep Going

“Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God.”

1 Peter 4:10, NET

Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NET) are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.