Every single follower of Jesus has been supernaturally gifted to serve in the body of Christ. No matter what your natural skills and abilities are, the Holy Spirit, at the moment of your repentance from sin and faith in Christ has graciously given you a supernatural ability to serve the Church. Not only that, but the Lord has commanded us to use those gifts to serve others:
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)
The problem that many of us have run into is that we either haven’t ever thought much about our spiritual gift, or we just aren’t sure what our gift(s) might be. I would like to offer a few thoughts on how you can confidently discover how God has graciously gifted you to be an important part of the body of Christ. First, let’s take a look at the list of possible spiritual gifts that we find in the Scriptures. There is no passage in the bible that gives us an exhaustive list of all the gifts, but as we compile the different passages like Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and 1 Peter 4, we can come up with a pretty good list of the gifts.
An Important Note
Just before I give the list of gifts, no doubt that some of you will notice that some of the gifts mentioned in the Bible will not be on the list below. I do not plan to make an extensive argument on this point in this blog post, but I hope it’s sufficient for now to share that I believe that the miraculous gifts such as tongues, healing, and prophecy have ceased. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe God does miraculous things - He most assuredly does. However, one passage that I will point to now to consider is:
"How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”
Hebrews 2:3-4 (ESV)
The author of Hebrews seems to pre-suppose that the miraculous gifts had a time that has since passed that the Lord used them to authenticate the message of the Gospel. Again, a further discussion on that will be for another time, but I wanted to at least touch on why some of those gifts won’t be on my list below.
A list of the spiritual gifts
Wisdom - The supernatural ability to think with Godly wisdom in accordance with the Scriptures.
Teaching - The supernatural ability to teach the Word of God in an accurate and understandable way
Shepherding - The supernatural ability to pastor and shepherd God’s Church as an undershepherd of our chief shepherd.
Mercy - The supernatural ability to show mercy and compassion to people in your life - even those who have wronged you or don’t seem to deserve it.
Leadership - The supernatural ability to lead God’s people to follow Him and to equip others to do the work of the ministry.
Knowledge - The supernatural ability to discern through even difficult theological truths and to have a capacity for learning and remembering them.
Intercession - The supernatural ability to pray without ceasing. To often react to situations with prayer as a first response.
Hospitality - The supernatural ability to care for others and refresh their souls by serving them in some way. To even want to do this for strangers.
Helps - The supernatural ability to want to serve others and make sure that all perceived needs are met. To not be able to sit back when there is work to be done.
Giving - The supernatural desire to want to be generous and the dedication to actually following through. This is not limited to, but certainly includes, financial giving.
Faith - The supernatural ability to trust the Lord in all things. While others tend to often worry, you have a strong faith even in the midst of worry.
Evangelism - The supernatural ability and desire to reach lost people. Of course, all believers should have this, but those with this spiritual gift stand out in this area and have an extra level of zeal.
Encouragement - The supernatural ability to encourage others and build them up. When others spend time around you, they often walk away feeling encouraged.
Discernment - The supernatural ability to be able to determine right from wrong and truth from error. Again, all Christians are called to do this, but those with this gift seem to excel in it and pick up on errors before others do. This is usually in relation to false teachers.
Administration - The supernatural ability to guide others and help organize plans for the furtherance of the ministry. This is more than those who have a natural bent toward organization, it’s those who seem to be able to discern what’s most important to focus on and are gifted to help implement strategies to that end.
How do I discover my gift(s)
That list can be a lot to take in and process, especially if you have not personally ever discovered what your gift is. Every believer has at least one gift, and some have been blessed with a few. The Bible does not explicitly teach that you have the same gifts for your entire life and it can never change, so it’s certainly possible that the Lord gives you the gifts you may need for certain seasons of life. But for now, our focus is on helping you discover what your gifts are so you can begin using them for the sake of God’s glory and the building of His Church. Here are a few thoughts on how to begin doing that.
Start using them
You don’t have to know what your spiritual gift is before you can start using it. Every one of those spiritual gifts is something that all believers can and should participate in to some degree. So if you’re not sure what your gift is, jump on the connect team and begin asking yourself if you’ve been gifted with hospitality, for example. Or get on the parking lot team and find out if you have a supernatural ability to want to serve in an often thankless role. Start serving, and you’ll begin to pretty quickly start to see how God has gifted you.
Ask others
Find other brothers and sisters in Christ who know you pretty well and ask them what spiritual gifts they see in you. Very often, they will be able to give a fairly quick response. While they won’t ALWAYS be right, The Lord often uses the people around us to show us what gift(s) He has given us. Also, take note of the fact that it will be a lot easier for others to see how you’re gifted if you’ve actually been serving. If all you ever do is show up to the church and leave without ever serving, the people around you have no context as to what gift(s) you might have.
Pray, pray, and pray some more.
This should go without saying, but unless you have the spiritual gift of prayer, it’s likely you’re neglecting this step. The Bible is clear that “if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14). Therefore if God has told us to use our gifts, He certainly will hear our prayers to help us discover what those gifts are.
Conclusion
This is a subject that doesn’t seem to be talked about much in the Church for some reason. But this is one of the most important and practical truths we have. God has specifically gifted you to have a place in and serve the body of Christ so that the Church can continue to make disciples of all nations. That’s a really big deal and an immense privilege. Do not forget that He doesn’t need you, but He wants you. J.I. Packer once said, “Every-member ministry in the body of Christ is the New Testament Ideal.” We all have a role to play, so let’s find out how God has graciously gifted us to serve and jump in!
Further Reading
Here are a few more articles that I would highly recommend for further study on this subject:
https://equip.sbts.edu/article/heres-better-way-determine-spiritual-gifts/
https://www.gty.org/library/bibleqnas-library/QA0068/how-do-you-identify-your-spiritual-gift