What are Spiritual Gifts

What are they for

If you could have a super power what would it be?

Well you see I wish I was telekentic, that I could move things with my mind like professor X, that way I would be able to levitate by holding my shoes in mid air.

Sounds cool right?

Well it sucks that super powers are not real… yet. But what if I told you that right now you could have a unique ability or power. One that makes you unique from others and helps to to live in the world.

Now we are talking about Spiritual Gifts, but today we are talking about what are they, and that is kind of a loaded question, first we need to start with what they are used for.

Spiritual gifts are useful abilites to help others in the Church and in the World.

1 Corinthians 12:1 NIV

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.

We are supposed to be uniforming ourself, think of it like wearing a school uniform, you kinda look the same, however in this it’s like saying that as we use our gifts that we would become more alike in that we follow Jesus. Paul is saying your gifts are to help others believe in Jesus so that they fit in better.

When we talk about Spiritual Gifts we need to first say that they are for the purpose of other people, we cannot use our spiritual gifts for our own purposes.

we cannot prophecy about getting rich...

we cannot heal people for money...

we cannot speak in tongues to manipulate people...

So this is the first difference to show how spiritual gifts can be true or false.

The next thing we need to know is what are the Spiritual Gifts. The first thing you need to know is I am biased, and so my list I give you tonight is going to look different then other peoples, because there is no one list that is tried and true but rather Paul says different diff gifts in some but in some they over lap.

So from 1 Corinthians 12:1-10 these are the gifts shown:

Message of Wisdom - Discernment that you would be able to give wisdom to people who need advice or help.

Message of Knowledge - kinda of the same as well but in a slightly different way that you would be able to discern how to help people in a factual way. Think of it this way if I said “I am not sure what to do about a situation with my friends” someone who has the gift of discernment in either knowledge or wisdom would pray and help process what Jesus would want of the situation.

Faith is actually a Spiritual gift, weird right? well everyone has faith when they follow Jesus that is how we classify a believer, that they would have faith in Jesus. However this is an above average, that the person with faith would see God going to answer hard requests or see him show up in spectacular ways that others do not see. Faith in the hardest situations is an example of the gift of faith.

Healing is kinda self explanatory but there is different kinds of healing. Just like there are different types of injuries, mental, physical, emotional there is different healings. A person who has the gift of healings would pray for someone with sickness or pain and would receive that healing. One thing to make sure you know is that with this gift and any of the gifts, it is not our works but the Holy Spirit through us. So nobody can mircalulusly heal someone if not with God.

Prophecy, This is where God speaks or gives you visions of what is going to happen. Like Joseph and the coat of many colours how he was given prophecies on how to help Egypt save food for so many years. It is God giving you his plan ahead of it happening that you can share with others. However most of the time this gift goes hand in hand with discernment to know what God’s prophecy is.

This is actually my gifting, I have had dreams that have come true, nothing grand for the moment but take for example this when I was in Highschool:

Now that was for the purpose of growing my gifting.

Distinguishing Spirits, this means that you are able see the intention of the action or words. That if someone were to say something you’d be able to tell if that was from God or another spirit or even selfish desire.

Tongues which is broken into two, that you would 1. speak it or 2. understand them. Tongues is like a heavenly language that someone would be able to speak with God in a special langague however when you hear someone speaking in tongues publicly you should have someone interpreting what is being said for everyone else.

What are they used for.

Now Spiritual Gifts are used for building of the Church like I just said,. Paul has a whole chapter on this in 1 Cor 13, that we would not be people who can do everything by ourselves but that we would work together for the creation of the kingdom. 1 Cor 13 1-4

1 Corinthians 13:1–4 NIV

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

See Paul wants you to know that you cannot use your spiritual Gifts without helping others and same goes for others. So when you use these gifts that are given out you are to help others, but you can also call people out who need to help others.

What is your first thought of Spiritual Gifts?

What Spiritual Gift sounds cool to you?

Have you ever seen someone use their gifting for selfish purposes?

*I would invite you as the leader to share what gifting you have and field questions from that (If you don’t know, just tell them that! We are all learning together)*