Given to each of us...

Alright, we are continuing our series / / E2E: Encouraged to Encourage! Now, that could be a really short series simply because we could say exactly what we’ve said over the last two weeks, and call it done. Encourage others, as you are encouraged.

This is generally how scripture works. We read last week from 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, 6, / / God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us… For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you.

God comforts us for what purpose? So we can be a comfort to others.

Another scripture we’ve read lately - Jesus says in John 13:34-35, / / So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

And John writes in 1 John 4:19, / / We love each other because he loved us first.

So, Jesus loves us for what purpose? So we can properly love each other.

And of course our sort of foundational verse for this series, Romans 1:12, Paul says to the church in Rome, / / When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by Yours.

So, we are in this thing together, aren’t we?

We need to feel comfort and give comfort.

We need to be loved by God so we can love as He loves.

We need to be encouraged so we can encourage each other.

Now, one distinction I want to make here before we get into what we’re looking at today is that there is an order to these things when it comes to God, but there is no order when it comes to each other.

What do I mean by that? Well, when it comes to God, we have to receive first. In fact, 1 John 4:19 seems to suggest we can only love because he has first loved us. We can’t even love without his love. I tend to agree with that. I find that if we try to love without God’s definition and influence of love, we tend to lean towards our personal desires and what makes us happy as the definition of love, and that can easily turn into something that is not true love.

In fact, and let me just throw this in here this morning, because I think it’s important. / / Defining love without God is dangerous.

There is an agenda in this world right now, and I don’t use that word lightly, simply because it’s one of those words these days, everyone is accusing everyone of having an agenda. But I am quite confident in saying that there is an agenda to move humanity toward defining love without God.

It’s nothing new. The Beatles sang it in the summer of 1967, “All you need is love...” What did that come on the heals of? Well, in 1966 John Lennon said that even the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

Now, that’s not to say they believed they were better than Jesus, in fact, a quick search on the internet will give you a video clip of him responding to how people reacted to that statement and he says, “I’m not saying we’re better or greater or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person, or God as a thing or whatever it is, ya know, I just said what I said, and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong, and now it’s all this...”

But, he also says that his statement was based on something! It was based on the fact that the youth in the UK were actually saying that the Beatles had more influence on their lives than Jesus did. And he was simply stating a fact that people were already acting out in their own lives.

Here’s the thing. He said that in 1966, the song All You Need Is Love comes out in Summer 1967, and of course has no mention of Jesus, or God, and in fact has the line, …you can learn how to be you in time, it’s easy, all you need is love.

Interestingly enough, when you try to redefine love, there will be those who will find true love in God. Another big even of 1967 was that’s when the Jesus people movement started. A response of, “You’re right, you do need love, but not like you think you need it - you need the love of God.” Same is true today. From both sides, we need the love of God, and the world is trying to convince us that all we need is love itself, defined by us.... not including God.

And let’s face it. I don’t think that is going anywhere, any time soon. There will always be a conflict between what the flesh thinks is love and desire, and what God defines as love. And I’ve seen it through the songs that are being sung, the signs at protests and the way people talk - there’s a push to accept thinking that love is universal acceptance of your individual pleasures. There’s a push to allow any desire, because there’s this belief that love wouldn’t restrict desire. And there’s a push to define love by what pleases us and makes us happy, even if just for the moment, because, well, love wouldn’t rob me of what pleases me, would it?

Well, It’s 1 John 4:8, 16 that says / / ...God is love, and Jesus, who is God, in Matthew 16:24, / / “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

I think we have our priorities a bit mixed up… Seems like love might be on the other side of our own self-denial to embrace what God says is truth and love.

In fact, Paul says in Galatians 5:16, 19-21, / / …let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves… When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these...

Problem is, we don’t like talking about that stuff, do we? But look around at the state of the world. People are giving in to what their “sinful nature craves”. In other scriptures Paul calls it the “lust of the flesh”, it’s the battle between doing what God says, and doing what our own human desire wants.

This is why I am saying, when it comes to these things, love, encouragement, comfort, you have to start with God. What does God say about it, How does God do it, and receive it for yourself from God first!

/ / Live by God’s definition of love and then love people out of receiving His love first.

Same with comfort. Same with encouragement. Let God comfort you first. Let God encourage you first. Then you will have comfort and encouragement to give to those around you.

Now, why I said first with God, but no order with each other is because we can easily walk into a place, a meeting, a home, a restaurant or coffee with a friend and be so in need of comfort ourselves that our posture is, “You comfort me first, THEN I can comfort you.”

Or, “I’ll smile at you when you smile at me.”

“I’ll say good morning if and when or only after you say good morning to me.”

Now, I’m not saying this is a race to win who can encourage each other faster, or to somehow be fake with how we react when we’re maybe not feeling the greatest... but Paul does actually say in Romans 12:9, and I like how the Passion Translation says it, / / Be devoted to tenderly loving your fellow believers as members of one family. Try to outdo yourselves in respect and honor of each other.

The ESV simply says, / / Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

And I think that does two things for us:

First, it always reminds us that there’s something we need from God first. We need love and comfort, peace, joy, grace, mercy, from God first. Wake up in the morning and turn to God for these things. Spend time in prayer, spend time reading the bible, spend time asking Holy Spirit to work in your life, and then you’ll have something to give.

And Second, when we do that, we get to be something for other people. This isn’t about showing up and being fake. I don’t like that. You can be honest and genuine while choosing to honor and respect the people you have in your life.

And let me just say this to all of you married couples this morning. This is most important in your home. Don’t wake up expecting your spouse to make you happy or ok. Don’t go through marriage expecting your spouse to fill all your need for love and comfort. They can’t. And you’ll be putting an unrealistic expectation on them to fulfill something in your life that only God can.

I can’t put this any more seriously than this: / / The life of your marriage depends on you receiving from God what only God can give you!

And the same is true for your spouse, this isn’t just for one of you. The best thing you can do for your marriage is for both of you to rely on God for what God wants to give you so that you have something to give your spouse and together you can live life to the fullest in your relationship, being true partners together, not codependents waiting for the other person to do something that makes you smile, or makes you ok.

And don’t start by going to your spouse and saying, “See, Pastor Rob said you need to get that from God, not me...” No, start with yourself. YOU go to God, and encourage your spouse to do the same! Because the comfort of our spouse becomes life to us when they have received the comfort of God. But if we expect our spouse to fill a gap only God’s love can, we will be setting them up for failure.

So, as we are going through this series, remember this. / / God first, so that we can give to others.

And while we’re talking about how we treat other people, let me just ask, based on what we talked about last week, / / “How have you been doing with the gift of prophecy, that Paul says we should desire more than any other gift that the Spirit of God gives?”

I have to go into this a bit here this morning. The other night I was lying in bed, and just this wave of emotion kept rolling over me and I knew it was the heart of God for this very thing. Ya know, I was thinking through this statement “We are always prophesying… We are speaking to our future, and it is either negative or positive, so we need to watch what we say.” But I felt the Holy Spirit almost arrest me in that moment with a caution.

/ / Prophecy is a gift of the Holy Spirit of God, and it is meant to be taken as seriously as that sounds. If you look at the definition of the word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 14:1, / / …especially that you may prophesy. it means to speak under the inspiration of the divine. That is God.

Now. Like I said last week. I think that the greatest part of this is that we don’t have to wait for an in the moment, “oh my goodness, I just heard the booming voice of God Almighty and I have something to share with you...” but that every time we speak out of the encouragement, comfort, strengthening, love, grace, mercy, goodness and truth of God that we have received we are engaging in this gift of prophecy. And the more we do that, the more we take the opportunity to speak truth and life into the people around us, the more we will begin to hear the immediate heart of God in those moments.

I can say God loves you without hearing God say that in the moment. It’s truth.

But as I begin to speak the truth of God’s heart to you I begin to FEEL God’s heart for you in the moment. So many times in scripture when Jesus did a miracle for someone it says that he was moved with compassion.... As we begin to strengthen, encourage, comfort, speak truth and life, compassion moves within us to speak to the very things in each others lives from the heart of God. And it can simply start with the truth you already know.

But here’s the thing, it’s not an easy thing to do. And like I said, I was thinking about this thing of prophecy, that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

We read Proverbs 18:21 last week, / / The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

How seriously do we take that statement. Because let me tell you, that might be the truest statement in the bible. I’m being completely honest and serious here. How do we watch our tongue? How good are we at stopping ourselves from agreeing with the negative, speaking the negative, and how often are we forcing ourselves to speak the good, the positive, the right, the truth - even if we’re not feeling it!

I get it. Trust me. It is so easy to simply agree with what is negative and fail to force ourselves to speak the positive. And humanity right now is, I think, extra good at focusing on the negative.

I woke up one morning this week and thought I would read an email I had received from a news source I trust. I had to literally ask Jesus to cleanse my heart and mind from reading the news… Was it true. Sure, it was, but there was just nothing life giving about it at all.

Kelley and I were at an event recently and there were some people sitting behind us. I didn’t even turn around, so I wouldn’t even notice them if I ever met them. But we were there a bit early and they were just pointing out everything they didn’t like about what we were at. How others had done it better, how this time they really let things go… it seemed like every comment was negative.

Kelley and I just kind of looked at each other, and first of all we didn’t agree with anything they were saying, but second I noticed that even though I didn’t agree, and I wanted to turn around and say some positive things, just to offset what was happening, I realized I was actually getting triggered to be negative toward the people I was hearing. “Why are they being so negative?” “Can’t they just be positive?” “What’s wrong with these people?” Honestly, you get all these things going through your head and I suddenly realized, something is trying to rope me into being just as negative as they are, and I have to push past that layer to where sometimes, like proverbs says, saying nothing at all is better, and taking every thought captive I think encouragement in the face of negativity.

This is why it is SO important to be encouraging. This is why we are in this series right now. Because there is a very visible, very real fight right now for the very heart of humanity. And we produce life and death in our words.

Deuteronomy 30:19 has become a real favorite verse of mine. It’s kind of at the culmination of the law being given to Israel, and God is encouraging the people of Israel to follow the instructions he’s giving them because they will bring life to them.

And this verse says this, / / Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! And as I read that the other night I just felt the heart of God so strongly on that verse, connected to Proverbs 18:21, and Romans 1:12.

/ / Oh, that you would choose life by what you say, because the power of life and death are in the tongue. I want to encourage you in your faith, and want to be encouraged by you!

Here’s the thing, I don’t think you can prophecy negatively. You aren’t prophesying negatively when you aren’t speaking life, and positively when you are. I think you’re not prophesying at all when you aren’t speaking life.

And I’ve unfortunately been in church meetings where someone has had knowledge about someone, very possibly by divine inspiration, and spoken as if they were prophesying, but completely judging and condemning them - and it did not produce life.

But what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, / / If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels…if I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge… but didn’t love others… I would be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… I would be nothing.

Every translation of 1 Corinthians 14:3 says something to the effect of, / / …the one who prophesies is speaking to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comforting.

This is Deuteronomy… In every moment of every day we have set before us blessings and curses… Oh that we would choose LIFE! Why? Because the tongue either blesses or curses. It either plants seeds of death or seeds of life. Yes, you are speaking to your future, or to someone else’s future. Choose to lift them up. Choose to encourage, strengthen, uplift, comfort…

And I’ve just felt this plea in the heart of God for humanity, Please, can we stop using our tongue to tear people down?!?

Every word you say to your spouse.

Every word you say to your kids.

Every word you say to your coworkers, boss, checkout person in the store, the guy who cut you off in the traffic circle, the woman who yelled at you or honked at you, your server at the restaurant…

You don’t even need to be in the room, or have anyone anywhere near you… what you speak about your neighbors, your friends, your enemies...

I would even suggest that what you say about people when they aren’t there with you says more about you than what you say when they ARE with you… And if you’re having a hard time speaking positively when they ARE around, how much more are you speaking when they aren’t?

This isn’t to come down on anyone or speak some sort of judgment… Honestly. My heart is just so grieved with the fact that we are meant to encourage and so often we are left speaking words that are doing the exact opposite.

And most of the time it’s because we feel to awkward to say, “Ya, let’s not talk about that...” So we just let it go on.

And as I was thinking on these things the other night I felt a real sense of grief from the Holy Spirit over one area in particular, and that is / / how we speak over ourselves. Are you kind to yourself? Do you speak life over yourself? Or are you cursing yourself?

I’ll be honest, I’m not always nice to myself. My internal dialogue can often be, “I can’t do it. All I do is fail. I’m a failure. I can’t seem to get it right. Why even bother? Why even try again? Things are not going to be different this time....”

And ya know what, sometimes that’s not a lie. You’re 100% right. I did fail. I did not succeed at doing what I was supposed to do. But guess what, that does NOT make me a failure. That does not change my worth. That does not change who God says I am.

And the same is true of you. YOU are valuable. And you are worth it. You are loved and cherished. There is no one else like you in the whole wide world. You are unique. And one of the reasons we are focusing on this series right now is because it is the you who you are that the people around you need to experience! God made you unique and special, gifted and needed by the body of Christ. The best of you. The good in you. The God created, designed, gifted you....I need in my life. The person next to you needs in their life.

And it’s worth giving our best. It’s worth working to outdo one another in honor. It’s worth forsaking what we currently do in the way of following our own path, for the sake of following the path of Jesus, so we can be a great encouragement to the people around us. 100% we aren’t perfect, but more and more I want every encounter I have with people to leave them a little bit more encouraged, a little bit more strengthened, a little bit more comforted…

And I know this has been almost a bit of a recap, or a continuation of last week, but, with all of that in mind today we are going to start talking through what the church has called the spiritual gifts. And today we’ll just look at an introduction to these things, and then over the coming weeks we’ll dig into them a bit, and I’m on a mission to find a good comprehensive test of sorts to help us define what we have been gifted with. Kind of like a personality profile, there are some good resources to help people define what gifts of the Spirit maybe come naturally to them.

Because this is the truth, ok, Peter says in 1 Peter 4:10-11, / / God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.

Paul says in Romans 12:6, / / In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well…

and in 1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, / / There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all… A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other...

So, for today what we’re going to do is read four main scriptures that talk about the Spiritual Gifts. I’m going to clarify a few things in general, and then over the next few weeks we’ll dive into them.

Scripture mentions the gifts of the spirit in a number of different places, sometimes as a list of gifts and other times making reference to them, and then even sometimes simply just talking about people with them or using them etc - think of that like 1 Corinthians 13 that we read earlier, Paul says, IF I had the gift of prophecy or speaking in different languages… he’s not listing them, he’s talking about them… So, I’ll read the ones where there seem to be a pretty concise list of them, and then we’ll fill in gaps as we go.

Alright, starting with Romans 12:6-8, / / In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 28, There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church:

First are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who have the gift of leadership, those who speak in unknown languages.

Ephesians 4:11 says, / / Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.

1 Peter 4:9, says, / / Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.

So, those are the main scriptures we’ll be pulling our list from… Now, I’ll make a few more observations here, but the first one I’ll mention before we put this into a list is - no list is gospel. There are debates on this. There has been anywhere from 7, 12, 16, 18, 21, 23, and even 27 and 28 spiritual gifts listed from scripture.

From the passages we just read there are 21 we will be looking at, and the reason for that is because we are focusing on the gifts given to encourage each other.

And maybe that’s the big point here. God gives abilities beyond measure - And SOME are intended to help others in the building of the church. Peter Wagner argued that there couldn’t be a complete list of spiritual gifts because God is an infinite God who gives his children blessing to bless others, and even if it isn’t listed specifically in scripture, through obvious experience he believed he saw various gifts at work within the church.

He had for a long time advocated for 27 spiritual gifts, and then later in his life he added the spiritual gift of leading worship. Now, most people wouldn’t argue that there is a gift to lead people in worship. Right? For sure there is a gift to honor God through song AND the ability to use that to lead others. Seems to fit the criteria, especially when you look at how Paul describes some of the gifts, they are for the expressed purpose to train and equip the body of Christ. A good worship leader doesn’t just sing songs, or even just worship for themselves, but leads people to worship God with them.

But, that’s clearly not a spiritual gift listed in scripture. That is obvious.

Some of the others that do come up are from 1 Corinthians 7:7 which talks about having a special gift from God to be celibate, or to remain single, and do so with joy. It’s not a burden.

1 Corinthians 13:3, right next to talking about speaking unknown languages and prophecy, it talks about voluntary poverty and martyrdom.

and 1 Corinthians 9:22, and Ephesians 3:6-9 talk about being a missionary.

Ok, so with those you are now up to 25, and on top of that, Peter Wagner at least refers to gifts like Intercession and deliverance, or exorcism, the casting out of demons. Again, there is no scriptural reference for those or leading worship being spiritual gifts. And the reason I say all of that is simply to say that if you were to go on the internet, or start picking up books on spiritual gifts, you are going to see a varied number of “recognized spiritual gifts”.

Now, our primary focus in this series is Encouraged to Encourage. So, we’ll focus on these gifts based on what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:31, / / …you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts… and what Peter says in 1 Peter 4:10, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.

And we’ve already read other scriptures that says the gifts are given to benefit each other.

So, here’s the list we will work with through this series based on what I read from scripture and I will list them in alphabetical order, but as we go through them we won’t necessarily go through them in that order.

OK, so the spiritual gifts from the passages of scripture we read are:

/ / Administration / Leadership

Apostle

Discernment

Evangelism

Exhortation / Encouragement

Faith

Giving

Healing

Helps / Ministering

Hospitality

Knowledge

Leadership / Ruling

Mercy / Kindness

Miracles

Pastor

Prophecy

Serving

Teaching

Unknown Languages, Speaking

Unknown Languages, Interpreting

Wisdom

21 gifts we’ll be looking at that are really geared toward encouraging others as we are encouraged.

Now to finish up this morning I want to go through a few observations on the spiritual gifts.

/ / No list of Spiritual Gifts is Complete

No passage of scripture lists them all. Like I said, there are debates on which should be included. How many are actually meant to be considered spiritual gifts etc…

Add that Jesus didn’t talk about these, these are all coming leaders of the early church, but listen, these are trustworthy people. They are there, watching the fulfilment of the Holy Spirit being given to the early church and noticing these things.

This wasn’t even happening when Jesus was around, right? The Holy Spirit came and filled the believers AFTER Jesus had ascended into heaven.

/ / What about Multiple Mentions?

Depending on how many scripture references you look at will determine how relevant this is.

If you look at the three main passages we read, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, only 2 of them are mentioned in all three passages. Prophecy and Teaching.

That doesn’t make those most important, although Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 14:1, / / …desire the special abilities the Spirit gives - especially the ability to prophesy. And James 3:1 says …not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.

Great....

But there’s something of importance here. things we should all want, and things we should be careful in wanting. And I think that says it of both of those, to be honest. When Paul says we should all want to prophecy, it’s all surrounded by you better make love your highest goal, or else it means nothing and you’re just a bunch of noise. And James is saying, teaching is good, valuable, necessary, but better be taken really seriously.

And maybe the reason that all of these passages don’t list all gifts is another way of saying, “The list isn’t meant to be complete” or at least so rigid you’re going to get up in arms with each other about it.

Also, if you look at the other passages of scripture that reference spiritual gifts, when looking at them all, no gift is listed in every one. So that also speaks to the idea that there is no level of dominance in these gifts.

And, this is also another point, but not making it a main one. No two times these gifts are mentioned are exactly the same. Even with Paul writing 3 of these major passages, he doesn’t make them all the same.

/ / Different Gifts Have Different Uses

When you look at the whole list there’s really a pretty clear difference between the type of use they have. Some are very practical, some are very spiritual, some are behind the scenes, some are front and center. Some are dynamic and expressive by nature, while others seem mundane and maybe even boring.

In 1 Corinthians 12, we read from vs 4-11 and then skipped all the way to vs 28. But in the middle Paul says this really important bit of caution. He talks about the body of Christ. How we are all really different, and even though we have different gifts, it doesn’t make one of us more important or more valuable than another. We are ALL of the same value and importance. And so just because one gift might put someone on a stage, while the other might put them with a mop and bucket in the bathroom, there is NO difference in value or importance. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:18, / / But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.

And I wish Paul would have worded it differently, but how he says things in vs 28 has brought confusion, bad agendas, and wrong orders of things within the church, when he says, first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers… which has led some to believe that the apostle is the most important position in the church and if they say that they are an apostle then they are in charge.

Thankfully we are the body, Jesus is the head, and we all need each other! And the gifts aren’t about being in charge, even though some gifts require direction, input, management and leadership...

But, as we go through we’ll see that there are different purposes and characteristics to the gifts. Even in the way they are expressed, there are some gifts that we all have simply as created human beings, and then there are others that only a few can do.

And as we looked at last week, I believe there is what we call the office of certain gifts, and then the operation of the gift itself, and the reason I believe that personally is because there are most definitely those who are gifted in training and equipping others to do what they do, and many people who simply can do something, but don’t need to concern themselves with the greater need to train and equip.

I believe we can all prophecy to a certain degree. We can all hear God for others because we can all hear God. I believe that 100%. But I also know, and have seen time and time again that there are people who are most definitely gifted differently in that area.

There are some people who are just such gifted teachers, who speak with such wisdom and understanding, who can make scripture applicable, and talk with revelation and truth - I love listening to those people.

Again, I think the main point in that is that the measure of someone’s ability in their spiritual gifting is first that it’s the One and Only Spirit of God who gives the gifts, and two, we are all simply humans reliant on the grace of God.

/ / Some Gifts Seem Similar

If you saw serving, helping, ministering and thought, they all seem similar, true, yet we’ll look at their differences.

Or maybe ruling, leading, administrating.... yup, same thing.

/ / Natural vs Supernatural

I mentioned this a bit, but there are gifts that are most definitely natural ability based and others that seem more spiritual, but I would suggest that if we are truly led by the spirit, which we are meant to be, then each and every gift has both a natural and spiritual element to it.

Each gift can then become natural and spiritual.

It is how we use the gift and apply the gift.

/ / Gifted Does Not Mean Capable

Natural ability, gifting and talent will only get someone so far. This is why Paul says, earnestly pursue the spiritual gifts, while also saying, we’ve been given these gifts.

I won’t read it, for sake of time, but for homework go ahead and read Matthew 25:14-30. It’s the parable of the talents. Jesus tells a story of a wealthy man who goes on a trip, leaves three of his servants in charge and gives them different amounts of money. When he returns he asks them what they did with it. And out comes their ability on display.

The first did well, doubling his amount.

The second also did well, gaining more than he started with.

And the third was afraid and didn’t produce anything.

We can all be given talent, or spiritual gifts, but if we do not learn to use them well, and then apply what we have learned to operate these gifts in our lives then they will amount to nothing and out of our lives we will not produce the fruit God intends for us to see.

Jesus says in Luke 16:10, / / “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.” There is a proving through use of what God has given us.

We are given these gifts to learn how to use them and to use them.

I’ll finish with this thought.

Paul says in Romans 12:9-13, / / Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

I would say that scripture is the heart of the spiritual gifts.

/ / Love, genuinely.

Serve God with your whole heart.

Be ready to help when you can.

Be looking for opportunity to use the gifts you’ve been given.

Because when we get together I want to encourage you in your faith, and I want to be encouraged by yours!!!