Spiritual Gifts Lesson 3

Identifying Your Gift and Using It

In the previous lesson we gave simple definitions for each of the spiritual gifts from the handout given with the first lesson. Except for the ones we labeled as sign gifts. In this lesson we will look at some guidelines for determining what your spiritual gift or gifts are and also some guidelines for using them.

Guidelines for identifying spiritual gifts :

1)  Ask God and seek his will (1 Corinthians 12:31)

• Prayer is usually the first step in everything and it should be here also.

2)  Study the gifts and the people who have them (2 Timothy 2:15)

• Before you can know exactly which gift or gifts you have you need to know exactly what they are. This is done by studying them in the word of God.
• Also you can study the men or women in the word of God that you know had particular gifts and look carefully at their characteristics and manner of life.

3)  Areas of ministry that you have a desire in or take pleasure in may indicate a spiritual gift       (Psalm 37:3-7)

• This is not always a 100 percent guarantee but it can help sometimes in identifying gifts.

4)  Having ability in a certain area of ministry may also indicate a gift in that area

            (1 Timothy 1:12)

• Certain areas of ministry require certain gifts and these gifts enable us to do the ministry through the power of the Holy Spirit.

5)  Using these gifts is accompanied by God’s blessing

• There are two things to be remembered here. First make sure the blessings are from the Lord and secondly be patient just because it doesn’t look like God is blessing doesn’t always mean that he is not.

6)  Spend time with those that have the gift that you think you may have (Acts 4:13)

• This can be a good help. The more we are around others who have the gifts the more we learn about the gift and the characteristics that go with it.

7)  Take part in as many different church or spiritual activities as you can.

• This will allow you to see many different gifts in action.

8)  Ask a mature spiritual Christian who knows you well.

Guidelines in regards to using spiritual gifts :

1)  Must be used with charity (1 Corinthians 13:1-8)

• This will apply to most everything in the ministry but note here that Paul connects it with tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, helps or giving.

2)  Don’t neglect it (1 Timothy 4:14)

• There are many things that we should not neglect and our gift or gifts are one of them.

3)  Do not counterfeit gifts (Proverbs 25:14)

• This is being done today and has been going on since the very beginning and has done a lot of harm to the cause of Christ.

Spiritual Gifts Lesson 3 : Handout

Identifying Your Gift and Using It

1)  List 8 guidelines for helping to identifying what spiritual gift or gifts you may have.

2)  List 3 guidelines for using the spiritual gifts.