Spiritual gifts

I Peter 4:10-11 (NLT)

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others?  Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.  Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.  All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen. 

Listen to what Peter writes here.  Take it as seriously as you take anything.  God has given you a gift, a special gift, called a spiritual gift, that you did not have before you gave your life to Him through Jesus Christ.  That gift He gave you is to be used to serve others.  Are you doing this?  Do you know what your special gift is that God Himself gave to you? 

Ministry Tools Resource Center has a nice website (http://mintools.com/gifts-list.htm) that claims to define and list all the gifts given in the Bible, will enable you to discover yours if you don’t know it already, will enable you to learn to use your gift effectively and will enable church leaders to recruit church workers based on gifting.  From this website, here is a simple organization of God’s spiritual gifts (in alphabetical order):

Romans 12::6-8         I Corinthians 12:7-10    Ephesians 4:11-13       Other Passages

Exhortation                  Administration              Apostle                            Celibacy

Giving                          Apostle                          Evangelism                    Hospitality

Leadership                  Discernment                 Pastor                              Martyrdom

Mercy                           Faith                               Prophecy                        Missionary

Prophecy                     Healing                         Teaching                        Voluntary Poverty

Service                        Helps                          

Teaching                     Knowledge

                                     Miracles

                                     Prophecy

                                     Teaching

                                     Tongues

                                     Tongues Interpretation

                                     Wisdom

Some of these gifts may no longer exist (e.g. apostleship, martyrdom—at least in America) and other gifts are hard to understand and see in everyday church practice (e.g. prophecy, speaking in tongues), but there are many others that are absolutely a necessity for a local church to flourish. 

It is exciting to learn and apply your spiritual gift.  Note that Peter writes that when you apply your spiritual gift, everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.  There’s nothing that makes you more fulfilled with your life than when you are using your spiritual gift for the purposes of God to serve others. 

God gave me the spiritual gift of teaching.  Before I became a Christian I was so afraid of speaking publicly that I refused to take a speech class in college.  I was not a teacher by any means until the Spirit of God changed me through His gift.  There was nothing that motivated me more in my entire life—including my professional career—than preparing Bible lessons and teaching them.  Even when I lost my hearing and had to give up verbal teaching, God has continued to use me as a writing teacher via these study vignettes.  May you find the same purpose and fulfillment with your spiritual gift as I have with mine.