Spiritual Gifts Lesson #3 : Identifying Your Gift and Using It

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.