Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts & Learning the Gift Types

Hey Friend!

It’s Day Two of our Discovering your Spiritual Gifts Workshop. Today we’re discussing Chapter 3 of Peter’s book (Discover Your Spiritual Gifts by C. Peter Wagner). I’m going to go through all of the Spiritual Gifts with you and tell you where you can find them. Next, I’ll go through each one.

Make sure you catch up on the other two parts of our Spiritual Gifts workshop series for the full training!

Part 1: What Are Spiritual Gifts? Spiritual Gifts Workshop Day 1

Part 3: Spiritual Gifts Workshop: Use Your Gifts for God’s Glory!

What are the Different Types of Spiritual Gifts and How Do You Discover Yours?

Types of Spiritual Gifts:

• Romans 12:6-8 – Prophesy, Service/Ministry, Teaching, Exortation/Encouragement, Giving/Generosity, Leadership, Mercy/Kindness
• 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 28 – Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Discerning of Spirits, Tongues (Speaking in), Interpretation of Tongues, Apostle, Helping, Administration.
• Ephesians 4:11 – Evangelist and Pastor
• 1 Corinthians 7:7 – Celibacy
• 1 Corinthians 13:3 – Voluntary Poverty and Martyrdom
• Ephesians 3:6-8 – Missionary
• 1 Peter 4:9 – Hospitality

Do I think that these are the only spiritual giftings God gives? No.

I think the Lord will bless each of you in your own way – uniquely, beautifully, personally.

This is a great starting point. But you have to explore for yourself, based on your relationship with God, what your giftings are, and what He has in store for you when discovering your spiritual gifts.

Sometimes He blends gifts like you could be a teacher-pastor or an evangelist-missionary. It’s not black and white in my opinion.

There are three others listed, but he does not include the verses for them. They are intercession, deliverance, and leading worship. 

This makes twenty-eight spiritual gifts Peter is listing.

How Do You Figure Out What Your Spiritual Gifts Are?

Some people have classifications for these gifts. Bill Goddard says they are “motivations, ministries, and manifestations”  based on your different type of gifting. Some theologians say you have ordinary gifts and extraordinary gifts. However, others say you have enabling gifts versus serving gifts versus tongues and interpretation.

Regardless, any gift is an extraordinary gift because it’s given to you by God. So when that gift is used properly, whether it’s used to help lead people to the faith, or guide people, or used for the good of God’s church, it is a blessing. 

Your gifts are incredible; they are extraordinary. Not any one gift is better than another gift because I know that they are all of extraordinary importance.

We don’t know the outcome of using our gifts. We just know that it’s going to make a massive impact when we use our gifts.

Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts

• Explore the Possibilities
  • Read the Bible.
  • Open and place your hands on the pages and say a prayer asking God to show you all the amazing stories from this Scripture that bring to life the different spiritual giftings, that allow you to see yourself in the stories, that allow the gifts to come alive from the pages and impart into your heart, and that God shows you what your giftings are.
  • Be grateful we have gifts and be here for this. Be open to receiving your gifts. Ask God to help you walk in it so you can be courageous. Help you say yes and Amen to partner with Him.
  • Your gift may not be comfortable for you. It may feel natural to you, but it may not. Some gifts are a little weird. What do you think about speaking in tongues? It’s not about what someone else says is a possibility for you.
  • Will some of you have a gift that some people don’t believe in? Will some of you have a gift the mainstream world doesn’t think is possible? Of course! Because God is beyond comprehension. 
  • When we open up to the unbelievable, we open up to things we cannot understand. 
  • We don’t need to have a spirit of suspicion over other people. We just need to be praying that God will always reveal truth to us and trust in that.

Trust God with the spiritual gifts that you were given

I have some friends who have some incredible gifts: gifts of prophecy, gifts of tongues. My friends didn’t want to use them; they wanted to shelf them. They thought these gifts were too big, too scary. They felt people were judging them and didn’t know if they should be operating in that space. In response to feeling judged, they put their gifts away; judging their own gifts. Some gifts are bigger than we can comprehend as human beings, but I don’t think it’s our place to comprehend them. It’s our place to open the door to God, to be protective of our spirit.

Trusting in God is not easy because those answers are on His timeline. It’s Heaven’s timeline, not ours. We have to be trusting if we are going to grow and expand, and plant our little seed , water it, and allow it to bloom. 

Experiment with Different Gifts

• Try different gifts on to see if the shoe fits. You have to experiment with the gifts.
• There are some gifts we may be natural in. I’ve always been a natural leader, but I have not always been a natural public speaker. The anxiety made me feel so awkward.
• When I look back, I see the gift was there, but it was not fostered, planted, or cultivated. I had to overcome the worldly fear of using the gift.
• You can’t just say you’re a leader. You have to do something. You have to speak. You have to show up. You have to get on the stage.
• Do the awkward stuff. It will be awful at first.
• Once I did it a few times, it started feeling amazing, and I got great feedback. 
• Faith is another gift that is given. I wasn’t born with faith exuding out of me, I had to grow in my faith. I was in a spirit of control. The opposition is real. We are constantly battling against unseen forces in the spiritual realm. 
• We are battling fears. What are your fears?
• Fear is NOT from the Lord.
• I welcome fear because I just want to laugh in fear’s face one more time.
• Since fear is not from God, I’m just going to go ahead and push past that.
• Obedience over fear. Faith over fear. Action over fear.
• It will not be easy. It will not be comfy or cozy, but that is the point. How do we grow? We move.

See How You Feel

• Psalms 37:4
• God is delighted to give you His gift.
• Once you push through the initial pain and discomfort, you will start to flourish.
• Nobody gets to miss the messy beginning. Beginnings are always awkward; let’s just welcome that period of time.
• It’s short-lived. The awkward beginning and the messy middle will pass – if you keep at it, keep going, and keep growing.

Evaluate Your Effectiveness

• What is the fruit of your actions?
• Are you glorifying God with what you’re doing?
• The fruit of operating in your giftings is good; it won’t be easy or comfortable, or even make sense. But what’s coming from it, is confirming.
• The fruit will often come in confirmation quickly.

The Body of Christ Will Confirm

When you wear a gift from God, you will feel better and you’ll shine by wearing that gift. For me, you would not recognize me from ten years ago. I didn’t know the truth. Now that I’ve tried it on and pushed through the trials, I am different. I didn’t know there was another way to feel, to live, to be. My life is different. The Holy Spirit partners with you and you’re not alone anymore.

You’re not fighting these battles alone. You’re leaning on God and He’s bringing you with Him through this life. So you’re shining because you’re spreading His gifts for His glory. The best way you can share it is to wear it! Put on that Holy Spirit glow. Put on that spiritual gift armor. And show up for your life. Even if it feels weird, use your gift every day. You aren’t just transferring energy, you’re transferring the truth of Jesus Christ by who you are!

The Spiritual Gifts (from Discover Your Spiritual Gifts)

• Administration: ability God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to understand clearly the immediate and long-range goals of a particular unit of the body to execute effective plans and accomplishments.
• Apostle: ability God gives to certain members to assume and exercise divinely imparted authority in order to establish the foundational government of the assigned sphere of ministry. Apostle hears from the Holy Spirit and sets things in order according to the Church’s health, growth, maturity, and outreach. 
• Celibacy
• Deliverance: ability God gives to certain members to cast out demons and evil spirits.
• Discernment: ability to know with assurance whether certain behaviors purpotive to be of God are really divine, human, or satanic.
• Evangelist: ability that God gives to certain members to share the Gospel with unbelievers in such a way that men and women become Jesus’ disciples. 
• Exhortation: (sometimes called the gift of counseling) ability to minister words of comfort, consolation, encouragement, and counsel so that people feel helped and healed. 
• Faith: ability of certain members of the Body of Christ to discern with extraordinary confidence the will and purposes of God for the future of His work. 
• Giving: to contribute your material resources to the work of the Lord, liberally and cheerfully, above and beyond the tithes and offerings expected of all believers. 
• Healing: ability to serve as human intermediaries through whom it pleases God to cure illness and restore health, apart from the use of natural means. 
• Helping: invest the talents they have in the life and ministry of the other members of the Body. Thus enabling those to increase the effectiveness of their own spiritual gifts.
• Hospitality: provide an open house, a warm welcome for those in need of food or lodging.
• Intercession: ability to pray for extended periods of time on a regular basis, and see frequent and specific answers to their prayers to a degree much greater than that which is expected of the average Christian. 
• Knowledge: ability to analyze, discover, accumulate, and clarify information and ideas that are pertinent to the growth and well-being of the Body.
• Leadership: to set goals in accordance with God’s purpose for the future and to communicate these goals to others in such a way they are voluntary and harmoniously worked together to accomplish the goals for the glory of God.
• Leading Worship
• Martyrdom: the gift to undergo sufferings for the faith, even to death, while consistently displaying a joyous and victorious attitude. 
• Mercy: feel genuine empathy and compassion for individuals
• Miracles: ability to serve as a human intermediary through whom it pleases God to perform powerful acts that are perceived by observers to have altered the ordinary course of nature.
• Missionary: minister whatever other spiritual gifts they have in a second culture.
• Pastor: ability to assume a long-term personal responsibility for the spiritual wellfare of a group of believers.
• Prophecy: ability to receive and communicate an immediate message from God to His people through a divinely anointed utterance.
• Service: volunteering, to identify the unmet needs in a task related to God’s work, and to meet the needs and to help accomplish desired goals.
• Teaching: ability God gives to certain members to communicate information relevant to the health and minstry of the Body and its members in such a way that others will learn.
• Tongues: ability God gives to certain members to speak to God in a language they have never learned, and to receive and communicate immediate message from God to His people through an anointed utterance.
• Voluntary Poverty: ability God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to renounce material comfort and luxury and adopt a personal lifestyle equivalent to those living at the poverty level.
• Wisdom: ability that God gives to certain members to know the mind of the Holy Spirit in such a way as to receive insightinto how given knowledge may be applied to specific needs.

There are many variations of these gifts. It’s not black and white.

Homework

Read Chapters 3-5 in Discover Your Spiritual Gifts.

Discovering your spiritual gifts is not easy, but it is worth it. It takes time and may feel awkward at first, but keep going. Keep trying your gift on, keep showing up, and keep moving. You got this!

Make sure you catch up on the other two parts of our Spiritual Gifts workshop series for the full training!

Part 1: What Are Spiritual Gifts? Spiritual Gifts Workshop Day 1

Part 3: Spiritual Gifts Workshop: Use Your Gifts for God’s Glory!

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

P.S. Also, listen to podcast episode 263 for the full training on Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts + Types of Spiritual Gifts! Workshop Day 2.

APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY | GOOGLE PODCAST

Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

This free workshop is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

It will teach you how to explode your audience without the social media hustle, make consistent sales using a podcast, and plan, record, and launch a podcast with ease!

RELATED EPISODES:

Day One is HERE

Ignorance Is NOT Bliss. The DANGERS of WORLDLY Enlightenment & Unknown Sin with Ashley DeAnda. Truth Seeker Series Pt. 5

New Age Deception & Discerning Truth in Love – with Tracy Wren. Truth Seeker Series Pt. 4

Letting Go of ”MORE”! Worldly Lie: Hustle Harder, Get Farther. With Heather Shriver Burns. Truth Seeker Series Pt. 3

Is Your Business Built on Lies? How to Identify and Replace WORLDLY LIES with GODLY TRUTHS – Truth Seeker Series Pt. 2

Join our Facebook Community!

Online Business for Christian Women with Stefanie Gass