This blog post is an excerpt from the Sermon - True Community: Using Your Gifts to Serve One Another.
A very practical question that is often asked regarding spiritual gifts is “How do I find out what is my spiritual gift?”
I would suggest that you utilize the following methods of discovering your spiritual gift in concert with one another.
The reason I say “in concert with one another” is because there is no one single fool-proof method for discovering your spiritual gift.
It’s like the current state of antibody testing regarding the Coronavirus if you only take one test there is a 20-30% chance you could get a false-positive.
So it’s important that you employ multiple methods in discovering what gift(s) God has given you.
(1) The first method for discovering your spiritual gift is the method of Trial and Error.
You will never discover what your spiritual gift is if you are a spiritual couch potato. You have to get off the couch or the pew and get involved, take initiative, volunteer, try this and that. You can hypothesize all day long about possibly having this or that gift. But if you never test that theory it will only ever be a hypothesis. Just as the best scientists test their theories so the most mature Christians test themselves to see what gifts they have by trial and error.
Like Thomas Edison it may take you 100 times before the light bulb actually turns on but hey be encouraged you know at least 99 gifts that you don’t have and 1 that you are certain you do have.
(2) The second method for discovering your spiritual gift is the method of Inviting Feedback from Others.
It is so important that you pair this one with the Trial and Error approach. We are not the best and most objective evaluators of our gifts. We need to invite feedback from others. Notice that I didn’t say merely “receive” feedback from others, as if you just sit back and wait for it to come to you. We need to invite feedback from others in assessing our gifts. Ask those who know you best: “What gifts do you think the Lord has given me?” “What gifts do you think the Lord has NOT given me?” “How could I improve the gifts that the Lord has given me?” And get ready to swallow some humble pie.
(3) The third method for discovering your spiritual gift is the method of Examining Fruitfulness.
As you seek to serve and test out certain gifts what ones do you see the Lord blessing in particular? What service opportunities in your life are bearing the most fruit in the lives of others? Fruitfulness can be a great thermometer in testing giftedness. For example, if you believe that your gift is the gift of service and you go over to someones house to help them and you start breaking and damaging things - perhaps it’s not your gift. On the other hand, if you get a hold of something and it becomes more organized and efficient after you are done with it to the point that people keep coming to you with things to organize, that doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to discover that you might be on to something.
(4) The fourth method for discovering your spiritual gift is the method of checking the pulse of your passions and interests.
What interests you? What are you passionate about? What opportunities do you gravitate towards and get excited about? There are things in life and in the church that we have to do and then there are things that we look at and with excitement think I get to do that. If you see an opportunity and area of service and you are like a dog after a bone or a kid in a candy store, there is some real potential there.
Now with this method in particular we have to be careful because our passions can be misleading in two different but equally dangerous directions.
On the one hand, we can be passionate about serving in a particular area because it is more public and noticeable and we like the limelight a little too much. So we have to check our pride.
On the other hand we can try and quench and ignore a passion or interest because we are lacking in boldness. For example, I have a passion to teach and preach God’s Word but sometimes it makes me sick to my stomach because I don’t prefer standing up in front of people, which is quite an odd mix. In fact, during middle school and high school I would intentionally refuse to read books so that I didn’t have to get up in front of the class to give an oral book report. In college, I walked into the first day of Speech Class - I counted about 60 students - then the teacher proceeded to go over the syllabus and tell us how many speeches we had to give. I promptly walked out of the class to the registrars office and dropped the class. And then the Lord called me to be a Preacher. Whoever says that the Lord doesn’t have a sense of humor is a liar.
(5) The fifth method for discovering your spiritual gift is the method of taking a Spiritual Gift Inventory test. Like this one HERE.
I intentionally put this near the end of my list because I think this are a bit overrated. Call me a spiritual gift inventory party-pooper if you want. But I find that people treat these as the be all end all approach to discovering your spiritual gift. If you pair this with all the other methods I’ve listed that is good and healthy. But if you isolate this one, I think it can be misleading and unhelpful. An inventory test is so impersonal and it can’t provide you with real feedback.
I’ve met people who have confidently told me that they have such and such a gift because that’s what the test told them. And I wanted to say well you need to burn that test because it lied to you but I didn’t.
Please use a gifts test in concert with the other methods.
(6) Finally, I think the most important method for discovering your spiritual gifts is to look for needs and opportunity.
A much more important question to ask than “What are my spiritual gifts?” is “Where are there needs and opportunities that I can serve?”
You may never nail down precisely and specifically what your spiritual gifts are and that’s ok but that should never stop you from serving others in a Christ-like way.
Always remember that we use our gifts to serve others, because He first served us and laid down His life for us.
