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Finding Your Gifts

By Bill Jacobs

An article is taken from a transcript dated February 14, 2008.

Download the transcript or audio.

The title of this presentation is Finding Your Gifts. It's the third on the topic of Spiritual Gifts. The topic of Spiritual Gifts is the second of eight in a series on congregational health.

Last time we talked about three important godly qualities to consider when thinking about spiritual gifts. The first is power. That comes from God when He gives us the gift. The second one is commitment. If we're not committed to use the gift, then it's like the man who buried his talent. And the third is wisdom. If we don't wisely use our gift, then we're not going to get the results that God intended. It's very important that we think about all three of these things as we look at the whole issue.

I think some of us tend to veer away from this topic because we're not used to it. You know, it's just another thing I don't know about or another thing I can't do well. It makes me feel bad to think about it. But when you think about that – that approach – it's sad, because God intended just the opposite for us. Giving us gifts to help in the church was supposed to be a blessing, not a problem, to us. It's supposed to make us feel fulfilled and included, not guilty or bad – like we're missing out or we don't know something. So this is something to rejoice about if we do our homework.

God calls us into His church and He tells us that we are like a body – that we are together the same way a body is together. And the work of the body is that we're supposed to make disciples and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. And each one of us has a place in that work. Each one of us is given a gift from God so that we can make a contribution to that effort. Instead of feeling guilty about not doing God's work, He gives us something so that we can participate in it. Because of that gift, each one is an essential part of the body.

I was noticing at the Feast this year that one of my goals that I had for the Feast didn't really get met as well as I would have hoped. I was hoping to include nearly everybody in the work of the Feast. And that didn't really happen. We had some people who asked to help. We turned some of them away because – well, there were many reasons – partly because we were into something new and didn't have the foresight ourselves to know what kind of help we would need. There are other reasons, too, but I'm hoping to change that next year. To make the point, I noticed, for the most part, the people who were working the hardest seemed to be the happiest and to get the most out of it.

I think that's what God had in mind for us in the church when He gave all of us a way to be essential and to make a contribution toward doing the work of God. We're all social beings and we want to find a way to be a part of things, don't we? This is the way. This is the way that God gives us.

Please think with me about this, too. Our church has lost an incredible number of young people. They've been discouraged by their experience in their congregations. If you talk to those people that have left, they say essentially two things. One is that they are turned off by the hypocrisy that they've seen at church, where they saw people fighting over doctrine or control. And they say that they felt like they never fit in. Well, spiritual gifts is a way to include our young people in the church's work, isn't it?

I was talking to someone my age recently about some young adults who wanted to make more of a contribution. That's a good thing, by the way, isn't it, that somebody who's younger would like to start doing some of the church's work? His take on what was going on was that they didn't realize they had to have something to contribute. I think that every young person has something to contribute, because the Bible says that God gives everybody something to do. But since we've never concentrated on this aspect of the Bible, we don't know what that might be. And neither do the young people, because we haven't focused on that – or taught them how to find their gifts. I think our job, as the old hands, is to help them find what they're good at and give them the opportunity to start using it – which I think most of them are much more willing to do than those of us who are older, actually.

It seems to me that if we all knew where we fit and we were willing to do what we are good at doing, then churh would be a lot better experience for everybody. Of course, to do that, those of us who are older need to be encouraging and less controlling in order for that to happen. And those of us who are younger need to learn how to fit into the church and how to wisely use the gifts God has given us. I say, “Fit in,” because the church is a social organism. When you have a social organism, there are always ground rules for being a part of things. So we need to learn what those ground rules are and learn how to be a part of things.

Well, what we're going to do today is to discuss how to find our gifts. Let's start with probably the most important thing first. That would be prayer. When we talk about the issue of spiritual gifts, we're trying to find out what God has done and what He wants us to do. So it only makes sense that we would include Him in that, doesn't it? Because He is the one that is driving the whole thing. We would ask him, what has He given us and what does He want us to do with it? Doesn't that makes sense? It does to me.

I know taking tests about personality and all that – that's all important, but the place to start in all this is to go to the One who is driving the whole thing, and just ask Him to show us what He wants done and what He has given us that we can use. He's the one who knows and we're the ones trying to find out.

I think, if we don't take this humble approach, we're probably going to miss out on something really important – insight.

Turn with me to 1 Peter 5, verse 5.

1 Pt. 5:5 – Young men, in the same way, be submissive to those who are older. All of you – not just the young men now – all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. It's important for older people to clothe themselves with humility toward those who are younger, as well as the younger toward the older, because, as Peter says here, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

It is possible to cause chaos in the church by the foolish application of gifts. We saw that in the church at Corinth , didn't we? Or the self-serving application of gifts. Paul implied that some of those people were just doing what they were doing to draw attention to themselves. So we do need God's help in this process. We need power. We need commitment. And we need wisdom in the pursuit of this very worthwhile goal.

I think, too, that when we pray, we need to be open to what God is going to tell us. A lot of times we have preconceived notions about the answer. I think that sometimes we think we know what gift God has given us, but we may or may not be correct in that. We really need to be careful that we listen to what God tells us. If we think we have certain gifts, we might take another look. If there are gifts that we don't want to have, sometimes it's not easy to hear God tell us that we have that. So, who knows what we can learn if we invite Him into the process. I think that's very important.

I think, too, that when we pray, we need to expect to be surprised to learn something new and good. And remember that what God wants to show us is always going to be good for us.

When we started our ministry a few years ago, I was comfortable with the idea of making oral presentations. After all, I had been speaking for quite a while, but I was not comfortable with the idea of writing. And I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a Website. Well, come to find out, I'm not good at the artistic side of a Website, but I can do all right with the structural side of it. In fact, I found out that I like doing that. So God had a little surprise in store for me when He made it obvious that we needed a Website. And I was anxious about doing that. I felt like it was overwhelming. But I learned I could do something that I didn't know I could do. That's what I'm talking about here. God shows us stuff that we have no idea about – that we think is just the opposite to what we think.

So on this first point about prayer, what questions could we ask ourselves that might be profitable? I think the first one might be: Are we open to all the spiritual gifts mentioned in the Bible? Or have we kind of zeroed in and said, “This is what I have,” and “I don't have these”? Or are there some gifts that we really don't want to have – you know the gift of voluntary poverty? Some people don't like the idea of that at all. Or celebacy? Or some of the other things, you know. Or prophecy? Some people would like to be able to foretell the future, but they don't like the part about being sawn into. Are there some that you really don't want to have?

Secondly, have you had any negative experiences with the issue of spiritual gifts in the past? I think, if we have, a lot of times we're just going to transmit that, or it's going to infuse our whole experience. So we need to ask God to release us from that so we can look at the whole topic with unbiased eyes. A lot of times bad experiences from the past cause a defensive reaction in us and that blinds us to reality. So bad experiences around the issue of spiritual gifts could possibly put us out of touch with God's reality on that topic.

What else can we talk about? I think it's really important to understand how having a gift from God might change our life. In his book on this topic, Christian Schwartz tells the story of a young man who longed for the gift of healing. This young man told him this at some meeting, I think. He asked the young man if he was ready to devote his life to ongoing prayer for the sick. And the young man responded that he didn't think so. He only wanted to know what it would feel like to have somebody healed as a result of his prayer. He wasn't thinking about others. He was thinking about how it would feel to him. And he never really had counted the cost of what it would mean if he could pray for somebody and they would be healed. What that would mean is, he would be spending a lot of his life doing that. Obviously, he didn't have that gift.

But we need to understand how a gift might change your life. As a result of being able to organize Websites, I spend a lot more time sitting in front of a computer than I used to. I'm a lot more sedentary than I used to be. I like what I'm doing while I'm there, but I wish I could move around more sometimes.

Let's look in 1 Peter 4:10 for another take on this issue of understanding how it might change our life.

1 Pt. 4:10 – Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

Spiritual gifts are not a “gimme” kind of thing. I suspect that's one reason we have so much trouble with them. Because so much of the way humans do Christianity is about what we can get out of it.

I was talking to my friend, Guy Swenson – I think it was about a week before the Feast – he was telling me about a religious group who committed themselves to take care of a leper colony. A couple of volunteers would go in and move into the leper colony and take care of the lepers. And when they became too sick to carry on, two more would volunteer to go in. So these people that were in this religious community were willing to catch leprosy in order to take care of and serve the lepers. That way of being a Christian is not a part of our culture. We have been a “gimme” religion in a lot of ways. Our tradition is to see how much influence we could have, and to cow-tow to the people that had the influence, and how right we could be about doctrinal matters, and to respect the people who profess to know and have truth in doctrinal issues.

Think about how we have traditionally done the Feast. We've turned it into a vacation. It's all about us, and what we can get out of it – what we can eat, what we can drink, who we can hang out with, how we can be entertained by the information we receive.

While I was at Park City I was talking to one of the oldtimers who mentioned that he'd been to Park City for a Feast a long time ago with one of the biggest of all of the churches of God. He told me that they had abandoned Park City as a Feast site because there were so many complaints about the difficulty in procuring liquor at a decent price from the state liquor stores. That was one of the primary reasons they dropped the festival site. If that doesn't punctuate what I just said, I don't know of any example that could do better than that.

Matthew 23:2. This is what religion is supposed to be about.

Mt. 23:2 – The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat – Jesus said to His disciples – so you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do. For they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders. And they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long. They love the place of honor at banquets, the most important seats in the synagogues. You know, the fastest computer and the cushiest office. They love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have the men call them, “Rabbi.” But you are not to be called Rabbi, for you have only one master and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one Father and He is in heaven. Let's not misunderstand this. If we have a dad, it's okay to call him, “Dad,” or “Father.” This is talking about a religious title. And you are not to be called teacher, but you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. That's what Christianity is about.

So the kind of gifts that God gives us are not the kind of gifts that cause people to make a big stir about us or think that we're great. They are the kind of gifts that allow us to help the church do its job. They are gifts of service. The gifting that God gives us is for the care and the support of others. Gifts from God are not for the feeding of the carnal nature, but they are to nourish the new man who is transformed into a servant.

Questions to ask about this: When you read over the biblical gifts, which appeal to you? And why? It would be good to write that down sometime, unless you are planning on just sitting and listening and not doing anything about this later.

“What list of spiritual gifts?” you might ask. Well, let's look at some of those. I didn't write down all of them, but I wrote a few for us to think about here.

The first one might be artistic creativity. You think, “Is that a spiritual gift?” I think it is. You know, if you go back into the Old Testament, and you read about the building of the temple, there were certain artists that were employed. It very specifically says that God gave them the gift so they could do this work – so that they could serve.

Craftsmanship. It's very interesting. The man who built this lecturn.... Did you know this thing folds up? It's really quite an amazing piece of work. It's too bad that what he would rather have been is a deacon. I mean the guy obviously had a gift and he used it to serve here.

Giving. We had Gordon Anger come to our Feast site. And Bernie Hale was there, who is a true missionary. He has nothing and everything that he takes in is spent to take care of other people. I was thinking about this gift of giving. If there weren't people that have this gift, those guys couldn't operate, because they need money from other people to do the work that they do. Their job is not giving. It's passing out. I guess that's giving, but they take what is given to them and pass it on to other people. But there are some people that have to stay home and do work and earn money so that they can do what they're doing in Ecuador and around the world. So that's what that gift is about.

The gift of hospitality, which is the art of taking care of people – making people feel welcome and at home and at ease. That can be at home, or it can be at church, or it can be anywhere. To be able to take people in and make them feel included and a part of things. Some people have a knack for that, don't they? If you ever run into somebody like that when you're feeling uncomfortable, it's quite a good thing to experience.

Mercy. Feeling for the troubles of others that turns into action. The ability to feel our own feelings so that when we see other people in trouble, we understand what that's like.

In the Old Testament – this is the next one – music – there were people who were gifted performers of music. That can also be considered a gift. I've changed my tune about a lot of this – pardon the pun. I used to say that these gifts were just something that were given to you after you were born and all the natural talents that we have are just that. They're not spiritual gifts. But I think when somebody is born, and they have talents, and then they're called into the church – this is really silly that I didn't see this in the beginning, but... – it's all about getting the work done. So who cares whether it was given to you later or you were born with it. If you've got it, use it! If you've got a big cannon, you shoot it! Right? That's the way it works.

Organization is another one. We had a young lady at our festival site who was taking care of the youth lessons for the young kids – the elementary-aged kids – and I noticed that she was always looking over her sister's shoulder while her sister was creating the brochure for the feast site, because she's just a born organizer. I noticed within days after returning home, she'd already sent me a couple of emails with sample brochures of ways we could change it to make it better. I mean she's just got the gift! I mean she's on that like shrink-wrap on the Thanksgiving turkey.

Voluntary poverty is another one. I was thinking about Bernie Hale – the man we met at the Feast – who for years lived in Ecuador and took care of one hundred fifty deaf orphan children – street kids. Has nothing. Not just anybody can do that. Some people couldn't live that way, but he thrives on it. Gift from God.

Wisdom. I think, specifically applied, we can think about that in a lot of ways, but the two that I think about are in counseling and bridge-building between people who have had problems – the ability to help people reconnect or to give people sound support when they are in trouble.

Evangelism. There are a lot of different ways to evangelize. I used to think about somebody who could stand up and preach – talk people into walking down the sawdust trail or send in for a visit – you know, like we used to do. But actually, it's not just about preaching. It also has to do with caring for the sick and taking care of people in need. I think a lot of those orphaned children that Bernie Hale took care of wound up being Christians as a result of their experience with him.

Helps – knowing how to help people. We were up in Durango one day and we weren't meeting in our normal hall. We had this little tiny room. They had a music stand set up for the pianist to see the music on a piano. It's a little electric piano, so they put a music stand there. And the song leader, because we were in cramped quarters, kicked that thing and knocked it over. I saw it coming. I watched it. I watched it all the way down. Saw it hit the ground – standing right there within arm's reach. There are people who would have caught that and not let it fall. They just know what to do. They're just there. But I'm not one of those, I guess.

Leadership. What is leadership? I thought that we weren't supposed to do that. I thought that we were supposed to do service. Well, leadership is knowing the right thing to do in different circumstances. You don't have to be ordained. You don't have to have recognition. You just have to know the right thing to do. Other people that want to do the right thing, but don't know, will follow the leader. I think that's very important for us to understand that. A lot of times, the leaders are the ones that say the least, but they're doing something.

Elaine and I had a young girl live with us for awhile. The deal was that she would work to make money to go to college and she could have a place to live with us until she got accepted. She got turned down the first year. The second year – she was still living with us – she got accepted. And about two years after that I was at the Feast in Boston and one of the administrators from the college she got accepted to came up to me and said, “You had a lot to do with Robin coming to college, didn't you?” And I said, “Yeah. She was living with us and we just wouldn't say, ‘No,' until you guys let her in.” He said, “Well, you know, Robin didn't have the highest SAT scores, but now that she's here we want you to know that although she doesn't say as much as some other people, her attitude and her behavior sets the pace for the student body.” Very quiet person. Very strong opinions, but seldom expressed. Intent on doing the right thing. That was seen by the people on the faculty.

Another one would be a missionary – somebody that does international church work and church planting. Some people are cut out for that and others are not.

Service – seeing people's needs and meeting them. Just taking care of folks. Understanding what people are going through and being able to help them. I tell a story about a young woman I know who knew that one of her friends was in deep trouble – had gone off into drugs – and they'd both kind of grown up together in church. She was off at college and he was off doing his drugs. She decided that she would become a prayer warrior and just pray for this person every day. As it turned out, he started going with a girl that wasn't a part of the church – I guess she didn't even believe in God – but she liked her experience with church people so much that she made him take her to church. She wound up getting more and more interested in it until he had to come back. I guess he quit his drug habit and cleaned up his act. We know why that happened, don't we? Because somebody had the spirit of service – the gift of taking care of others.

Another one would be shepherding. Different kinds of people are good at providing training programs. That would be one way that shepherding could be used. I know a young man who can talk to teenagers in a way I only wish I could talk to them. He gets right in their face. Because he's done about every bad thing you can do and suffered greatly for it, he can talk to them in a very authoritative way about what happens when you do what they're doing right now. He is kind of a shepherd in that way. I see a shepherd with a crook, gently guiding the sheep and also bopping them on the head sometimes when they need it – or on the rump, maybe. I think this fellow kind of does that verbally with some young people.

The gift of discernment. I was talking to a young woman recently who was telling me that some of her friends were astounded to learn that in their congregation this family was doing a melt-down. She said, “I knew this was coming a long time ago,” and she detailed off to me the things that she'd seen in the relationship in the family. She was an observer of people and she could discern what was going on in there, so she wasn't surprised when things happened. Some people have that and some of us are always surprised because we don't have that gift.

The gift of faith – one of the biblical gifts, certainly. How do we get that? Well, science is telling us that the ability to have a lot of faith comes from how we were brought up when we were little. I think there is a lot to do with that, but I also think that even people who didn't have the best upbringing, if they rely on God, God will take care of them and then they develop faith that way.

Healing is another one. People that can pray for, and care for and visit, and who are drawn, a lot of times, to people who are sick or elderly. We had a man come visit us recently who mentioned that he always wished that he could relate to kids like I could. He loved to work with the elderly. If you're going to work with elderly people – people in advanced age – it's good if you can pray for them and have them be healed as a result of it.

Miracles – the gift of miracles. What kind of miracles are we talking about? I heard Bernie Hale tell this story at the Feast about being in Ecuador with a hundred and fifty orphans, and their bank account getting zeroed out, and they were running out of food, and no money coming in. So he went to UNICEF to get help. He was pretty much rebuffed by them. So he went home and prayed that God would provide. Later that day, he heard this terrible, metalic, crunching, grinding sound outside his door. He looked out and there was a big truck out there. He went to the door and the driver was there wanting to know if he could use his phone because he thought that he blew the motor out of the truck. So he invited him in. He made his call. They went out together and that's when Bernie noticed that it was a UNICEF truck. The man said, “This truck is full of food that's going to spoil if somebody doesn't use it. Could you use it?” Is that a miracle? Yeah, it is, isn't it? He said that he was quite worried for awhile that UNICEF would come back to him about that, but then he realized, “No, God sent him a gift.” They needed it more than UNICEF did apparently.

Prayer – the ability to pray for people, and be a prayer warrior, and just stay on it – to intercede for other people.

Another one that's mentioned is the gift of suffering. That doesn't sound very fun, does it? Actually, this is a really good gift to have. Do you remember when the apostles were in prison? They were in the stocks? What were they doing? They were singing! They had the ability to suffer gracefully.

What questions could we ask ourselves about this gift list and learning about the biblical gifts? Well, one of the things that we could do is, we could ask people who have obvious gifts to tell us how they learned that they had them. I think that comes all different ways. I think for some people it's a sudden revelation, and other people it just kind of sneaks up on them, and other people can't remember when they learned it, because it has just always been a part of them.

Okay, let's move on. What else can we talk about here? I think it's important, if a person is trying to find their gift, that the place to start is to find the things you like. Using a gift tends to bring joy to people. Have you ever seen somebody do a job at church that they didn't like doing just because they think it needs to be done? It's good that they try to do that, I think, but usually, unless they get some relief, everybody's going to suffer in the long run. So we want to realize that when God gives us a gift, it's supposed to be fun to do the stuff that He's given us to do. You know, not everything at church is fun for anybody. There are some things that nobody likes to do, but we all pitch in to do that stuff so that we can get to the fun stuff.

So what questions would we ask about this? This doesn't take much time to think about. What do I like doing? And what am I not good at? Usually the things we're not good at are the things that we don't like to do – that we're not interested in.

How can we know if we enjoy a certain gift if we never try it? So experimentation has to work its way in here, too. Right? If we're really intent on finding the gift that God has blessed us with, we've got to be willing to experiment and try things. How would we know if we have the gift of evangelism if we never talk to non-Christians about what we believe? How would we know if we have the gift of giving if we have never given a large sum of money to help somebody else? How would we know if we have the gift of healing if we never have prayed earnestly – and in a sustained manner – for somebody who is sick?

Getting back to the business about giving money.... You have to have money to give it. Now, I was talking to my friend. He was telling me that he knew the people that built the house we live in. It was a big builder that built our home. He sold his home building business to Pulty Homes, which is a nationwide home builder, for 75 million dollars. He said that once you have that kind of money – to have all the clothes you need, the perfect house, the right cars, and to have all your kids have all the stuff that they need doesn't really take that much money compared to 75 million dollars. You can get all that stuff for a lot less than a million. Then you have the rest left over. And what do you do with it? Well, what he did with it was he hired somebody full time to find appropriate charities to give all the money to – that he was making off of the 75 million. That's what he wanted to do. That is the gift of giving. You can't give what you haven't got. I think the Phillip's translation says it that way. So the gift of giving would presuppose having something to give.

One of the things I've noticed is, that the people that have the least are more likely to give than people who have a lot. I think that people that don't have a lot know what that's like and they have empathy for others that have less than they do. But every now and then, you find somebody that really has a lot of money – like the man I mentioned – and he's inclined to give it away.

Questions to ask about experimentation: Which of the gifts that we just talked about strike your fancy? How much time would you be willing to invest to see if one or more of those really was a gift? What could you do to experiment with it? Are there any tasks at church that you see aren't getting done? What could you do to help? Would you like helping? Write down all the gifts that you've already experimented with and think about them. Then look at what's left.

Okay, this next important point has to do with verifying whether we're actually being effective with what we think might be a gift. Let's say you suspect, for example, that you have the gift of evangelism, and are active in that area, and yet year after year no one comes to faith in Christ by your efforts. Then it's quite possible that God might not have blessed you with that gift, because, if He has, He would produce fruit through you. Let's think about that some more. Before we can come to that conclusion, we have to try first. Right? Before we can say we don't have it.

So we need to be looking for results. That's the key in verifying whether we have a gift or not. We look for results – to see if our experiments yield any good results. For example, if you had the gift of music, and you applied it, what would be the result of that? Well, people would enjoy your performance, wouldn't they?

Now, we have to differentiate between encouragement and success. Quite often people want to encourage us, so they tell us we're doing a good job, hoping we'll get better at it. But that may, or may not, be indicative of good results.

I knew a woman a long time ago who made quilts for people. She was an excellent seamstress, but her choice of colors left a lot to be desired. And it wasn't just me that thought that. So we didn't want to discourage her, but we knew that she needed some help in selecting colors that would appeal to people. I suspected that she may have been color blind.

What questions could we ask about this? When have people appreciated our efforts at church? That would be one thing to think about. Or at work – sometimes the things that we do at work can be used at church. When have people appreciated our efforts? That's one good thing to think about.

Then, probably the final thing to think about in this seeking business is to seek the opinion of other people – not just whether they've appreciated us, but.... I think this has to do with the second big bug-a-boo about spiritual gifts. What's the first one? Well, it's a fear among leaders that they won't be able to control what goes on, because this is an autonomous thing in a lot of ways. And the second bug-a-boo is that people will decide that they're good at something when they're not and make life miserable for others. There's always that person that is a hundred percent convinced that God has given them a gift, because they prayed intensely about it, and, of course, then they're ready to apply it at any time, whether it's appropriate or not for them to do it. And they know everything to be known about their gift – a lot of times much more than the Bible even reveals – and they enjoy doing it – in fact, need to do it even – because it's about them, not about serving. And they've experimented a lot and done harm all along the way. And they are the only ones that see their activities as a blessing to the church. We run into those sometimes and it especially makes people who are responsible uncomfortable.

So, questions: Who could help you confirm your gift? Do you want to know? If you don't want to do know, there's probably some distortion going on there. If it is so important to you that you keep doing this and you don't want to know whether it's helpful or not, it's probably something having to do with your own personal issues, rather than being gifted. Who would we ask about this? Just because we think to ask somebody, it would be good to know and ask somebody who is qualified, or who would know, wouldn't it? Not just anybody. Not just the people that are going to tell us what we want to hear.

All right. There is a way to cause change. And those are some things to think about – to stir the pot, so to speak. Earlier we said that there were three key elements involved here: Power, which comes from God, in the gift itself. Wisdom to know how to use it best. And then the commitment to use it. What we talked about today is how to see where the power is, and about the wisdom we need to use it. So next time we're going to talk about the third element related to spiritual gifts – that of commitment.

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