Using Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:7
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. (NLT)

It is so hard to separate spiritual gifts from our worldly thinking about the talents we were born with. Natural talent is not a spiritual gift. Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the church, the body of Christ.

We each have things we excel in and things we are not very good at. I am not an artsy person. You can put me in a room of paintings and I will not appreciate them like my wife, Dianne does. She sees the beauty in each and I just see pictures. Put her in a room of computers and she sees a bunch of stuff while I see the differences between them and sometimes understand what they are being used for.

My point is this. I do not have a natural talent to paint pictures. She does and if she practiced she might even be able to sell her work. On the other hand, although she has quite a bit of experiential knowledge of computers, when someone has a problem they do not call Dianne, they call me. Before retirement, I was able to make my living in the computer field because of my natural talent.

1 Corinthians 12:7-11
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice[b]; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. (NLT)

We all have been given spiritual gifts so we may serve others in the body of Christ. Perhaps it is the gift of healing, or the power to perform miracles, or perhaps the ability to prophesy. But how often are these gifts used as a means of income production? The Holy Spirit did not give a gift so we could make money off of it.

And it is not us who determine which gift to have. It is the one and only Spirit. And that gift may be given for all time, for a season, or even for a particular instance where it it needed. When we are laying hands on the sick we may get a word of knowledge about the person we are praying for. We do not move in words of knowledge all the time. But God knows when that person needs a boost of believe to be able to fully receive the healing to come. When they hear that word, they know without a doubt that only God could have known and therefore that God is present.

When the healing anointing is present during one of our meetings, many lay hands on the sick and see miracles occur. It is the anointing that heals, not us or the person praying. It is Jesus. When they leave the meeting, that anointing may linger for a little while, but next week they may not be seeing the same results. Holy Spirit gives the gift in His time for His purpose, not for our benefit.

When books and CDs and speaking engagements revolve around income production, we are off track and using the gifts for personal gain and not to serve the body. Don't get me wrong, the body is served whenever Holy Spirit is present. It is us that are misdirected and as the result of our actions we may cause others to take the same path.

2 Thessalonians 3:10
Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: "Those unwilling to work will not get to eat." (NLT)

Think about Paul. He lived off his tent making business and used his spiritual gifts to benefit the body of Christ. Shouldn't we to do the same?