Launch Your Ministry Chapter 17 of 27
<-Chapter 16 Chapter 18-> Return to FulltextNatural Spiritual Gifts
Condensed Version (Completed)
As we have taught before, God has made us to be a spirit, a soul and a body. In our Bible Doctrine Made Easy course, under the Doctrine of Man, we covered this in a bit of detail.
It was also covered in some detail in our Psychology in Business and Ministry course, under the Nature of Man and Human Temperaments.
As a result of the sin of Adam, the spirit of man became incapable of responding to God. But that doesn't mean that the spirit of man ceased to exist. Although man is considered 'spiritually dead' outside of Christ, this does not mean that his spirit is dead.
When your spirit leaves, your body dies. The spirit is in fact what keeps the body alive. This means that every human being, whether he or she is a Christian or not, still has an active spirit.
Also For Unbelievers
So far everything that we have discussed concerning natural gifts applies to every human being.
You do not need to be a believer to have these abilities. They are gifts you had either from the time you were born. Or you may have developed them during your life, before you even became a Christian.
Unfortunately most people major on these gifts. Have you ever taken a test where you are asked questions to help identify your ministry? I will guarantee that most of those questions and answers pointed to characteristics of the body and soul.
And even if they do point to the realm of the spirit, they would still refer to natural gifts of the human spirit. Let's see what these are.
Creative Gifts
The most important gift that you have in your spirit is the ability to be creative. That includes especially all of the artistic abilities, singing, writing, drawing or producing poetry. These are all spiritual abilities.
I have heard people say,
"I have this gift from the Lord that enables me to write beautiful poetry."
Did you have it before you were a believer? If so, then it is most definitely a natural gift, not a supernatural gift.
Sure it came from the Lord because He ultimately created it, but you did not receive it directly from Him. You received it because you are a human being.
We tend to assess people as naturally gifted in certain abilities, and think that they were born with these abilities. We tend to envy such people and see them as having something we don't have.
That is not true; you have a human spirit like everybody else. So then why do you not have some of these gifts? Because you have not learned how to use the gifts and abilities that are in your spirit.
The gifts that lie in your spirit are of no use whatsoever until they begin to manifest outwards. What lies in your spirit is below the level of consciousness, and when you look at someone you cannot see their spirit.
So if you see a particular talent or ability in a person, it means that whatever was in their spirit has somehow become poured outwards. It is now being displayed physically in a way that everyone can see it.
The human spirit can produce every kind of creativity, which means that every one of us has the capability of producing these natural creative gifts.
Releasing Spiritual Abilities
The problem is that we have never learned how to allow what is in our spirits to flow outwards through our souls and then into our bodies.
How are these things released? I have taught this many times in different places. Spiritual abilities are always released through words and actions.
Realize that what is in your spirit flows outwards to manifest itself via the abilities that are in your soul and body.
Words
You could be a talkative temperament. There are two talkative temperaments, and they are those that are high on emotion; both the amiable and expressive. The expressive especially is the talkative temperament.
So if you are amiable or expressive in temperament - a connector or motivator - then to express verbal abilities comes very easily to you.
You could say of such a person that they have a natural ability to speak. No speech is a spiritual function so all humans have the ability to speak.
Animals do not have the faculty of speech. They can make noises and sounds, but they cannot form words. Only human beings can form words, because they have a spirit.
This means that the ability to speak is a spiritual function. Every one of us has the ability to speak, unless we have a physical problem that rendered us incapable of speech.
You have the gift of speech within you. But some temperaments are more naturally gifted with using words. This kind of person is more 'naturally skilled' at standing before a group of people to speak.
But that does not mean you are condemned to never being able to use words effectively. You can change your temperament and develop this ability.
Actions
Who are more capable of carrying out actions? Surely it is the temperaments that have the highest level of assertion. Assertion is the imposing of the will and this is expressed in action.
Going back to the temperaments then, you will see that the driver and expressive temperaments are more likely to release what is in their spirit through action.
The expressive can do this with both actions and words, which is why the most talented and creative people in this world tend be largely expressive in temperament. So if you are an expressive in temperament you are most blessed.
The chances are that you will be able to express a lot more of what is in your spirit through words and actions. The analytical on the other hand is different. The Analytical is not assertive, but capable of speaking words and can talk for hours.
That is why these people make good teachers, but they cannot do something that requires action.
The best actors are those who show both emotion and assertion. Everybody is capable of using both words and actions, but we are looking at natural abilities.
So often what we consider a natural spiritual ability is strongly linked to temperament and whether the body can handle it or not.
For example, if you want to express your artistic ability in dancing, then you will need a body that is fit enough to go through the motions of dancing.
If you want to be an opera singer, then you had better have the vocal power to sing without an amplifier.
These things require a certain amount of physical and psychological capability, along with what is in the spirit. However, they are spiritual abilities, because they come from within the human spirit.
We cannot say that one temperament is more naturally gifted in one of those. But we can say that a temperament may find it easier to release what is in their spirit that way.
Manifesting Your Spirit
The important thing is that the spirit must manifest. If you see a gift or ability in anyone, then what you are seeing is the manifestation of their human spirit.
This is manifested in some kind of ability that we like to call a 'gift'. But the word gift can be confusing.
Some have the idea that there are a limited number of gifts available, and God decided to give different gifts to different people. Perhaps when you arrived at the table, all the good gifts had already been given away.
This is not true. Any limitation that you have in displaying spiritual abilities is not because you have less in your spirit. It is because you are incapable of releasing or manifesting outwardly, what is in your spirit.
The important thing to realize is that the spiritual abilities we have discussed here come before the New Birth.
Unbelievers have a spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not involved in this picture at all. The human spirit has natural abilities that are built into every human being.
All of these natural abilities were already there, before you ever accepted the Lord as your Savior or were born again.
Spiritual Abilities Are Not Ministry Gifts
Here then is the danger when it comes to ministry. You may hear people say,
"I have a gift from the Lord which I believe is my ministry."
But when you question them more closely you find that they have had this gift for many years. Some have had it as far back as they can remember.
If you had that gift before you were born again, then it is not supernatural, and it does not come directly from God via the Holy Spirit. It is purely a natural gift and it can only be used in certain circumstances which we will deal with shortly.
It is a known fact that many of the great artists of the past did not start out with great ability. Their drawing ability was often terrible, but they developed it.
There are some who have great vocal ability today, but when they first began to sing, they sounded terrible.
These abilities can be developed. Of course in singing there are also vocal cords involved, so the body is part of it too. There is more involved than only the spirit. But the expressing of a creative ability begins deep within.
All of these things may be developed, but how do we allow them to be used by God? This is what I would like to look at next.
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