Featured How to best use my spiritual Gifts?

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I have no doubt that God has gifted you in certain areas. And you should use them in the manner that the Holy Spirit leads you to. You shouldn't take the results of a test and try to run in that direction. Run in the direction the Holy Spirit gives you and in the timeliness that He leads you in. Someone may have a gift of teaching, but the Holy Spirit may need them to be a learner for a while before they start teaching.

But with that being said, I've never been an ardent supporter of the spiritual gifts test. I don't believe that our spiritual gifts are about us - you and me. And I don't believe you can scientifically measure spiritual gifts with a pencil and paper multiple choice test.

What if the results aren't valid? What if our answers are being influenced by our circumstances of life at the time, or your subconscious desire to skew the test results to what you want it to say, or the misinterpretation of a question?

I know when my church had all the adults in Discipleship Training take a spiritual gifts test 20+ years ago, I skewed my results on purpose. I could very easily tell which questions were about mercy, teaching, missions.....

.....and I knew that they were looking for a team to start some door to door canvassing, so I score the missions questions very low! The things I wanted to participate in, I scored high - and I was able to do that because the questions were so transparent that you knew which question pertained to which gift.

And honestly? I've seen people who won't participate in a particular work in the church because they say, "it's not my gift" and vice versa (and more damaging) - I've seen a couple of people who jumped into teaching a Sunday School class because some random multiple choice questionnaire claimed that their gift was teaching - and it wasn't. It almost seemed to give them a sense of superiority.

How do we know what our gifts are then? [1] The Holy Spirit's prodding and conviction and [2] other believers' consistently sharing with us how they were changed/effected by what we did.

I just don't believe that we should go around saying "My gift is this....my gift is that." And these spiritual gifts tests make people do that very thing.