You Are Incredibly Gifted!
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You Are Incredibly Gifted!
You Are Incredibly Gifted!
You Are Incredibly Gifted!
You are perfectly equipped. You have everything you need for your life and work. Now is the time — today is the most important day to deploy your gifts. There is deep satisfaction — complete joy — in knowing your gifts and using them for the reason they are given to you.
You Are Incredibly Gifted!
You are perfectly equipped.
You have everything you need for your life and work. Now is the time — today is the most important day to deploy your gifts.
There is deep satisfaction — complete joy — in knowing your gifts and using them for the reason they are given to you. Yet, most of us don’t take full advantage of deploying our gifts the right way at the right time.
If we are honest with ourselves, we probably think too much about our gifts, but most of us think about them the wrong way. When our focus is on what we have in comparison to others, we rob ourselves of the joy we are meant to receive through using our gifts.
Jon Bloom in His article, Steward the Gifts God Has Assigned to You, helps us see how the horizontal comparison of our gifts is a joy stealer when we let pride infect our gift stewardship.
“We are all by sin nature self-aholics, born with an addiction to the intoxication of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think (Romans 12:3) and others thinking more highly of us than they ought to think…we find this old addictive pride still infects our view of ourselves and others when it comes to the grace-gifts we receive from God. Rather than seeing our gifts as things we don’t at all deserve and seeing others’ gifts as merciful means of grace to us, we frequently battle sinful discontentment. We often feel that we are not as gifted as we would like to be, or that our gifts don’t receive enough recognition, or that we would prefer another set of gifts altogether, impressive gifts like So-and-So has.”
Why You Have Gifts
We’ve been looking deeply at why we should work and discussing the significant reasons that all lead to the same Answer.
The reason to work is the very same reason to use your gifts, because you were made with incredible gifts to actively serve others and glorify the One who made you.
Most of us get the purpose of our gifts wrong far too often. We think the gifts we’ve been given are for us. Yet, the truth is, a gift is not a gift if we don’t use it to serve others. In fact, this is so true we can actually lose our gifts when we don’t serve them with others.
You Are Gifted
Everyone has been given unique gifts by God. Gifts include talents, skills, passions, behavioral makeup, and experiences.
Once we understand our gifts, and the purpose of using them, we can still get confused about which of our gifts are the most important and how and when to use them. The most helpful chapter in the Bible on gifts is 1 Corinthians 12. The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul clarifies that not even spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesy are greater than the gift of serving others with whatever we have in any given moment.
“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” - [.no-reftag]1 Corinthians 12:4-7[.no-reftag]
Do you know what gifts God has given you?
The best way to discern your gifts is through prayer and experience. God – through the Holy Spirit – often confirms our gifts by giving us joy and energy while we are using our gifts.
Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group have created an assessment and a book that helps people understand which gifts give them energy and joy.
Six Types of Working Genius - From The Table Group
“Everyone has natural talents and gifts when it comes to work. As it turns out, there are six different types of gifts that are required of any group of people trying to get something done. Two of those six types come naturally to you, meaning that you are good at them and that they give you energy and joy. We call these your areas of Working Genius. Two of them are neither natural nor energizing for you, and most likely, you aren’t particularly good at doing them. We call these your areas of Working Frustration. Finally, two types fall in between; you can do them fairly well, maybe even very well, but you don’t derive great joy or energy from them. These are your areas of Working Competency.” - Table Group
- Wonder- The gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation
- Invention- The gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.
- Discernment- The gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.
- Galvanizing- The gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action.
- Enablement- The gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.
- Tenacity- The gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.
We highly recommend this assessment. We use it to help people at The Center and it has helped many people understand and unlock the way they are gifted for work.
Gifts Are For Needs
Knowing that our gifts are for others and learning how and when to use them iis life-giving. Michael Davis, who spoke on gifts at The Center said, “It’s not a gift unless we use it to serve the needs of others.” And, theologian Albert Schweitzer said something similar a century ago, “At the intersection where your gifts, talents, and abilities meet a human need; therein you will discover your purpose.”
At The Center, we use this venn diagram to describe how to best deploy our gifts in the workplace:
The more these circles overlap the more satisfaction you will find in your job.
Meeting Needs In Love
It is no coincidence that the Apostle Paul caps off his explanation of spiritual gifts in his letter to the church in Corinth by explaining how no gift or action has value if it’s not done in love (1Corinthians 13:3).
Jesus often talked about loving our neighbor and meeting them in their time of need. Our work should be no different. The purpose of our work is to be a witness for all that God has done for us. To honor and glorify God by doing the work He gave us to do. This is The Way to respond to His great mercy, by offering our life as a spiritual sacrifice (Romans 12:1) — this is the work we are made to do.
When we know we are doing exactly what we are made to do — glorifying God and serving others — we are greatly satisfied — overflowing with complete joy.
[.text-color-blue]Join us this week as we discuss why, how, and when to use our gifts for the good of others.[.text-color-blue]
[.text-color-blue]If you sign up to join one of our 5 sessions we will send you an email code to take the Working Genius assessment for free.[.text-color-blue]
Resources:
Article: Uniquely Built for Right Now | Howard Graham
Work sheet: Built For Work That Matters
Article: Talent – Use it or Lose it | Howard Graham
Article: A Good Job For Life | Howard Graham
Sermon: 1 Corinthians 12 | Tim Keller
Article: Steward the Gifts God Has Assigned to You | Jon Bloom
You Are Incredibly Gifted!
You are perfectly equipped.
You have everything you need for your life and work. Now is the time — today is the most important day to deploy your gifts.
There is deep satisfaction — complete joy — in knowing your gifts and using them for the reason they are given to you. Yet, most of us don’t take full advantage of deploying our gifts the right way at the right time.
If we are honest with ourselves, we probably think too much about our gifts, but most of us think about them the wrong way. When our focus is on what we have in comparison to others, we rob ourselves of the joy we are meant to receive through using our gifts.
Jon Bloom in His article, Steward the Gifts God Has Assigned to You, helps us see how the horizontal comparison of our gifts is a joy stealer when we let pride infect our gift stewardship.
“We are all by sin nature self-aholics, born with an addiction to the intoxication of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think (Romans 12:3) and others thinking more highly of us than they ought to think…we find this old addictive pride still infects our view of ourselves and others when it comes to the grace-gifts we receive from God. Rather than seeing our gifts as things we don’t at all deserve and seeing others’ gifts as merciful means of grace to us, we frequently battle sinful discontentment. We often feel that we are not as gifted as we would like to be, or that our gifts don’t receive enough recognition, or that we would prefer another set of gifts altogether, impressive gifts like So-and-So has.”
Why You Have Gifts
We’ve been looking deeply at why we should work and discussing the significant reasons that all lead to the same Answer.
The reason to work is the very same reason to use your gifts, because you were made with incredible gifts to actively serve others and glorify the One who made you.
Most of us get the purpose of our gifts wrong far too often. We think the gifts we’ve been given are for us. Yet, the truth is, a gift is not a gift if we don’t use it to serve others. In fact, this is so true we can actually lose our gifts when we don’t serve them with others.
You Are Gifted
Everyone has been given unique gifts by God. Gifts include talents, skills, passions, behavioral makeup, and experiences.
Once we understand our gifts, and the purpose of using them, we can still get confused about which of our gifts are the most important and how and when to use them. The most helpful chapter in the Bible on gifts is 1 Corinthians 12. The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul clarifies that not even spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesy are greater than the gift of serving others with whatever we have in any given moment.
“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” - [.no-reftag]1 Corinthians 12:4-7[.no-reftag]
Do you know what gifts God has given you?
The best way to discern your gifts is through prayer and experience. God – through the Holy Spirit – often confirms our gifts by giving us joy and energy while we are using our gifts.
Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group have created an assessment and a book that helps people understand which gifts give them energy and joy.
Six Types of Working Genius - From The Table Group
“Everyone has natural talents and gifts when it comes to work. As it turns out, there are six different types of gifts that are required of any group of people trying to get something done. Two of those six types come naturally to you, meaning that you are good at them and that they give you energy and joy. We call these your areas of Working Genius. Two of them are neither natural nor energizing for you, and most likely, you aren’t particularly good at doing them. We call these your areas of Working Frustration. Finally, two types fall in between; you can do them fairly well, maybe even very well, but you don’t derive great joy or energy from them. These are your areas of Working Competency.” - Table Group
- Wonder- The gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation
- Invention- The gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.
- Discernment- The gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.
- Galvanizing- The gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action.
- Enablement- The gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.
- Tenacity- The gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.
We highly recommend this assessment. We use it to help people at The Center and it has helped many people understand and unlock the way they are gifted for work.
Gifts Are For Needs
Knowing that our gifts are for others and learning how and when to use them iis life-giving. Michael Davis, who spoke on gifts at The Center said, “It’s not a gift unless we use it to serve the needs of others.” And, theologian Albert Schweitzer said something similar a century ago, “At the intersection where your gifts, talents, and abilities meet a human need; therein you will discover your purpose.”
At The Center, we use this venn diagram to describe how to best deploy our gifts in the workplace:
The more these circles overlap the more satisfaction you will find in your job.
Meeting Needs In Love
It is no coincidence that the Apostle Paul caps off his explanation of spiritual gifts in his letter to the church in Corinth by explaining how no gift or action has value if it’s not done in love (1Corinthians 13:3).
Jesus often talked about loving our neighbor and meeting them in their time of need. Our work should be no different. The purpose of our work is to be a witness for all that God has done for us. To honor and glorify God by doing the work He gave us to do. This is The Way to respond to His great mercy, by offering our life as a spiritual sacrifice (Romans 12:1) — this is the work we are made to do.
When we know we are doing exactly what we are made to do — glorifying God and serving others — we are greatly satisfied — overflowing with complete joy.
[.text-color-blue]Join us this week as we discuss why, how, and when to use our gifts for the good of others.[.text-color-blue]
[.text-color-blue]If you sign up to join one of our 5 sessions we will send you an email code to take the Working Genius assessment for free.[.text-color-blue]
Resources:
Article: Uniquely Built for Right Now | Howard Graham
Work sheet: Built For Work That Matters
Article: Talent – Use it or Lose it | Howard Graham
Article: A Good Job For Life | Howard Graham
Sermon: 1 Corinthians 12 | Tim Keller
Article: Steward the Gifts God Has Assigned to You | Jon Bloom