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Saturday, June 23, 2012

Gifts In A Nutshell

Summer officially began this week and brought with it typical summer weather and a week of Summer Bible School. Our church is not air conditioned and we have sweltered through so many weeks of Bible School in June that it just seems heat and Bible School go together.
The theme this year was Spiritual Gifts. The Bible School leaders had some creative ideas to illustrate on the children's level the principles of using our gifts and working together. The theme verse was "God gave us spiritual gifts so we can help each other." The adult teacher gave us a list of spiritual gifts broken down into three categories. He described what each one is and how it can be used. Here is the outline:

Miraculous Gifts
apostle, tongues, interpretation, miracles, healing
Enabling Gifts
faith, discernment, wisdom, knowledge
Team (Task Oriented) Gifts
evangelism, prophecy, teaching, exhortation, pastor/shepherd, showing mercy, helps/serving, giving, government

The gifts most of us have are in the last two categories. The enabling gifts help us exercise the team gifts. Most of us have at least one or two dominant gifts with lesser amounts of the other gifts. The team gifts we practice may change with the circumstances in our lives. We can develop lesser gifts by using the small amount we have and building on it. The methods we use to exercise these gifts can vary greatly. If you don't use it you lose it. We were challenged to use whatever gifts we have for the Lord and the building of His church. God gave us spiritual gifts so we can help each other.

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