Unit V Key 3 – For the Mentor

JOURNEY TO FREEDOM HANDBOOK

UNIT V Key 3                                SCRIPTURE

Purpose of this Key:

  1. Become aware of their spiritual gifts.
  2. Become aware of the spiritual gifts of others in the Church.
  3. Understand how everyone’s gifts work together.
  4. Understand how the gifts of Biblical characters have served the Church.
  5. Understand the need to be loving and humble in the use of their gifts.

1. After reading I Corinthians 12:4-11, what gift or gifts do you sense that you have? What do you see in your life that indicates that you have this gift or gifts? Please use additional paper as necessary.

Common responses:

  1. Answers will vary.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses or insights.
  2. Encourage thanks and praise to God for how He has equipped them for greater service.
  3. Encourage them not to be afraid to make mistakes, and refer to II Corinthians 4:7.
  4. If one is trying to obey God’s will, but makes a mistake in one’s use of one’s gift, it does not mean that one does not have that gift. It may mean one needs to learn greater discernment.
  5. Whether using one’s gift went well or went badly, pray about it afterwards and continue to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance to improve.
  6. God gives us a calling and equips us with the gifts to enhance our calling.
  7. If we try to operate outside the sphere of our gifts and calling, we often become frustrated.
  8. As we continue on our Christian walk, God may give different gifts at different stages of life.

2. What do I Corinthians 12:12-21 and Romans 12:10 tell us our attitude should be toward other believers, especially in regard to how they practice their gifts?

Common responses:

  1. We should love them, honor them, and seek to edify them.
  2. Our gifts work together with those of others.
  3. Everyone’s gifts are needed.
  4. We work together to do God’s will.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses or insights.
  2. The more aware we are of our own spiritual gifts, the more we appreciate the gifts of others, especially those gifts that we do not have ourselves but need others to have.
  3. For example, some have the gift of administration. They could not apply their gifts without the service of those who have the gift of helps. Those with the gift of helps never resent the administrators when they give direction.
  4. If you notice a gift in someone else, express your appreciation to them.
  5. Some people use their gifts so naturally that they do not realize they have them. Once they realize what their gifts are, they can use them more intentionally.

3. Please read I Corinthians 12:22-26 and the story. Are spiritual gifts arranged in a hierarchy, with some showing more spiritual advancement than others? Why or why not?

Common responses:

  1. All the spiritual gifts are equally necessary.
  2. None can practice their gifts alone.
  3. Although some gifts involve using authority, they are not to be used to exalt ourselves.
  4. We are to serve one another in love.
  5. We improve upon our gifts as we practice them, but no gift shows more spiritual advancement.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses or insights.
  2. The quilts sewn by the ladies empowered the missionary’s message. The message of Jesus’ love was expressed in both words and deeds.
  3. Helps is an under-appreciated gift, but when the helpers are gone, their services are greatly missed.
  4. Helpers carry out humble tasks and seldom expect recognition. Their Christ-like humility enhances the Gospel.

4. What do Romans 12:3 and I Corinthians 12:26 say to you?

Common responses:

  1. Be a servant to others.
  2. What affects one Christian affects us all.
  3. The Church is a team. We suffer together and win together.
  4. If someone in the Church has problems or a weakness, the rest of the Church should come around that person and try to help.
  5. We should not shun anyone because of their weaknesses or temptations.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses or insights.

5. What does I Corinthians 12:31a say to you?

Common responses:

  1. Our only motivation to seek higher gifts should be love; we seek expanded gifts so we can be of greater service.
  2. We can pray to receive more gifts.
  3. God will develop in us whatever gifts He wants us to have.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses and insights.
  2. The greatest gift is bringing people the Gospel, by whatever gifts God gives us.
  3. We can desire gifts, but we cannot make God give them to us.
  4. We cannot tell God what gifts to give us; we should accept whatever gifts He gives us.

6. What is necessary for any use of our gifts to be productive, according to I Corinthians 13:1-3?

Common responses:

  1. Unless love is our motive, our gifts will not be productive, and we will waste our energy.
  2. Without love, we will become ambitious and selfish, and we risk doing harm instead of good.
  3. If we do not love, we are not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Points to emphasize:

  1. There is no limit on how much we can love others.
  2. Without love, people in the Church can become jealous and competitive about each others’ gifts.
  3. Churches can lose their witness in the community and be destroyed by the in-fighting that results from a jealous, competitive, unloving spirit.
  4. We need to repent of our love failures every time we become consciously aware of them.

7. What does Romans 12:6-8 & 11 say to you?

Common responses:

  1. We must not waste our gifts.
  2. We should use every opportunity to use our gifts for God’s glory and others’ good.
  3. Because of our gratitude for God’s mercy, we should help others at every opportunity so that they can have an opportunity to receive God’s mercy.

Points to emphasize:

  1. The more we use our gifts, the more we grow in the knowledge of how to use them, and the more God can give us.
  2. Refer to Matthew 25:21 & 23 and Luke 12:48b.
  3. God works through us.
  4. We cannot ask God to give us more gifts if we are not making maximum use of what He has already given us.

8. What are some of the spiritual gifts you detect in others in your church or fellowship group?

Common responses:

  1. Answers will vary.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm any Biblical responses and insights.
  2. Encourage thanks and praise for the gifts they see in their churches/fellowship groups.

9. What gifts did Ananias have (Acts 9:10-18)? How did he use them to help the Christian Church?

Common responses:

  1. Prophecy, healing, faith, knowledge, wisdom, intercessory prayer, and evangelism.
  2. If Ananias had not been obedient to the vision he was given, the Church would not have had the Apostle Paul, who brought the Gospel to many.
  3. Many of us would not have known about Jesus if the Apostle Paul had not bought the Gospel to the Gentiles or written much of the New Testament.

Points to emphasize:

  1. One simple act of obedience, although in a dangerous situation, made a huge difference.
  2. We never know what a huge impact a few kind words of encouragement can make in someone’s life.
  3. Ananias asked God a few questions, but God graciously answered his questions and gave him reassurance.
  4. Ananias felt afraid, but he obeyed God anyway. We do not hear about him again.
  5. Good deeds done secretly will be rewarded (Matthew 6:4, 6, & 18).
  6. Saul/Paul went on to write almost half of the New Testament, but that would never have happened were it not for Ananias, whose humble, self-forgetful obedience is recorded in only eight verses.

10. What gifts did Barnabas have (Acts 4:36, 9:26-27, 11:22-26, & 13:1-5)? How did he use them to help the Christian Church?

Common responses:

  1. Teaching, service, giving, leadership, faith, prophecy, and encouragement.
  2. He was trustworthy; he risked his own reputation to persuade people that Saul changed.

Points to emphasize:

  1. He had several gifts, and he is best known for encouraging others.
  2. He reached out to Saul/Paul when no one else would.
  3. He took the godly risk of reaching out to someone whom others had judged as hopeless.
  4. He probably helped to teach Saul/Paul.
  5. When we reach out to someone, we never know how God is going to use that person.

11. What has perhaps been Barnabas’ longest-lasting gift to the Church (Acts 13:44-48)?

Common responses:

  1. He went with Saul/Paul on Paul’s first missionary journey and brought the Gospel to many.
  2. He and Saul/Paul took the Gospel out of the exclusively Jewish world into the Greek/Roman world, from where it spread to the rest of the world.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Without Barnabas’ faith and his godly risks, the Church might never have had the Apostle Paul.
  2. Barnabas’ contribution was necessary for Paul to be equipped for his ministry.
  3. The Gospel would otherwise have stayed in the Jewish world.
  4. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles.
  5. He wrote a large part of the New Testament.
  6. It is hard to imagine the Church without Paul’s contribution.
  7. No act of obedience or word of encouragement is too small to be of value to the kingdom.

12. What are some of the results you have seen from using your own gifts?

Common responses:

  1. Answers will vary.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Encourage thanks and praise to God for any results they have seen from using their gifts.
  2. The devil tries to discourage us by telling us that our gifts are not effective.
  3. He tries to keep us from recognizing and using our gifts.
  4. Sometimes we do not always see immediate results of our gifts.
  5. Sometimes the results appear later.
  6. To use our gifts, we need to have faith and be willing to obey God’s will.
  7. We are called to serve God and our neighbor through our everyday vocations.
  8. We are living a good witness when we conscientiously do our best.
  9. The calling we have now might be preparation for our next calling. God may have a bigger avenue of service for us in the future.

13. Did you use any memorized Scripture to battle temptation lately? What was the result?

Common responses:

  1. Most have seen positive results.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Affirm the power of the Word to block temptation.
  2. Counsel based on your knowledge, experience, and what you have learned from working with this person.

12. How is your spiritual life in general, how are your private devotions, and how are things at your church/fellowship group?

Common responses:

  1. Most report that things are going well.
  2. Some are going through personal struggles or seeing problems at church.
  3. Sometimes they see problems at church because they have become more discerning of bad doctrines.

Points to emphasize:

  1. Encourage thanks and praise to God for whatever is going well.
  2. Never criticize any difficulties that they confess.
  3. Counsel based on your knowledge, experience, and what you have learned from working with this person.

Plan of Action

  1. Affirm any Biblical response.
  2. Counsel based on your knowledge, experience, and what you have learned from working with this person.
  3. Give lots of encouragement for any valid ideas on how to make changes.
  4. Encourage confessing sin and receiving forgiveness where they identify a need to make changes.

Additional points:

  1. There are paper-and-pencil tests and also on-line tests one can take to discover one’s spiritual gifts.
  2. While these may be of some value, the best way to discover one’s spiritual gifts comes through living the surrendered life.
  3. If one starts one’s day by asking God to show His will for the day, and then carrying it out to the best of one’s ability, one will likely be led into one’s gifts and calling, one step at a time.
  4. In the biographies of famous Christians, one will often notice how they were led into their callings step by step. One event led to another, until they came to the callings that defined their lives.
  5. Very few received the entire agenda of their lives all at once.
  6. Our gifts are to enhance our calling.
  7. God gives us our gifts, and He grows them in us as we walk in obedience to His will.
  8. At different stages of our lives, different gifts may develop. We may find that we have gifts now that we did not have five or ten years ago.
  9. In the future, we might grow into gifts we do not have now.
  10. Everyone has a vocation. Our jobs, our roles in our families, and our responsibilities in our churches, are all part of Christian vocation.
  11. We are to carry out our vocations in a way that reflects God’s glory and enhances the Gospel.