Gifts of the Spirit - Walk in Your Divine Giftedness

This post has been inspired and contributed to by Peter Wollensack, and his new, soon-to-be released book, "Discovering Your Spiritual DNA." Peter may be contacted here.  

We all walk in amazing giftedness from our heavenly Father. Because of His great love for us He bestows multiple gifts upon us. He begins by endowing us with unique heart motivations at birth, then matures us so we become special gifts which minister life to others (1 Pet. 4:10), and on top of that He places the Holy Spirit within us, so that we always have direct access to Him and His resources to meet any need we face as we walk through life. Wow! What could be better than that? Nothing that I can think of. Let's briefly review these three aspects of giftedness.

Defining and Discovering These Wonderful Gifts Within

So let’s define each of these gifts briefly and help you discover and walk in the amazing giftedness God has placed within you. These flow from your heart. The Bible says that out of the heart flow the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). They are not a result of academic training. Instead they are instinctive, appearing intuitively and flowing naturally from the indwelling Holy Spirit.

What Spiritual DNA (traits, abilities, anointings and motivations) Has God Endowed Me With?

To answer this question, you ask, "What really excites me and fulfills me and makes me happy? What activity can I stay up half the night doing, and still not be tired? What energizes me as I do it? What do I LOVE doing?" This is your primary heart motivation. It is what comes naturally, easily, and readily to you. It can be any of the following heart motivations:

1. Prophetic – loves creative flow, creating things
2. Server – loves helping in any capacity
3. Teacher – loves training and equipping
4. Exhorter – loves providing people steps they can take to move forward in their lives
5. Giver – loves freely providing time, money, abilities
6. Leader – loves organizing, guiding, inspiring
7. Mercy giver – loves expressing compassion, comfort and healing

What Equipping Gifts Do I Have, and for What Group and What Age Level?

Each one of the five ministry gifts is a person chosen by Jesus Christ to serve the Body by training God’s children. Jesus chooses, anoints and supernaturally enables the minister to equip others. You will know you have this equipping gift because others will confirm back to you that you bless them when you minister the gift.

As you train, you will mentor, model and instruct. You will also lay hands on others to impart the ministry gift's anointing to them.

1. Apostle – can train and equip believers to launch and oversee new ministries
2. Prophet – can train and equip others to improve their spiritual “eyesight” and to put into words what is seen in the spirit realm
3. Evangelist – can train and equip believers to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, especially to a non-believing world
4. Pastor – can train and equip others to guide and care for God’s people
5. Teacher – can train and equip others to hear God’s voice and experience biblical realities

How Do I Flow in the Nine Manifestations of the Spirit to Meet Specific Needs?

As I walk through life, I live postured to release the Holy Spirit out through me to meet needs. I position myself properly by:

• Honoring the Holy Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19), by asking for and acknowledging His presence, within and upon me (Acts 2:4).
• With my godly imagination, I see Jesus present with me at my right hand (Acts 2:4; Ps. 16:8; Heb. 12:1,2). This is called "abiding in Christ" (Jn. 15).
• I tune to flow (Jn. 7:37-39) and speak and act from flow. 

This is very simple and very childlike living (Matt. 18:3). 

Speaking Gifts:

1. Tongues – hearts flow guides my vocal cords – strengthens my spirit
2. Interpretation of tongues – flowing thoughts interpret the message given in tongues
3. Prophecy – flowing thoughts which are God speaking His mind for the moment

Power Gifts:

1. Faith – an instantaneous welling up of faith within me
2. Gifts of healings – wisdom and anointing to provide a precise remedy to specific health needs
3. Miracles – an instantaneous release of divine energy producing immediate change

Revelation Gifts:

1. Discerning of Spirits – an immediate inner awareness of the presence of a spiritual force
2. Word of Wisdom – the wisdom of God which appears as flowing thoughts, pictures, or feelings
3. Word of Knowledge – the knowledge of God which appears as flowing thoughts, flowing pictures, or flowing feelings

An Example of Releasing a Word of Knowledge to Meet a Current Situation

You can read a wonderful blog by Jesse Birkey with an inspiring example of how easy it is to get a word of knowledge for a passer-by and share it with them to encourage them. Check out Jesse's blog here. Lord, grant us the grace to do the same!

May we all live and walk in the gifts God's love has graced us with (Gal. 5:25)!

Note: In my book Gifted to Succeed it is suggested that each of us has one of the five gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:7-11 (Called "Equipping Gifts" above). This is a slightly different position than is suggested by Peter Wollensack and by the chart above, as Peter suggests we each have one of the "Endowment Gifts" as listed above.

I personally don't see much conflict between the two positions, as there is a fair amount of overlap between these two gift lists, especially if you relate "leader" to "apostle" and "mercy giver" as the heart trait of a "pastor."

I did ask Peter, "What heart motivation do you see that equips a person to function as an evangelist?" and his response was, "Each evangelist will function through their own unique "Endowment Gift," and that makes sense to me. So I am comfortable that one will benefit greatly by exploring in-depth either Peter's book on Spiritual DNA, or our book on Gifted to Succeed. Either one or both will be helpful!

Additional Resources

Gifted to Succeed is described and available here.

How to Build a Winning Team is described and available here.

Explore every verse in the Bible on the Holy Spirit in Intimacy with the Holy Spirit