Your Divine Design - Warning: Beware of Spiritual Gift Abuse!, Part 2

Spiritual Gift Abuse.

You need to know what it is, you need to know how to spot it, and you need to know how to confront it. In our last program, we covered the first five common abuses of spiritual gifts. Today, I'll cover the final five most common abuses of spiritual gifts. So grab a pen if you can, and let's get started.

I'll be right back. Chip's our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Drury. Over the past several programs, we've been studying spiritual gifts and learning how to identify, develop, and deploy them for maximum kingdom impact, not to mention the personal satisfaction that comes from fitting in, the way God uniquely designed you to fit in. In this program, Chip wraps up his series with an important warning about how we can sometimes abuse spiritual gifts. Okay, let's join Chip now for part two of his message, Warning, Beware of Spiritual Gift Abuse. Warning number five, beware of any extreme position on spiritual gifts, i.e. they do not exist at all to a spirit-filled Christian will have all the gifts.

I've heard both. I've been in places where gifts don't exist. I'll tell you what, you find gifts, you find disunity and division and people are arguing about them. There aren't any gifts.

All the gifts are gone after the first century. I've heard people teach that. And on the other hand, I felt if you're spirit-filled, I mean if you're really spirit-filled, whatever spirit-filled means, no one really knows. I think the Bible has a pretty good definition, but depending on what group, what background, that could mean you've been to Mars and back, or it could mean that you're really walking with the Lord and the Spirit. I don't know. But if you're spirit-filled, you'll have all the gifts.

And then usually they have someone in the church who's an example of it. Brother Bob, he's got all the gifts. Go, Bob, go. I can prophesy. I can teach. You know what I mean? You can do it all. Anytime you feel those extremes, notice what it says in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1. Now about spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. You need to have understanding. Everyone has one primary gift.

We know that he will give you ministry gifts. We understand they're for the common good. When you know those 10 basic principles, it guards against this kind of thing. Number 7, warning light. Beware of using spiritual gifts in the energy of the flesh to fulfill personal ego needs or impress other people.

This is another one that I don't think you grow out of. Beware. Beware. Be on your guard.

Watch over your heart with all diligence. When you have a spiritual gift, you can take a gift that's like a tool. God doesn't take away the tool.

You can be in the flesh. God will honor his word, and he will honor the tool or the gift that he's placed in your hand. But I can use my gift, and you can use your gift, not in submission to the spirit, but in the energy of the flesh, and it produces not good things. And boy, I think this is one of those really gut-checked times where you have to ask, and I have to ask, is this about me using my gift to get attention, affirmation, strokes from people? Is this about impressing people?

And let me just, let me apply this down to where we live. If you happen to have visible gifts, okay, there's some gifts that are upfront gifts. It might be teaching. It might be exhortation. It might be prophecy. It might be leadership. But you find yourself where people are looking to you or you are speaking, and you have a visible role, the temptation is to begin to get a little carried away with yourself and really like the position. And you know what? What does knowledge do?

It puffs up. And pretty soon, it's kind of like you like being an important person in the church. You like it when the big discussions on the board come and everyone looks to you and says, hey, what do you think? Because you've got the gift of discernment, and you like to be the go-to person, and secretly you want to be up in front of people. And you know what? The times when you're not teaching the class, you don't really feel very motivated to go to church because you're really going because unconsciously it's developed. It's about you.

And you've got to be on your guard. And the opposite temptation of those was serving gifts. There are people with behind-the-scenes gifts. I mean, people with serving gifts and administrative gifts. And by the way, if you've ever been involved in ministry, your love for these people like skyrockets. People who don't know a lot or haven't been involved in churches, they think, yeah, do you need a point person who can teach and preach? And do you need leadership and this and that? But where the rubber meets the road, someone does set up the chairs. Someone does type the things. Someone goes out and feeds the homeless people.

Someone's back loving those kids. And when there's a church where kids get loved, youth are really taken care of, there's an outward focus, you're feeding the poor, I'll tell you what, that's where the rubber meets the road. And often that's done with people with a gift of service, exhortation, administration.

And here's what can happen. Those people pretty soon become like the martyrs of the church. Brother Fred, I don't know what we'd do without you. For 37 years, every chair's been set up. The bulletins are made, you know.

I don't know how you do it. Every Saturday morning, you cook that breakfast. You never make it in the prayer meeting, but you cook that breakfast for everybody. And you know, sister so-and-so, and I mean, and these people get to where, you know what, yeah, they love to serve, but they're behind the scenes. And they've learned to live on the strokes and the need to be needed.

And they play this really funky thing in their mind like, if you step back and look at their schedule, they're there Monday night, Wednesday morning, Thursday night, Friday. The fact is, it's not that they're just such a great servant, although that's their gifts. They also don't have any boundaries.

They can't say no. They're desperate need for affirmation because of other issues in their life. Every time the doors are open, they are there. And often, it's not because they love God so much and are using their gifts. They're satisfying ego needs because it's a lot easier than facing the hard stuff at home and dealing with the marriage and being a parent who's not a coward and stepping up and doing what they're supposed to do in some very clear areas that God's called them to because it's a lot better to be the miracle worker at the church.

The church has these. We had one lady I said, you know what, you're here more than any staff member. And she was.

And did she make stuff happen? I mean, it's an integrity check if you're the pastor because you're thinking, man, some of these people get so much done to send them home to get their priorities right, it's kind of tough. But you know it's the right thing to do. And I think we all struggle with that. Any time you have to do something and you find yourself ego needs, then I think that's a warning light.

You need to say, wait a second here. Notice what it says in 1 Corinthians 13. Sandwich between chapter 12, this is how to use the gifts, and then chapter 14, eagerly desire spiritual gifts. 12 says don't be ignorant about them.

14 says really desire and focus. Right in between is 1 Corinthians 13. And it says if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, there's the spiritual gift, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so that I can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all my possessions to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, literally be a martyr, but have not love, I gain nothing. I have nothing, I gain nothing. If I have this gift of tongues, if I have this gift of prophecy, if I have this gift of faith, if I have this gift of martyrdom and be willing, but you can do, what's that passage say?

You can do all those things, and I can do all those things, not about love, which is what? Focusing on other people, giving other people what they need the most when they deserve it the least as your gift to God. I can do my gifts that way, or it can really be a subtle way to set Chip Ingram up, to get Chip Ingram the strokes and the ego needs and the unresolved issues in his life taken care of. And so it's a warning light.

Be on your guard. Beware, number eight, beware of confusing spiritual gifts with spiritual fruit as the evidence of spiritual growth and maturity. In some circles, the development and impact and the use of your gifts becomes kind of a test for spiritual maturity, but gifts, remember, are a means, not an end. In other words, when you have these gifts, when God is using you, God's using you, God's using you, my lands, God's using you, that's wonderful, that's great, God is using you. In some circles, what that becomes, that's the goal, God using you, God using you, I got news for you, that is not the goal. Gifts are what?

They're a paintbrush, they're a means. The goal is that you are becoming more and more like Christ. Spiritual fruit is about spiritual maturity, Christ-likeness.

Spiritual gifts are about the means God uses in your life to help others become more like Christ. Let's look at a couple passages. Ephesians 4, 13, until we all reach to the unity and the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

The goal is maturity. Or notice Galatians 5, 22 and 23, but the fruit of the Spirit, in other words, what is it that God's after? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things, there is no law. In fact, Jesus, John 15, you might just jot it, John 15, 8, By this is my Father glorified, that you have many gifts and are very impressive. Oh, I think I misquoted that. By this is my Father glorified, what? That you bear much fruit. Well, what is fruit?

Fruit is always two-fold. Number one, it's the life of Christ reproduced in your life. The goal of gifts is not that you're great, you're used, it's developed, we're impressed. The goal of the gifts is that because of how you are living, you are becoming more and more like Jesus. And God is using you for the right reason, in the right ways, with the right motives.

To exercise His supernatural ability in the sphere He's called you to, as an intricate, interdependent part of the body. And as you do that with an attitude of love and dependency, there are people whose lives, little by little by little, become more and more like Jesus. And they rub up next to you and they start loving their mate in a different way. And they rub up next to you and pretty soon they rearrange their priorities and how they spend their money because of your gift of exhortation and leadership. And because they rub up next to you, they begin to say no to certain things. And they realize that, you know something, I need to deal with some issues in my home. And I need to have a plan for my kids.

And I need to deal with some of the wounds of my past. And because of times of sharing their heart and your wisdom and discernment and exhortation, pretty soon they become more and more and more whole. And then a different person shows up to the singles group. A different person shows up to work. A different person shows up.

See, it's fruit. Anytime there's an emphasis on the gifts as an end in themselves, a little red warning light should go off. Warning number nine, beware that apparent manifestations of the Spirit can be counterfeited by human schemes and demonic forces. Beware, I mean this is a big one. This happens not only overseas, but this happens here.

Beware, anytime something is supernatural, that's amazing. I was at this meeting. You can't believe it.

I checked. They didn't have an earphone. And he didn't know this and he didn't know that. And this person they never met, and then they said that. And this lady said, oh that's really true. I can't believe it.

How could you know that? Chip, you can't believe it. This was an amazing meeting. Okay, you went to an amazing meeting. God may be choosing to do miraculous things. There may be manifestations of the Spirit of God in doing things that are very unusual.

Wow, wow, wow. Or it could be that something supernatural or perceived supernatural is happening and there's a group of people that are being deceived. Don't necessarily assume because there are quote manifestations of the Spirit or apparent miracles or even real miracles as far as you can tell that it is always necessarily a work of God. I mean, listen to the very words of Jesus. If you have your Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. I mean, this is toward the end of his greatest sermon.

And he gives this warning. Verse 22. Many of you will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, now notice the gifts. Did we not prophesy in your name? There's a spiritual gift. And in your name, drive out demons, probably have some gifts going there, and perform many miracles? And he goes, yeah. Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you.

Away from me, you evildoers. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house upon the rock. And I just would say just because something is supernatural or perceived as supernatural, we're told to what? Test the spirits. Examine the fruit. Examine the character. Examine the lifestyle. Examine what the group, what the person, what happens afterwards. Examine, okay, there's these manifestations.

It sure was exciting. It sure perceived to me that it was supernatural. I think God is really in this, okay. Now, is it biblical? Are the goals biblical?

Do the people have character? And if so, you say, wow, I think I just got in on a manifestation of God working in a supernatural way that is highly unusual. And thank you, Lord.

But if you find out that a great percentage of the income is going to the leader, if you find out that there is immorality behind the scenes, if you find out that people are being manipulated and the orphanage that they're supporting actually is pictures that is shot in Southern California right across the border, then what you say to yourself, you know what, I don't understand how those things happened in that room. And they sure seem supernatural. But this is not a ministry from God.

And by the way, it's not new. The apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians, you might jot this down, 11 and verses 13 through 15, in his day. He said, everything that appears supernatural, don't buy into thinking that's necessarily from God. He talks about false prophets in 2 Corinthians 11. He says, for such men are false prophets, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ, and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. Is it not surprising then that the servants masquerade as servants of righteousness?

Their end will be their actions, what their actions deserve. And what he's saying is, you know, there are some times where, guess what, supernatural apparent manifestations need to be tested. What's 1 John say? Test the spirits, examine them.

Is it true, is it not? The final warning here is beware of viewing the discovery, development, and deployment of your spiritual gift as either an optional exercise or interesting but not serious responsibility. And I've given you two passages, Ephesians 4, 7, and 2 Corinthians 5, 9 and 10.

See, here's my observation of the body of Christ, by and large. And my confession is, for many years, even as a pastor, oh, spiritual gifts, that's really cool. I guess there's this long, long salad bar of maybe 25 or 30 some spiritual gifts. And you know something, I'm eating a good meal, meat and potatoes.

You know, I want to be a disciple, I want to grow, you know, I want to love my wife, want to be a good dad, and I'll find my place in the church. And there's a salad bar, it's mostly desserts, you know, a little bit of salad. You know, you can live without salad.

And you can live without desserts. You know, they've got the salad and the dessert bar. And if I have a little extra time, some day, some way, I think I'll go to the spiritual, you know, dessert bar or the salad bar and say, you know, maybe I have this. Oh, that's kind of interesting, I don't know, Bob's got that one, I think he's a cool guy, you know. And maybe it's this one and I don't know. And, you know, maybe I get on my plate and I say, well, it's probably one of these five or six or seven or eight or nine or ten or eleven, depending on who I'm talking to and how I feel on that day.

And then you just set them on the table. And that's the attitude towards spiritual gifts. And Ephesians 4, 7 to 10 is a very interesting passage about the work of Christ. And it talks about him dying, going to the lower parts of the earth and proclaiming victory over sin, victory over Satan, and victory over death. And the evidence of that victory proclaimed is, and he gave gifts to men. The spoils, the evidence, it's that picture of a general who wins a great army and there's all this plunder and he brings, you know, the enemy often, in the ancient days, they would come in chains, often either stripped to the waist or naked, and they would parade them back through the hometown and the general, the victor general, usually on a white horse, would come and behind them would be all the spoils, you know, the camels and the donkeys and the jewelry and the gold and the silver.

And he would take that and give it to his officers, take that and give it to the people, and then he would take and give gifts to all the people of the city. And it was the evidence that they were the bad guys and we are the good guys. They were stronger than us or they thought they were and we won the battle and this gift that you have is a reminder that we are winners. And every time you say to yourself, I'm going to discover my spiritual gift, you're saying, I'm going to value the sacrifice and the victory of Christ and remind myself that I am a victor today, present tense, over sin and its power, over death and over the enemy's power. And when I develop my gift, I'm saying, God, thank you for this gift that you gave me. It is a stewardship and I'm going to develop it and I'm going to deploy it and it's not optional and it's not semi-serious and not to do some day some way.

It's not a salad bar, it belongs on a plate with the meat and the tapetas and the diet of my life. I'm going to seriously discover who you made me to be because you died and rose from the dead and your victory, you decided the way to earmark that for me was my spiritual gift. It is not an optional little interesting thing to do. It's important.

That's the positive reason. The negative reason is in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 9 and 10 and the Apostle Paul says, So we make it our goal to please Him, Christ, whether we are at home in the body or away from it, for we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the bima seat, that each one may receive what is due Him for things done in the body, whether good or bad. And the bima seat or the judgment seat of Christ is not about a person's judgment of heaven or hell. That's accomplished at the cross. The moment I receive Jesus as my Savior, my sins are forgiven, my sins are judged, I now get the imputed righteousness of Christ, I have a brand new relationship with Him, and then I live out as a steward out of gratitude all that He's done for me. As a believer then I will stand before the judgment seat of Christ for my works done as a believer and I will either have rewards or loss, either gold, silver, precious stones or wood, hay, stubble, 1 Corinthians 3. And I'm going to stand. He's going to say, Ingram, what did you do with the time, the money, the spiritual gifts and the opportunity I gave you? You were my workmanship. I created you in Christ Jesus for good works that I preordained before the foundations of the earth and to do those good works I put you in this family, I give you these spiritual gifts, I give you this opportunity, this much time, this much money, and I want to know what did you do with the investment in you? And I don't know about you, that's sobering.

I mean on a good day it scares me to death. I want to do what? I want to be a good steward.

No, I want to be a great steward. I want to discover my gift, I want to develop my gift. Remember gifts are like muscles. You may have it but what are you doing? Exercise is how you develop it.

Learning, training, education, exercise, rubbing up against people that have your gift, getting around people that have the opposite set of gifts so they help mature you and round you out in good areas. Those are 10 warnings that for me I want to keep on the spiritual dashboard of the spiritual car that I'm driving so that when one of those lights go off I'm going to at least stop the car, look under the hood and say, hey, I'm not sure what's going on here but maybe spiritual gift abuse. Because one of the reasons people don't teach on spiritual gifts is I mean it can cause a lot of division.

And there's so many extremes. As a pastor you think I don't want to teach on this because you know in the group, you know the minute you start teaching on it there's people over here, there's people over here and people back there that have had a bad experience. But I think because of that we've neglected one of the greatest teachings in the church and we're going to be stewards called to account. Now what's your action plan?

I mean we spent some great time together and if it's a sober what's your action plan? Is this going to be where okay we've gone through this session, wow, I now understand a little bit more about spiritual gifts, I've thought about it and what's going to take you from where you are right here to if you haven't discovered it, you discovered it. If you've pretty well discovered it, you start developing. If you're starting to develop it, you really deploy it. If you've already discovered it, developed it, how are you going to deploy it to the max in the body of Christ? Can I give you a very quick action plan that I think summarizes sort of this is how to go about it.

Number one, get your pen out, you'll need it because I want you to fill these in. Your spiritual gift action plan, one, write the word commit to discover, develop and deploy your spiritual gift in the local body. I mean and when I say commit, what I mean is God before you, this is lordship. I want you to bow your head and just like remember the day some of you that got married or some of you that signed on and made a commitment, tell God, Lord I'm afraid, I don't know, I'm not sure but I'm telling you if you'll show me my gift, so help me, I'll do whatever it takes to learn it.

Make a commitment and then I'll talk to you about what that commitment's going to look like. Second, pray seriously seeking divine guidance. Don't you think God wants to show you? Didn't Jesus say ask, seek, knock? Doesn't he want to open and this isn't like okay, let's try and make it as hard as possible, let's move this gift around. The Lord loves you, he died, he gave you a gift, pray. But you know if you pray one day and then you pray next month, you must not really want it.

I mean put it on your list, write it on a card, Lord I'm asking today. You said seek, I'm seeking. You said ask, I'm asking. You said knock, I'm knocking. Will you show me?

Make it real and you can just do it like this gradually, you can have it just bang. I don't care but I am going to seek your face. I made a commitment so I'm going to pray every day. You help me discover, deploy and develop my gift. Third is study the gift passages in God's word and the corresponding handouts I think will help you. This isn't just some mystical thing, get your nose in the word. I wonder, I'm not sure that Ingram guy on this one gift, get out of commentary. Dig in and say what are these gifts?

How do they really work? It's not what I think, it's not what your pastor thinks. I hope we can help you but you get your nose in the scripture and say I want to discover what your word says about gifts.

I've narrowed it down to here and as you get into the scriptures, God's going to reveal it to you. Number four, get quality counsel. Quality counsel, find people who really know you, people that are spiritually mature and people that will tell you the truth.

By the way, that's a rare combination. Find people that really know you, love you enough to hurt your feelings. Look, no, you do not have the gift of mercy, okay? What do you mean I don't have the gift of mercy?

Trust me on this, you don't have the gift of mercy. They know you, they're mature and they'll tell you the truth. Number five, test the waters.

And I just put for six or eight weeks, maybe it's better for three or four months. Man, you've got to jump and just go to some ministry in your local church that you think you might be gifted for and just say, I'd like to sign up for three months and write it out, at the end of three months, I'm done. I'll renegotiate and re-sign up so you don't get like on, yes, I'd like to discover the gift of teaching in the third grade class and you're like 11 years later, someone comes back and says, so you think you got it or not, right?

We've all been there and then we have a little meeting to say, is it a fit or not a fit and if it's not, you step back and you know what, no guilt, no manipulation. Well, who's going to teach the third graders if you leave? And the answer is, someone with the gift of teaching, I don't have it. Okay? Test the waters. Number six, examine the fulfillment factor.

I mean, this is not the easy factor. When you're in your gifts, remember the old Chariots of Fire movie? You know, remember the guy who was real fast and he ended up being a missionary and I love that line in the movie. You know, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. If you haven't seen that movie, go rent it.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. And he goes, I feel God's pleasure when I run. What do you do in the body of Christ where you feel God's pleasure? Not just it's fun, but you feel God's pleasure. As intimidated as I was at that conference at Moody, when I got to talk about the character of God in my gifts to a group of people and actually the fact that it went out on the airways and went around the world made it more intimidating on the one hand, but for me and my gifts, it was like there's more skin in the game, man. I feel God's pleasure. I mean, ask me, do I want to proclaim God's truth about walking with God and repenting and being God's church to 10 people, 10,000 or 10 million?

Ten million. It's just who God made me to be. I want his word to get to so many people in relevant ways where their lives change. It doesn't mean it's easy.

I was scared to death. But there's a fulfillment factor. And the final one here is recognize God's evident blessing. When you are in your gifts, it doesn't mean that things are going to change overnight, but God will use your life. People will come up and say things to you like, wow, I can't believe what's happening to my son. I mean, it was kind of a so-so youth group, and I don't know what it is about you, but just your interaction. He wants to come, but not for the youth pastor, just to get to talk to you. You know, I can't figure out what's happening around here, but, you know, we didn't used to care about people, but, you know, I was one of those people on the sidelines, and your invitation, and when you put your arm around me, and when you believed in me when no one else would, you're going to see God use your life. You are his workmanship.

You are special. He's created you in Christ Jesus. He has wonderful works for you to walk in. And those works are going to be highly determined by the supernatural endowments given to you by Jesus, activated by the Holy Spirit, in alignment with God's word so that the glory of God and the preeminence of Christ is exalted. And when that happens, it's a beautiful thing, not only for the church, but for a watching world that really wonders whether all that we're up to makes sense.

Chip will be back with his application, but just a quick reminder, this message, Warning! Beware of Spiritual Gift Abuse, is from his series, Your Divine Design. If you've been a listener to Living on the Edge for any length of time, you know that our mission is to help Christians really live like Christians. In this series, Your Divine Design helps you take one of the most important steps on your spiritual journey toward that goal.

Knowing your spiritual gift gives you increased confidence and a true sense of direction. Many have found that doing this series with a small group has been fun and encouraging. Either as a family devotional or sitting around with a few friends over coffee, the insights in this series will get you on the road to a life of greater purpose and satisfaction. Now, to help you do that, the small group video teaching is currently discounted. We want to help you get off to a great start this new year. To check out the small group video and see a sample of the study guide, visit us online at livingontheedge.org or tap Special Offers on the app. For more information, just give us a call at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. I hope you'll take advantage of this great offer today. I'll be right back in just a minute, but I want to take just a second to talk to you about one of the most important things in your life. You know, everyone's talking about the changes that need to happen in the world, the changes that need to happen in the Church, and it gets down to how can you make a difference? I mean, how can you, an ordinary, regular person, where you live, in your town, in your situation, really make a difference? And if you're honest, God wants you to make a difference.

And it doesn't have to be a big splash. It needs to be the way He wired you. Do you realize that no one in the entire world is made like you, and that God has deposited a gift or a set of spiritual gifts in you that give you a spiritual power and a desire not to do what you ought to do or feel like someone tells you what to do, but there's a joy that happens when you function out of your spiritual gift? You know, I've been a pastor for a lot of years now, and I find so many Christians that are doing ministry out of duty or trying hard to be a good person, and then I've met Christians that have learned this is what God made me to do. They don't need to be motivated. There's a joy in their heart.

There's something where they tell me it doesn't even feel like I'm working. This is what I was made to do. You know, maybe the best thing you could do in 2021 is to find two or three friends or maybe even do it as a family and say, you know something?

Let's stop complaining about the world, and let's make a difference. Step one, we're going to discover our spiritual gift. And what I can tell you is, if you go through your divine design, this small group study, you will learn what your gift is and how to put it into practice.

Let's go for it. Well, one of the best ways to deepen your understanding of spiritual gifts is to gather a few friends or your family and go through this series together as a small group. Whether you use online streaming or the DVDs, Chip gives an introduction to each session. He does the teaching, and then he'll get you started as you talk it through.

There's a study guide that'll help you dig deeper with great insights and questions to keep the conversation going. And right now, for a limited time, the video resources for Your Divine Design are discounted. All that to say, we're doing everything we know to help you discover, develop, and deploy your spiritual gift. To take advantage of the current discounts, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or tap Special Offers on the Chip Ingram app. For more details, just give us a call at 888-333-6003.

Well, now here's Chip with his application. As we close today's program and finish up this series, I went pretty quickly through that spiritual gift action plan. So let me go over it again with the goal of you actually discovering your spiritual gift and then deploying it. Number one, commit to discover, deploy, and develop your gift. Number two, pray. Ask God.

He wants to show you. Number three, study God's Word and the handouts. Get clear on what each gift is and what they mean. Number four, get quality counsel. Find people who will tell you the truth about where and how they see God's gifts working in action in your life. Number five, test the waters. I mean, six to eight weeks, just jump in somehow, some way to put your potential gift into practice.

Number six, examine the fulfillment factor. When you function in your gifts, you'll sense God's approval, and you'll say, wow, I'd love to do this. Number seven, recognize God's evident blessing. When your spiritual gift is at work, something happens in the lives of others. They're encouraged, lifted up, they're transformed, they're comforted. There's so much more I wish we could go into, but let me encourage you to get the message notes. In fact, this is a small group video series that we've had so many people go through, and the lights have come on.

Find a couple friends or do it as a family. Go through this series. God's purpose will be fulfilled when you discover this is what he gave you to do what he made you and called you to do. And all I can tell you is when you're doing what God made you to do, it's a source of great joy for you and great impact for the kingdom of God in the lives of others. Now, let's discover and deploy our spiritual gifts. Well, thanks for the reminder about the video, Chip. Watching these sessions on spiritual gifts has been one of the most effective ways for people to get dialed in on what their gift is and then get it into action. So whether you use the study guides with online streaming or the DVDs, take advantage of the current discounts. You'll find everything you're looking for at livingontheedge.org, or tap Special Offers on the Chip Ingram app. For more details, just give us a call at 888-333-6003. Well, that's it for today. Until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.