{"id":185908836,"date":"2009-09-12T02:08:20","date_gmt":"2009-09-12T06:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foundbyyou.tumblr.com\/post\/185908836"},"modified":"2009-09-12T02:08:20","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T06:08:20","slug":"spiritual-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/?p=185908836","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while back, I competed a spiritual gifts questionnaire and I was intrigued not only by the results but more so by my initial reaction to\u00a0them.\u00a0 The top three – exhortation, hospitality <\/i>and mercy <\/i>– are not what I would have guessed, or rather, are\u00a0words\/gifts that I haven’t really considered in relation to myself before.\u00a0 Following these are two same-scored sets of four seemingly related\u00a0gifts – wisdom, knowledge, discernment <\/i>& service <\/i>and then pastoral,\u00a0evangelical, faith<\/i> & leadership<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Through reflection and study, I have become more familiar and comfortable with each of these and how it plays out in my life.\u00a0 As a simple example of this, I have come to see that hospitality is alive in my love of opening our home and enjoying shared meals and good fellowship with engaging company.\u00a0 However, as the word exhortation is not so common these days, I\u00a0felt a little research was required to deepening my understanding of my highest-ranking gift.<\/p>\n

I found that \u2018the word\u00a0\u201cexhortation\u201d comes from the Greek word PARAKALEO<\/i> which means to \u201cappeal to, urge, exhort, or to encourage\u201d someone to take a certain\u00a0action. If we try to motivate someone to be kind to another person, we\u00a0are exhorting him or her to action. Exhortation is something that\u00a0pastors, teachers, and at times every Christian should do’.<\/p>\n

Digging a little deeper, reading on the gift of exhortation in William McRae’s The\u00a0Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts<\/a>, I see this is a prospective and a\u00a0retrospective gift – in providing exhortation and consolation\u00a0 respectively – helping others to a position where they might say ‘I\u00a0can see that’ or ‘I can do that’.\u00a0 This had me laughing, for\u00a0all the above attributes are exactly what people look for in a coach.\u00a0\u00a0 As some who was a business and life coach long before I came to Christ, the fact that it was predestined was quite God moment for me!<\/p>\n

I was very surprised to discover that I was disappointed that\u00a0pastoral, evangelical, faith and leadership didn’t appear higher in my\u00a0chart.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure what to make of that but I suspect it has to do with being in a leadership role in my job and my naturally assuming this would be apparent in my primary gifts.\u00a0 That said, I am\u00a0humbled that I share a gift with someone like Barnabas, a\u00a0’Son of Encouragement’ who provided counsel and guidance for both Paul\u00a0and John Mark and who, along with other exhorters, ‘ministered to\u00a0aching hearts and tired souls’.<\/p>\n

All this resonates with me and\u00a0speaks to the things I feel God is exhorting me to\u00a0consider doing with my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back, I competed a spiritual gifts questionnaire and I was intrigued not only by the results but more so by my initial reaction to\u00a0them.\u00a0 The top three – exhortation, hospitality and mercy – are not what I would have guessed, or rather, are\u00a0words\/gifts that I haven’t really considered in relation to myself before.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[49,80,91,92,755,109,116,13,138,151,171,172,198,203,216,249],"class_list":["post-185908836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-barnabas","tag-discernment","tag-evangelical","tag-exhoration","tag-faith","tag-gifts","tag-hospitality","tag-knowledge","tag-leadership","tag-mercy","tag-parakaleo","tag-pastoral","tag-service","tag-spiritual","tag-the-dynamics-of-spiritual-gifts","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185908836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185908836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185908836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185908836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185908836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185908836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}