YOU ARE GIFTED---ANOINTING

After taking a gift assessment test you can begin to understand the gifts that God has given to you! Please understand, however, one simple gift assessment test will not reveal all that God has for you in your life! There is more!

Looking beyond this gift assessment, we understand that we were all born with natural abilities which were a part of our make up before we became a Christian. We then need to have trained our natural abilities to accomplish great things in life! But the desired goal is to have Christ as your Savior and to have an added dimension in your natural talent … we would call that anointed abilities. But beyond that is another area called Holy Spirit gifts. The objective is to have all three areas of our gifts and talents working together.

In the Old Testament there are stories of people with natural talent, some with anointed talent, but only a few had Holy Spirit gifts because the Holy Spirit only “came upon” certain people at certain times.

Natural Talent: The power of natural talent is described in the building of the Tower of Babel.

Gen 11

4 "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens;

6 And the LORD said, "Indeed … this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.”

Natural talent is a powerful force in our society! God understood the ability of natural talent to accomplish great goals when people agreed together and set their minds to a task: “nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” Our natural abilities are powerful! Through these we have created tall buildings, huge ships, fast automobiles, and flying machines that stretch our imagination! We’ve developed electronic lights, radios, telephones, computers, and robotics … some which are gigantic and some so small they look like toys!

Our natural abilities allow us to achieve some successes in life, but to make the most of them we should train those abilities!

Prov 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go,

Luke 6:40 … everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.

Training that is applied with hard work and wisdom should bring you to the best use of your ability. But training doesn’t take the place of the anointing of God on your trained abilities! Training may teach you what is known to mankind … but add prayer and the leadership of the Holy Spirit to your training and you have stepped into a new dimension!
Anointed Talent:

Ex 35:30-33

30 Moses said to the children of Israel, "See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel …

31 and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship,

32 to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze,

33 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.

When God needed a skilled craftsman to oversee the building of the Tabernacle, He found someone who was skilled and then He anointed him with special ability to do work. Bezalel was undoubtedly amazed at some of the craft he was able to do! In addition, the Bible says he taught others how to do what he was doing.

Another skilled person who was anointed by the Holy Spirit to use his skill in a powerful way was the Apostle Paul.

Trained, Anointed, Talent

Acts 22:3 "I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers' law …

Paul was highly successful in life. But without the submitting to Christ he was overwhelmed with anger toward Christians and he was involved in persecuting them to the point of death! A head on collision with Christ changed his heart and provided the anointing of the Holy Spirit that propelled him beyond his trained abilities.

Rom 1:1 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God

God took an intelligent man who was trained in leadership and in the Law of Moses, and forged him into an Apostle. It wasn’t his intellect, his natural abilities, or his training that enabled him to reach his highest good! It was the anointing of the Holy Spirit that moved Paul, through his intellect and his training, to accomplished God’ goals in his life.

Indeed, Paul found in many areas that his abilities and training had to be set aside and to allow the Holy Spirit do the work through him.

Anointed!

1 Cor 2:1-5

1 … when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Paul was a trained orator and yet he did not trust himself to be sufficient in declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The work of ministry must be more than trained abilities … it must be anointed by the Holy Spirit! When the Spirit of God speaks through you … or works through your hands … there is more accomplished than you can imagine! The powerful and mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit reaches inside the heart of those we minister to and touches those places we have not seen or know or understand. Our lives lived by the Holy Spirit is an anointed life of ministry.

As we rely upon the Holy Spirit we become aware of the working of supernatural gifts which enable us beyond our natural talent and training. We hear things in our spirit, we see things that are not seen, and we know things that we have not learned. This first occurred in Acts, chapter 2:

Acts 2:4

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

11 … we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon some men and women to accomplish some special task or ministry, but in the New Testament, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to every Christian to empower us to do the will of our Father in Heaven. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit and therefore has the enabling power of God to express their talents and gifts with anointing … but more than that … to be used of the Holy Spirit in supernatural gifts and abilities!

Paul described some of them in 1 Corinthians:

1 Cor 12:8-10

the word of wisdom
the word of knowledge
the gift of faith
gifts of healings
the working of miracles
prophecy
discerning of spirits
tongues
the interpretation of tongues

God can do supernatural things through us when we are willing to allow Him to flow through us! This brings us to a difficulty that we all face: Relying on our abilities – Relying on our training – Relying on the Holy Spirit – or – combining our abilities, our training, and the anointing!

There is only one rule of them … let the Holy Spirit lead you!

A list of New Testament gifts available in the Body of Christ for today:

Administration
Leadership
Apostleship
Compassion
Encouragement
Pastoring
Tongues
Interpretation of tongues
Healings
Miracles
Faith
Teaching
Evangelism
Creative Communication
Knowledge
Wisdom
Prophecy
Discernment
Hospitality
Giving
Assisting