Understanding Spiritual Gifts
by Sam Storms
Part 1: The Nature, Purpose, and Prayerful Pursuit of Spiritual Gifts
Chapter 1: Supernatural Power for Life and Ministry
“Power for working miracles was an essential and expected element in the work of ministry, together with power for preaching and witnessing” (11, 3)
“If you know Jesus, you are gifted by the power of the Spirit to serve and contribute and minister to everyone else in your local church.” (13, 1)
“Just because you compare yourself with others and don’t like what you see or become envious of what they are or resentful of what you are, that doesn’t make you any less a vital and important part of the body of Christ.” (14, 6)
“Whatever gifts we end up receiving, whatever ministries or expressions of service in the church in which we succeed, this was God’s doing, not ours. It was his decision, not ours.” (15, 5)
Chapter 2: Spiritual Gifts: What Are They, and Why Does God Give Them?
“A spiritual gift is when the Holy Spirit manifests his presence and imparts his power into and through indvidiual believers to enable them to exceed the limitations of their finite humanity so that they might faithfully and effectively fulfill certain ministry tasks for the building up of the body of Christ.” (20, 3)
“The energizing and sanctifying work of the indwelling Spirit is the grace of God.” (25, 2)
“We may define a spiritual gift as a God-given, and therefore gracious, Spirit-empowered capacity or ability to serve the body of Christ.” (26, 4)
“The primary purpose of all gifts is to edify or build up tand spiritually strengthen other believers.” (26, 5)
Chapter 3: How Many Spiritual Gifts Are There, and How Many Might a Christian Receive?
“Spiritual gifts are less a privilege and more a responsibility. In a very real sense, then, my gift is not really mine. It is only entrusted to me for the sake of others.” (43, 3)
“The ultimate purpose of serving by means of one’s gift is so that God will be glorified.” (44, 3)
“when you sit idle and uninvolved, you are robbing God of the glory that he might otherwise have received had you been faithful to serve others in his name.” (44, 3)
“they will instinctively give the glory to God rather than to you.” (44, 3)
Chapter 4: Our Responsiblity to Desire and Pray for Spiritual Gifts
“Character always takes precendence over gifting” (52, 5)
“Our prayers are often the very means God employs to grant what he desires to give.” (56, 2)
“I’m simply suggesting that as we spend less time obsessed with some introspective search to identify our spiritual gift(s) and more time actually praying and giving and helping and teaching and serving and exhorting those around us, the likelihood greatly increases that we will walk headlong into our gifting without ever knowing what happened.” (64, 5)
“If God’s people will look outward before they look inward, they will encounter the charismatic and empowering presence of the Spirit to equip them for every good deed.” (65, 2)
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