Is it just me, or does modern Christianity seem obsessed with spiritual gifts? Churches hold classes and seminars on discovering your spiritual gifts, we have tests we can take to tell if we’re a leader, a teacher or if we have the gift of hospitality. Books are written on them, sermons are preached, and sometimes churches will question someone’s calling until it is backed up by the results of the almighty “gift test.”
Then, we tell each other what our gifts are, and we go out into the community using our spiritual gifts. We argue amongst ourselves about what is a gift and what isn’t based on Scripture. We argue over if speaking in tongues is a gift we should all have, some should have, or if there was a divine expiration date set on this confusing gift.
I think we might be missing the boat. Here’s why. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
My point? Ask most Christians what their spiritual gifts are, and they’ll probably be able to tell you. If they can’t, ask them if spiritual gifts are important and they’ll say “yes.”
Ask someone who is not a Christian if Christians are people of love and they will say “no.” Collectively, we’ve flunked the love test. If I have a gift of service and go to a soup kitchen and look down on the homeless and do not love them, I’ve missed the entire point of serving. If I see the meal I make for my friend who just had surgery as an obligation and rush through it and do not really love my friend, I’ve missed the point of a gift of hospitality. If I lead, but think the people I lead are fickle, immature and clueless and I don’t have compassion or understanding for them, I have no concept of the reason God gave a gift of leadership.
We don’t love. We don’t love the world and we don’t love each other, and love is the primary characteristic followers of Christ are supposed to be known by. Instead of teaching about gifts, let’s go to church and teach and learn about love. Let’s master love.
You know what I’m willing to bet?
I bet if we truly learned how to love, we would have compassion for the people we are called to, and we would through that love for a certain group or type of person discover what God has called us to do. Once the calling is discovered, the gifts would be revealed. We wouldn’t need to take a test, it would be evident by the tug of God on a compassionate heart that breaks for other people.