Section 07 - Spiritual Abilities

As we have taught before, God has made us to be a spirit, a soul and a body. In our Bible Doctrine Made Easy course, under the Doctrine of Man, we covered this in a bit of detail.

It was also covered in some detail in our Psychology in Business and Ministry course, under the Nature of Man and Human Temperaments.

As a result of the sin of Adam, the spirit of man became incapable of responding to God. But that doesn't mean that the spirit of man ceased to exist. Although man is considered 'spiritually dead' outside of Christ, this does not mean that his spirit is dead.

When your spirit leaves, your body dies. The spirit is in fact what keeps the body alive.

This means that every human being, whether he or she is a Christian or not, still has an active spirit. So we will look at the natural abilities that come from the spirit.

Also For Unbelievers

So far everything that we have discussed concerning natural gifts applies to every human being.

You do not need to be a believer to have these abilities. They are gifts you had either from the time you were born. Or you may have developed during your life, before you even became a Christian.

You need to know this and understand it, especially when we consider the supernatural. This is because although these gifts can and will be used, in the right place in the work of the ministry, they are not the most important gifts of all.

Unfortunately most people major on these gifts. Have you ever taken a test where you are asked questions to help identify your ministry? I will guarantee that most of those questions and answers pointed to characteristics of the body and soul.

Even if they did point to the realm of the spirit, they would refer to natural gifts of the human spirit. We will consider these now.

Creative Gifts

The most important kind of gift that you have in your spirit is a gift that lies in the realm of creativity. That includes especially all of the arts; artistic abilities, singing, writing, drawing or producing poetry. These are all spiritual abilities.

I have heard people say,

"I have this gift from the Lord that enables me to write beautiful poetry."

Did you have it before you were a believer? If so, then it is most definitely a natural gift, not a supernatural gift.

Sure it came from the Lord because He ultimately created it, but you did not receive it directly from Him. You received it because you are a human being.

The creative talents and skills are all spiritual abilities. We tend to assess people as naturally gifted in certain abilities, so we say things like,

"She was born with a tremendous artistic ability."

"He was born with an ability to sing."

"He always had this ability to write; he was born with it; it was a natural gift."

We tend to envy people and are jealous of them. We say,

"That's not fair. They got all the good gifts and abilities and I have nothing. I am totally untalented and incapable."

That is not true; you have a human spirit like everybody else. So then why do you not have some of these gifts? There are only two possible situations.

1. Some people are born with different kinds of spirits to others.

2. Some people know how to use the gifts and abilities that are in their spirit.

The gifts that lie in your spirit are of no use whatsoever until they begin to manifest outwards. What lies in your spirit is below the level of consciousness, and when you look at someone you cannot see their spirit.

So if you see a particular talent or ability in a person, it means that whatever was in their spirit has somehow become poured outwards. It is now being displayed physically in a way that everyone can see it. The question is then,

"Do I not have these gifts? Or could it be that I have not yet released the gifts that are within me?"

If this is true then, and the human spirit can produce every kind of creativity, it means that every one of us has the capability of producing these natural creative gifts.

Releasing Spiritual Abilities

The problem is that we have never, firstly, learned how to allow what is in our spirits to flow outwards through our souls and then into our bodies.

How are these things released? I have taught this many times in different places. Spiritual abilities are always released through words and actions.

Go back then to what we covered earlier concerning the gifts and abilities that are in your body and in your soul. Realize that what is in your spirit comes outwards to manifest itself via the abilities that are in your soul and body.

Words

You could be a talkative temperament. There are two talkative temperaments, and they are those that are high on emotion; both the amiable and expressive. The expressive especially is the talkative temperament.

So if you are amiable or expressive in temperament - a connector or motivator - then to express verbal abilities comes very easily to you.

You could say of such a person that they have a natural ability to speak; also known as 'the gift of the gab'. No it is not that they have a natural ability to speak, because speech is a spiritual function.

Animals do not have the faculty of speech. They can make noises and sounds, but they cannot form words. Only human beings can form words, because they have a spirit.

This means that the ability to speak is a spiritual function. Every one of us has the ability to speak, unless we have a physical problem that rendered us incapable of speech.

You have the gift of speech within you. However if you are of a temperament that more easily expresses what is within using words, then the chances are that you will more easily display gifts that are vocal.

This kind of person is more 'naturally skilled' at standing before a group of people to speak. They are great orators or motivators.

Actions

Who is more capable of carrying out actions? Surely it is the temperaments that have the highest level of assertion. Assertion is the imposing of the will and this is expressed in action.

Going back to the temperaments then, you will see that the driver and expressive temperaments are more likely to release what is in their spirit through action.

The expressive can do this with both actions and words, which is why the most talented and creative people in this world tend be largely expressive in temperament. So if you are an expressive in temperament you are most blessed.

The chances are that you will be able to express a lot more of what is in your spirit through words and actions. The analytical on the other hand is different. The Analytical is not assertive, but he is capable of speaking words and can talk for hours.

That is why these people make good teachers, but they cannot do something that requires action.

The best actors are those who show both emotion and assertion. Everybody is capable of using both words and actions, but we are looking at natural abilities.

So often what we consider a natural spiritual ability is strongly linked to temperament and whether the body can handle it or not.

For example, if you want to express your artistic ability in dancing, then you will need a body that is fit enough to go through the motions of dancing.

If you want to be an opera singer, then you had better have the vocal power to sing without an amplifier.

So these things require a certain amount of physical and psychological capability, along with what is in the spirit for you to express some of your natural spiritual abilities. However, they are spiritual abilities, because they come from within the human spirit.

So we cannot say that one temperament is more naturally gifted in one of those. But we can say that a temperament may find it easier to release what is in their spirit that way.

Manifesting Your Spirit

The important thing is that the spirit must manifest. If you see a gift or ability in anyone, then what you are seeing is the manifestation of their human spirit. This is manifested in some kind of ability that we like to call gifts. But the word gift can be confusing.

You get the idea that there was a time when a whole lot of gifts were lying around, and someone decided to give different gifts to different people.

You believe that this is how life works. And perhaps when you arrived at the table, all the good gifts had already been given away.

Have you ever felt that way? When you arrived to get your gifts there were not many left, so you only got a few puny ones.

This is not true. Any limitation that you have in displaying spiritual abilities is not because you have less in your spirit. It is because you are incapable of releasing or manifesting outwardly, what is in your spirit.

So if you are able to, you will need to make some changes in the outer part of your soul and body. We will cover this in more detail in the next series, where we look at Developing Your Gifts.

The important thing to realize is that the spiritual abilities we have discussed here come before the New Birth.

Unbelievers have a spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not involved in this picture at all. It is a human spirit having natural abilities that are built into every human being.

All of these natural abilities were already there, before you ever accepted the Lord as your Savior or were born again.

Spiritual Abilities Are Not Ministry Gifts

Here then is the danger when it comes to ministry. You may hear people say,

"I have a gift from the Lord which I believe is my ministry."

But when you question them more closely you find that they have had this gift for many years. Some have had it as far back as they can remember.

If you had that gift before you were born again, then it is not supernatural, and it does not come directly from God via the Holy Spirit. It is purely a natural gift and it can only be used in certain circumstances which we will deal with shortly.

You need to understand the difference. Those gifts and abilities can be developed over time.

It is a known fact that many of the great artists of the past could not, using an old saying, 'draw a straight line with a ruler' when they started out. Their drawing ability was often terrible, but they developed it.

There are some who have great vocal ability today, but when they first began to sing, they sounded like a frog. You may like the sound of frogs, but it is unlikely anyone makes or plays recordings of frogs croaking.

These abilities can be developed. Of course in singing there are also vocal cords involved, so the body is part of it too. There is more involved than only the spirit. But the expressing of a creative ability begins deep within.

All of these things may be developed, but how do we allow them to be used by God? This is what I would like to look at next.

Post A Review For This Book