How can I help?

 How Can I Help?

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. . . . It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

1 CORINTHIANS 12.7-8, 11

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.

1 PETER 4.10

Usually when someone gives us a gift, it is for us to enjoy ourselves. But the Bible teaches that God gives each of us a spiritual gift — a special ability — not for our own enjoyment, but for the purpose of strengthening someone else’s faith. These are gifts that are to be given away, not used for ourselves.

The Bible lists spiritual gifts in six different passages — each with a different list. But spiritual gifts aren’t limited to these examples or categories. Spiritual gifts are any abilities the Holy Spirit gives a person in order to strengthen another person in his or her walk with God.

What does it mean to strengthen other people? To strengthen others using your spiritual gift means helping their faith not to fail under the pressures of life’s difficulties. So when we see someone who is struggling in his or her faith, we can do or say what seems most helpful. And if the person is helped, then we may have discovered one of our spiritual gifts.

You don’t necessarily have to be able to name your gifts. It is more important to be the kind of person who wakes up in the morning wondering how you can help other people become stronger in their faith, more confident in God’s promises, and deeper in their love for Jesus because you’ve crossed their paths.