Happy Sunday!
This morning my dad gave out a spiritual gift test. I’ve taken a couple in my lifetime, different stages of life. It’s interesting that in high school, particular ones might have been low, whereas now they’re higher. Goes to show that if the desire is there, our faith grows as we grow.
Today, the two highest were exhortation and mercy, tied. The second was also a tie, between knowledge, wisdom, and faith.
Naturally, I googled exhortation to entirely understand.
ex·hor·ta·tion – an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something. (urging, encouragement, persuasion, charge, appeal)
- An exhorter’s basic motivational drive is to encourage believers to mature in Christ and to grow spiritually. Exhorters often seek to stimulate that development by teaching, counseling, and discipling others.
- Exhorters regard trials as opportunities for growth.
- Wise counsel flows from the heart of an exhorter who is able to skillfully identify precepts and principles in God’s Word.
- Exhorters love to encourage, encourage, encourage!
- Exhorters and mercy-givers make a good team for counseling someone who is discouraged. The person with the gift of mercy empathizes—he knows how the downhearted person feels. The exhorter exhorts—he knows how the person needsto feel!
- The exhorter’s job is to give hope by sharing a Biblical perspective of the situation and reminding people of God’s power, love, and faithfulness.
- An exhorter responds to problems by prescribing specific steps of action. His goal is to make the plan so easy to comprehend that people will understand it, see its potential, embrace it, and grow as a result of carrying it out.
- An exhorter uses Scripture to validate experience.
- Exhorters are willing and eager to come alongside a brother or sister in Christ during difficult circumstances.
- Memorization of, and meditation on, Scripture are usually very important to the exhorter, because he wants to be able to draw wisdom from the well of truth stored in his spirit.
- An exhorter sees every little detail, including the timing of every event, as part of God’s good and loving plan.
- Exhorters focus on balance; they avoid extremes, especially in doctrine.
- Exhorters understand that time reading and studying the Word of God brings more than information; it brings transformation.
An Exhorter’s Weaknesses
- Exhorters tend to need visible evidences of acceptance and affirmation.
- They can easily oversimplify solutions, which ultimately results in discouragement rather than encouragement.
- Surprisingly, exhorters can be poor listeners, even though they make excellent counselors. Sometimes they are so intent on telling you how to view your situation from God’s perspective that they fail to listen to your perspective.
- Mature exhorters give wise counsel from the Word of God. Therefore, their counsel usually proves to be effective. Unfortunately, their success often tempts exhorters to promote principles as formulas, and the formulas as cure-alls.
- Exhorters are often naïve and easily manipulated.
Even if they aren’t the most happy facts, I think it is extremely helpful to know about yourself. How you relate and perceive, your natural tendencies, your weaknesses. I relate to many of these bullet points, and with the weaknesses, I feel challenged to pray about them, to ask the Holy Spirit for extra self-awareness.
Those who stumble upon this, do you know what your spiritual gift is? Have you ever wondered what it was? I can give you a link to take one, just leave a comment.
