Laura J. Davis's Blog, page 13

What is the Gift of Faith?

What is the Gift of Faith? Doesn’t every Christian have this gift? Isn’t it a kind of pre-requisite for belief in God? And how do you explain faith to someone who doesn’t believe? What does God say? He says that we wouldn’t even have faith in Him at all, if it wasn’t for His gift of grace to us in the first place!

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

How astounding! I can’t even wrap my head around that one. It...

The Word of Wisdom and the Word of Knowledge

What is the difference between the Word of Wisdom and the Word of Knowledge? There is much confusion and debate about what these words mean, so it may be better to approach this from a different angle – what these gifts are not and how some Christians today are coming dangerously close to ignoring Scripture because of their misuse of these two gifts.

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.  And there are diversities of activi...

The Gift of Mercy

Mercy is described in Vine’s Expository Dictionary as “showing kindness, by beneficence, or assistance”, and is translated as “having compassion”. In general, it is to sympathize or empathize with the misery of another, so much so that you feel compelled to act. If not for mercy, you and I would still be lost. Jesus would not have died a gruesome death in order to redeem sinners from eternal suffering. It is mercy that drove Jesus to the cross and it is mercy that all Christians are to extend...

Is Leadership a Spiritual Gift?

When it comes to leadership within the church we invariably look to our Pastor. He is the one who is charged by God to lead congregants into all truth by exhorting from the Scriptures. In Romans 12:8 Paul says, “He who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” The Greek word used for “lead” is proïstēmi and is translated as “rule or set over” but it literally means “to stand before, to lead, or attend to.” Thi...

What the Spiritual Gift of Giving Really Means

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness (Romans 12:6-8, NKJV).

One would think that the spiritual gift of giving would require the person with this gift to have lots of money so that th...

The Gift of Exhortation

Till I come, give attention to reading,
to exhortation, to doctrine.
1 Timothy 4:13

Dictionary.com says this about the word exhortation – “an utterance, discourse, or address conveying urgent advice or recommendations”. The word used in Greek for exhortation is paraklēsis and according to Vines Expository Dictionary it means something slightly different - “a calling to one’s side” (para, “beside,” and kaleo, “to call”) and so it is often translated as comfort, consolation, entreaty or encourage....

The "Gift" of Teaching

Last time we established that a teacher is not a gift and that the “gift of teaching” is a combination of several gifts that give one the ability to teach from Scripture. However, in order to keep things simple I will refer to the act of teaching as a gift, because for all intents and purposes it is a blessing (a gift) God has given to certain people for edification of the church.

Teachers usually have the spiritual gifts of prophecy, exhortation, wisdom, knowledge and discernment, which help...