Should We Seek Spiritual Gifts?

Question 09070

Should we seek gifts from God, or is that presumption dressed up as devotion? I have heard the question put both ways, sometimes by the same person in the same conversation. On one side there is a fear of manufacturing something the Spirit has not given. On the other there is a fear of passivity, of sitting in the corner while the church goes short of what it needs.

Scripture cuts through the dilemma with an instruction that is easy to miss because it appears twice in the same breath. Earnestly desire the higher gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31). Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1). Paul commands the very thing many believers are nervous about.

Does Scripture Tell Us to Seek Gifts?

The verb Paul uses is zeloute, from the root that gives us our word zeal. It is a strong word, sometimes translated covet or burn for. It is not the language of polite indifference. Whatever else we conclude, we cannot say that a believer who longs for greater usefulness is doing something unspiritual.

So the answer to whether we should seek gifts is a straightforward yes, with the whole weight of the question falling on how and why. Paul immediately supplies both. He tells us to seek gifts within the framework of love, and he tells us to prize the ones that build up the congregation over the ones that impress it.

The Higher Gifts Are the Useful Ones

Paul’s ranking is not what most people expect. He does not rate the spectacular above the ordinary. He asks a plain question: does this gift edify the church? On that basis he prefers five intelligible words to ten thousand in a tongue (1 Corinthians 14:19), which must have been a bruising sentence for people who had built their reputation on the reverse.

That gives us a reliable filter. When you seek gifts, seek the ones your congregation actually lacks. If nobody can teach the children, ask God for the capacity and the willingness to do it. If the sick are unvisited, ask for a shepherd’s heart. This is not a lowering of ambition but a redirection of it towards the place where the Spirit is already working.

Seek Gifts for the Church, Not for Yourself

The motive question is unavoidable. You ask and do not receive, James writes, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:3). A gift requested so that I might be thought remarkable is a request God loves me too much to grant. A gift requested so that the widow down the road might be comforted is a different prayer altogether.

I find it useful to test my own asking by imagining the gift given anonymously. If God granted the ability but nobody ever knew it was me, would I still want it? That is not a scriptural formula, and I offer it as a pastoral aid rather than a rule, but it has exposed my own motives often enough to be worth passing on.

The Spirit Still Apportions as He Wills

Holding the two truths together is where the tension lives. We are told to desire earnestly, and we are told that the Spirit apportions to each one individually as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). Desire does not oblige God, and the absence of a gift after prayer is not a verdict on your faith.

The right posture is that of a servant offering himself for whatever task the master assigns. Ask boldly and receive gladly. If the answer is a different gift from the one you had in mind, that is not a refusal. It is an assignment, and it usually turns out to be the one the church needed.

When Seeking Becomes Chasing

There is a version of this that goes badly wrong, and I want to name it plainly. Conferences that promise impartation on demand, techniques for producing manifestations, the quiet pressure that makes a believer perform something in order to belong. Once a gift becomes the proof of spiritual standing, people will manufacture it, and manufactured gifting damages everyone involved.

The New Testament never presents gifting as evidence of maturity. Corinth was gifted and immature at the same time. If you want a measure of where you stand with God, look at the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 rather than at the gifts, because character is the thing the New Testament tells us to pursue relentlessly.

I would add one practical safeguard for anyone in a setting where pressure is applied. No believer is under any obligation to produce anything on demand in order to prove their standing before God. Your acceptance rests on the finished work of Jesus and nothing else, and Romans 8:1 is not qualified by your performance in a meeting. If a teacher suggests otherwise, the problem lies with the teaching and not with you. Hold on to that, because a great deal of harm has been done to sincere people at exactly this point, and recovering from it takes far longer than it should.

Prophecy and Building Up

Paul singles out prophecy, and it is worth asking why. His reason is entirely functional: the one who prophesies speaks to people for their building up and encouragement and consolation (1 Corinthians 14:3). It is the gift that most directly deposits something useful into another believer’s life.

I hold that the gifts remain operative in the church today, while being wary of the inflated claims that attach themselves to prophecy in some circles. Weighing what is said is part of the biblical package, not an insult to the speaker. If you want the fuller argument, I have set it out in are there prophets today.

Seek Gifts and Seek Love

Paul’s sequence in 1 Corinthians 14:1 is deliberate. Pursue love comes first, then earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. The verb for love is the stronger of the two, a word suggesting hot pursuit. Gifting is desired; love is chased down.

Get that order right and the whole subject becomes safe. A congregation pursuing love can afford to seek gifts freely, because love polices the abuses that would otherwise follow. A congregation seeking gifts without love will produce exactly what Corinth produced, and Paul’s letter tells us how that ended.

How to Pray About This Without Anxiety

It may help to put some shape on the praying itself, because vague longing rarely produces much. When I seek gifts I try to name the need before I name the gift. Lord, the young families in this church have nobody to teach their children, and I am willing. That is a very different prayer from asking to be made impressive, and it is the kind of asking that 1 John 5:14 encourages, since it is plainly according to His will that His people be built up.

Then be prepared to move while you wait. The pattern I see repeatedly in Scripture is that God equips people in the doing rather than beforehand. Moses got his commission before he got his confidence. The disciples were sent out before they had the whole picture. If you seek gifts and nothing seems to happen, take the next available opportunity to serve and see what the Lord does with it.

I would also say something about disappointment, because it is real. Some believers seek gifts sincerely for years and never receive the particular capacity they hoped for. That is not divine disapproval, and it is not a verdict on the quality of their faith. Paul asked three times for one thing and was told that grace was sufficient instead (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). If you have prayed and the answer has been a quieter service than you wanted, you are in good company, and the quieter service is not the lesser one.

So, now what?

Ask God for what your church needs, not for what would enhance your standing, and be specific about it. Then act as though the answer might come through the ordinary route of service rather than a dramatic one, because in my experience it usually does.

If you have been afraid to seek gifts at all, let 1 Corinthians 14:1 release you. If you have been chasing them anxiously, let 1 Corinthians 12:11 settle you. Alongside this it is worth reading how we discover our gifts and how gifts can be misused, since the three questions belong together.

What would you ask God for tonight if you knew He was more interested in the good of your congregation than in your reputation, and that He intends to use you in it?

Ask boldly, serve immediately, and leave the apportioning to the Spirit who knows exactly what this congregation needs next.

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

1 Corinthians 14:1, 3 (ESV)