Latest / CEO Kingdom Seekers / Ep 36: Are You Using Your Spiritual Gifts the Way God Intended? The Love Test (1 Corinthians 12:31)

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Ep 36: Are You Using Your Spiritual Gifts the Way God Intended? The Love Test (1 Corinthians 12:31) · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:00
  Dr. Lee: Hey, y'all.
• 0:00
  Dr. Lee: Welcome to this week's episode.
• 0:01
  Dr. Lee: So I wanna share a little secret with you.
• 0:04
  Dr. Lee: I've never been one to plan out my episodes, like several episodes in a row.
• 0:09
  Dr. Lee: And so I'm doing something that I've never really done before, which is recording several episodes as part of a series, and matching the guest episodes that I have recorded with a huge group of incredible people over the last several weeks, to the episodes that I have been recording.
• 0:26
  Dr. Lee: And I'm doing that because we have a new program, Growing Your Gifts, if you're listening to this, it's actually already launched, and it's kicking off on October 21st, and it's a seven-week program that helps you grow in your gifts.
• 0:39
  Dr. Lee: And so I wanted to do what I have been helping our clients do for the last several years, which is to actually, like, take the podcasts that I'm creating and make them about what the program's gonna be about so people can listen in and decide if this is something that they'd wanna learn more.
• 0:56
  Dr. Lee: And so when we teach our clients in our agency how to launch, we teach them to basically take people through a process that helps them figure out if this is something that they'd wanna dive into deeper.
• 1:09
  Dr. Lee: So I'm excited to do this because, as I've mentioned before on this podcast, my primary motivational gift is that of the professor.
• 1:16
  Dr. Lee: And so what better way to help y'all discover if you'd like to be in a program where I will be teaching by teaching on the podcast.
• 1:25
  Dr. Lee: And so this is tied to the last two episodes that we've had, both my solo episode where we talked about, where we talked about how our gifts don't just need to be identified, they need to be formed, and also the episode with Chris Winnington where we talked about how a lotta times God is calling us to deepen and form in our gifts, and we oftentimes hesitate to say yes, and we oftentimes end up saying no by saying,"Yes, but," or,"Yes, if," or,"Yes, only." So today I want to talk about how we get to ask an even deeper question than are the gifts that I have formed effective?
• 2:02
  Dr. Lee: We get to ask if they're divinely directed, and we get to look at this through a cool lens.
• 2:06
  Dr. Lee: We're gonna be in 1 Corinthians 12:31 through chapter 13 verses 12.
• 2:12
  Dr. Lee: And a lot of people know this because of how it is connected to weddings, and I'm really excited to talk about and how it's connected to gifts.
• 2:21
  Dr. Lee: Because this episode is gonna examine what Paul calls the more excellent way, and how we can use love, specifically agape, the Greek word for love, and our motivational gifts, and the fruit that gets produced, and humility, and how our gifts have been formed, like all of those together, to evaluate how our gifts are being expressed.
• 2:44
  Dr. Lee: So like I mentioned, last week we established that a distorted gift can still be affected.
• 2:49
  Dr. Lee: Okay?
• 2:49
  Dr. Lee: So you can have a gift that you have developed in a pretty significant way.
• 2:55
  Dr. Lee: You've made money with it.
• 2:56
  Dr. Lee: You've built a career with it.
• 2:57
  Dr. Lee: You've helped people with it.
• 2:58
  Dr. Lee: You've received praise.
• 2:59
  Dr. Lee: You've even become well-known for it, and that doesn't mean that it's actually being used the way that God wills.
• 3:08
  Dr. Lee: And so the question becomes if results aren't enough to tell me whether or not my gifts are being used well, then what is?
• 3:17
  Dr. Lee: And so that's why I wanted to go into 1 Corinthians here, because St.
• 3:21
  Dr. Lee: Paul gives us an incredibly clear place to look.
• 3:25
  Dr. Lee: So I'm gonna go ahead and just read the verse.
• 3:27
  Dr. Lee: So at the very end of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul says,"Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
• 3:36
  Dr. Lee: But I shall show you a still more excellent way." Now, I love this because Paul has just been talking about spiritual gifts in the body.
• 3:44
  Dr. Lee: He's been talking about apostles, and prophets, and teachers, and miracle workers, healing, helping, service, guidance, tongues, and he says to strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
• 3:56
  Dr. Lee: He is saying we want to make sure that we are trying to develop these gifts as much as possible.
• 4:02
  Dr. Lee: And then he says,"But I shall show you a still more excellent way." So he's saying it's not just about the effectiveness.
• 4:08
  Dr. Lee: Like I said, we often encounter 1 Corinthians 13 at weddings, and it's detached from the gifts conversation that precedes it.
• 4:16
  Dr. Lee: And so I want to put love back into this context of actually being attached to our gifts.
• 4:22
  Dr. Lee: Paul's discussion of love belongs inside his discussion of giftedness and the body, and the body of Christ So let's read through 1 Corinthians 13.
• 4:34
  Dr. Lee: Now, I'm actually gonna start at verse four because this is the part that you're likely familiar with, okay?
• 4:39
  Dr. Lee: If you're not, all good, and this gets read at so many weddings.
• 4:43
  Dr. Lee: "Love is patient, love is kind.
• 4:45
  Dr. Lee: It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated.
• 4:49
  Dr. Lee: It is not rude, it does not seek its own interest.
• 4:52
  Dr. Lee: It is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury.
• 4:56
  Dr. Lee: It does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
• 5:00
  Dr. Lee: It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
• 5:06
  Dr. Lee: Love never fails." So that's verse four through the beginning of verse eight.
• 5:11
  Dr. Lee: Now, let's go back, because 1 Corinthians 13, verses one through three talk about something very different, all right?
• 5:21
  Dr. Lee: So Paul is just saying in chapter 12,"I will show you an even more excellent way." And so the very next chapter, and this is something that I think is so interesting about how we view the Bible in context in today's society, because Paul meant for this to be read in continuity.
• 5:38
  Dr. Lee: You know, we wouldn't just take a chunk out of a letter if we were gonna go into a courtroom and say,"Here, this is what this person said." We would take it and look at it in the entirety of the context of the letter.
• 5:50
  Dr. Lee: In fact, there's a very popular book out right now.
• 5:52
  Dr. Lee: It's not Christian but it's a book that I remember when when I was still kind of, turned away from God, I remember reading it.
• 5:59
  Dr. Lee: And I remember it was one of the few books that I had read in several years that, like, gave me nightmares.
• 6:06
  Dr. Lee: And not from the sense of horror, but from the sense of just how messed up it was.
• 6:11
  Dr. Lee: And, I'm not condoning that anybody read it.
• 6:13
  Dr. Lee: I'm also not condemning that anybody read it.
• 6:16
  Dr. Lee: And it's a book by Colleen Hoover called Verity.
• 6:19
  Dr. Lee: Like, at the very end of the book, you realize that if you were missing just a little bit of the context, it completely changes the story.
• 6:27
  Dr. Lee: And this happens a lot of times in social media today.
• 6:30
  Dr. Lee: This happens at work, where we zoom in, we narrow in on something, and then we zoom out and go,"Oh, that's what's actually happening." And I think that that's important to pull out here before we move on, because, it's just an important piece of studying the Word, of being in the Word, is understanding that yes, God gave this to us to pull out anchor verses and to inspire us and to have moments where we can quote the Bible, and we do want to make sure that we are reading it in the full context, and not just in the context of the words, but putting it back in the historical context of what's happening as well.
• 7:04
  Dr. Lee: So Paul has just finished talking about this more excellent way, and he's about to describe it.
• 7:09
  Dr. Lee: So we kick that off in verse one.
• 7:11
  Dr. Lee: "If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
• 7:19
  Dr. Lee: And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
• 7:28
  Dr. Lee: If I give away everything I own and I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing." That's where the love is patient and love is kind then comes in.
• 7:41
  Dr. Lee: And I think this is important to see, because Paul is talking about people who are performing extraordinary feats.
• 7:51
  Dr. Lee: They're incredible at expressing their gifts.
• 7:54
  Dr. Lee: They are developed.
• 7:54
  Dr. Lee: These are impressive people.
• 7:57
  Dr. Lee: Notice what he says, though.
• 7:59
  Dr. Lee: If love is not present, and the word agape is what's used for love here, so that means to will the good of others.
• 8:08
  Dr. Lee: Whoever you're loving, you're willing their good, and you're willing their good in alignment with God and what God says is good.
• 8:14
  Dr. Lee: Not what we say is good, not what they say is good, what God says is good.
• 8:18
  Dr. Lee: If we're not loving people that way, the gift of tongues becomes noise?
• 8:27
  Dr. Lee: The gift of prophecy and comprehending all mysteries and knowledge becomes nothing?
• 8:33
  Dr. Lee: If you have all the faith in the world without love, you are nothing?
• 8:38
  Dr. Lee: If you give away everything you own and you hand your body over in order to boast, but you don't have love, you gain nothing?
• 8:48
  Dr. Lee: So extraordinary giftedness does not exempt us from godly formation.
• 8:54
  Dr. Lee: God has to form our gifts.
• 8:56
  Dr. Lee: He has to divinely direct them, and we have to make sure that they're being developed in the direction that God wants to take them.
• 9:02
  Dr. Lee: So when we get into this idea of agape love, we have to ask ourselves, what is driving our gift in its practical application?
• 9:13
  Dr. Lee: So let's say that you've already taken our primary motivational gift assessment, and you know what your primary gift is.
• 9:19
  Dr. Lee: You know that this is what motivates you the most.
• 9:22
  Dr. Lee: Then the next step is to look at, am I using that gift, expressing it in alignment with love?
• 9:30
  Dr. Lee: Am I divinely directing it?
• 9:31
  Dr. Lee: So I know I love this, and yes, I've developed it.
• 9:34
  Dr. Lee: Everyone tells me how good I am at this thing.
• 9:36
  Dr. Lee: But what's driving my gift?
• 9:39
  Dr. Lee: Am I motivated, do I experience joy when I see God's purposes and the genuine good of the person in front of me being carried out through what I'm doing?
• 9:55
  Dr. Lee: Or is my gift driven by my need to be right, my need to be needed, my need to be admired or to feel safe, to seem successful, to feel like I'm in control, or to feel like others can't live without me, that I'm indispensable?
• 10:15
  Dr. Lee: We've got to recognize that our gifts can oftentimes be crystal clear to everyone around us while we have a motivation other than love directing its expression.
• 10:28
  Dr. Lee: And this becomes especially problematic when our primary motivational gift is distorted because that then means that the way that the other six gifts that we have is inherently going to be distorted as well or diminished.
• 10:46
  Dr. Lee: Because if I'm using my greatest motivation in a way that isn't in alignment with God's will, then what's gonna happen in the other places.
• 10:55
  Dr. Lee: So we'll talk about this in the upcoming episodes, and we'll go really deep into this inside the Growing Your Gifts program.
• 11:02
  Dr. Lee: And all seven of our gifts need to be ordered in a specific way that is in alignment with how God has designed us.
• 11:11
  Dr. Lee: And it's not something that Like, I could pull out a piece of paper and say,"Okay, here, Lee, this is how your gifts need to be ordered for the rest of your life." It's not that.
• 11:20
  Dr. Lee: But they need to be surrendered and submitted to God to be used in accordance with His will.
• 11:24
  Dr. Lee: That's how we love God.
• 11:27
  Dr. Lee: We need to put our primary motivational gift through the love test, and then we also need to put our other gifts through the love test.
• 11:34
  Dr. Lee: Because remember, just because you have a primary motivational gift doesn't mean that the other gifts you're not gifted at.
• 11:39
  Dr. Lee: In fact, if you're listening to this podcast, if you resonate with the term highly responsible human, you are gifted.
• 11:46
  Dr. Lee: You have developed your gifts in more than one area, okay?
• 11:50
  Dr. Lee: So we've gotta look at all of them.
• 11:52
  Dr. Lee: We've got to look at all of them So we've gotta look at all of them.
• 11:57
  Dr. Lee: So I want you to just listen to this, and before I go into this, I want to really encourage you not to judge yourself.
• 12:05
  Dr. Lee: Last week, I went back at the beginning of the episode and I said,"Hey, this episode might be hard for you because what I'm gonna ask you to do is gonna probably feel really selfish.
• 12:14
  Dr. Lee: I'm gonna ask you to prioritize your joy." Well, in this episode, I'm gonna ask you to do something equally as hard, but this isn't gonna feel selfish.
• 12:22
  Dr. Lee: This is probably gonna feel more than a little convicting.
• 12:25
  Dr. Lee: And what I want to invite you to do here is to not shame yourself, okay?
• 12:31
  Dr. Lee: if you hear what I'm saying and you go,"Oh my gosh, yes, here's all the places that I have disorder.
• 12:36
  Dr. Lee: Here's all the places that things are distorted.
• 12:38
  Dr. Lee: Like, I'm such a bad person.
• 12:39
  Dr. Lee: I, you know, I don't dese-," stop.
• 12:43
  Dr. Lee: That's the enemy.
• 12:44
  Dr. Lee: He's coming in.
• 12:45
  Dr. Lee: He's trying to tie your behavior to your worth, and we're gonna detach that right here.
• 12:53
  Dr. Lee: Because you haven't been able to earn God's love this entire time.
• 12:56
  Dr. Lee: You haven't deserved anything that God has given you in His love this entire time.
• 13:02
  Dr. Lee: You're a sinful human who continually turns away from Him, and you don't do it because you don't love Him, you do it because our memories are short and because our great-great-great-great ad nauseam parents ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and because we are part of a divine restoration plan, and we receive God's love because of Jesus, and because God loves us.
• 13:25
  Dr. Lee: And so the idea that you're gonna hear these things and then start condemning yourself or judging yourself, Paul also says in another area, that there is no condemnation in Christ.
• 13:37
  Dr. Lee: And what that means is, is that we're not gonna sit here and, like, say that you're a horrible human person and that you don't deserve anything.
• 13:45
  Dr. Lee: Okay, yeah, Christ already came.
• 13:47
  Dr. Lee: He already died for you and your sins to reconnect us to God.
• 13:51
  Dr. Lee: So if you've claimed Christ, then condemning yourself here about what I'm about to say is not the move.
• 13:57
  Dr. Lee: That's actually turning away from God'cause God's told you not to do that.
• 14:00
  Dr. Lee: All right?
• 14:02
  Dr. Lee: So let's look at these seven gifts.
• 14:04
  Dr. Lee: The Judge, we see a lack of love when our identifying of what is wrong or what is out of alignment or being right about what is moral becomes more important than what happens to the person after I say it People who have the primary motivational gift of judge, they really care about helping people walk the, like, righteous path.
• 14:30
  Dr. Lee: And oftentimes they will say things in harsh and critical and unkind, mean ways and hurt people's feelings and not do it from a place of love, but do it from a place of,"Well, this is just the right thing, so you just need to do the right thing." And so there's a reason why we label people who like say hurtful, harmful things that are true, but say them very hurtful and harmfully.
• 14:55
  Dr. Lee: there's a reason why we call them judgmental.
• 14:57
  Dr. Lee: It's the reason why this gift can be hard for people to own as their motivational gift'cause they're like,"Well, I'm not judgy." We're talking about judge in the standard legal sense of judge, of being able to be presented with evidence and tell if something is ethical or moral or in alignment with God's will or not.
• 15:11
  Dr. Lee: That's what original judges were for, was to see the behavior of people and to say,"This is in alignment with God's will and this isn't." So when you do not care about what happens to this person after you say it, you are willing to hurt their feelings in the short term and not care about the long term, that's mean.
• 15:28
  Dr. Lee: Now, we're not actually, not talking about the diminishment piece of this.
• 15:32
  Dr. Lee: We're just talking about what this looks like when you're using the gift when it's developed and it's been distorted.
• 15:37
  Dr. Lee: And just to give you a quick parallel so you understand the difference between diminishment and distortion, let's use the judge example.
• 15:45
  Dr. Lee: A judge that is being, quote-unquote,"nice" has actually diminished their gift because They see what's wrong, and they care more about not hurting this person's feelings in the short term than they do about what happens to this person in the long term.
• 16:00
  Dr. Lee: So they don't say the thing because that feels more important than what happens to the person after they say it.
• 16:06
  Dr. Lee: They're more worried about being judged themselves than about helping this person see that what they're doing is out of alignment.
• 16:13
  Dr. Lee: So notice neither of those are loving.
• 16:17
  Dr. Lee: Diminishment does not occur in love either.
• 16:20
  Dr. Lee: So I mentioned that these get distorted, and I think what's also important to understand is that with the lack of love also shows up in diminishment.
• 16:28
  Dr. Lee: We're not gonna talk about that a lot here, but I think it is an important piece to pull out, and we will talk about diminishment a lot more in the, the Growing Your Gifts program.
• 16:37
  Dr. Lee: Some of y'all have gifts where you're profoundly gifted in the judge area, and you don't use it because you are afraid of what happens to you after you say it.
• 16:50
  Dr. Lee: You're not worried about this person, you're worried about yourself.
• 16:54
  Dr. Lee: So the professor gift, we see a lack of love when being accurate or knowledgeable becomes more important than whether the person is actually served by what you know.
• 17:07
  Dr. Lee: I've seen this happen a lot.
• 17:08
  Dr. Lee: You will talk at someone and fire hose them with information when they didn't ask for it or when it's not what's best for them in the moment.
• 17:18
  Dr. Lee: And as a professor, my gift can get very easily distorted, right?
• 17:21
  Dr. Lee: That's my primary motivational gift.
• 17:23
  Dr. Lee: This happens with my children a lot.
• 17:26
  Dr. Lee: They will tell me that something is wrong, and I will start asking them a bunch of questions to try to understand exactly what's happening so that I can help them understand and see it clearly, and I can know, and I can have all the information, and that's not what's best for them.
• 17:42
  Dr. Lee: They're not served by me asking a bunch of questions and collecting information.
• 17:46
  Dr. Lee: They're also not served by me going,"Oh, well, here's an answer for you.
• 17:49
  Dr. Lee: This is, this is what I know about what you're talking about." They, they just came to me to listen.
• 17:53
  Dr. Lee: They came to me to be a source of solace or comfort, and I am sitting here talking at them or badgering them with questions and trying to get them to answer me when that's not what's best for them.
• 18:04
  Dr. Lee: The professor gift can get very distorted when that ability to glean information and also to share information, that feels more important to you than supporting and serving and loving the person in front of you.
• 18:17
  Dr. Lee: Now, the coach gift, this can get distorted when the transformation of you and/or the person in front of you becomes so important that y'all both become secondary to the outcome.
• 18:31
  Dr. Lee: This looks like you are more focused on getting to point B than you are on the person trying to get from point A to point B.
• 18:42
  Dr. Lee: So you might help them get to point B, but it's done in a way that, like, really harms them or harms you, and that doesn't matter.
• 18:50
  Dr. Lee: It doesn't matter how hard we have to push.
• 18:52
  Dr. Lee: It doesn't matter how, painful it is.
• 18:55
  Dr. Lee: As long as we grow, we're good.
• 18:57
  Dr. Lee: And so that's just something to know about grow in your gifts.
• 19:00
  Dr. Lee: I see this a lot because we call in a lot of people with the primary gift of coach.
• 19:04
  Dr. Lee: They love transformation, and they love growth.
• 19:06
  Dr. Lee: And so programs, courses, they're like,"Yeah, let's go," and then this program is named Growing Your Gifts.
• 19:10
  Dr. Lee: Like, oh my gosh, let's go.
• 19:12
  Dr. Lee: And I'm like,"Look, a lot of this growth is going to be you doing less, not more.
• 19:17
  Dr. Lee: A lot of this growth is gonna be learning about margin and about doing things in divine direction and in God's timing.
• 19:25
  Dr. Lee: You may not like this, at least at parts, because this is gonna feel really tough because loving God, loving yourself, loving others looks like you not prioritizing the outcome over the process Or the process over the person.
• 19:39
  Dr. Lee: I know.
• 19:40
  Dr. Lee: I just made someone go,"Ugh," but it's true, okay?
• 19:43
  Dr. Lee: Now, the CEO gift, I see this a lot in entrepreneurs and business owners.
• 19:48
  Dr. Lee: Even if it's not your primary motivational gift, let's be honest.
• 19:52
  Dr. Lee: In order to be an entrepreneur, a C-suite executive, a, a leader, a high responsibility human, your CEO gift has to be developed because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to sustain those levels of responsibility.
• 20:06
  Dr. Lee: And it's very often distorted because with the CEO gift, people become assets to help you get to the vision rather than resources.
• 20:19
  Dr. Lee: And we talked about this in a previous episode.
• 20:21
  Dr. Lee: We are resources of God.
• 20:23
  Dr. Lee: God gives us gifts that flow through us, and instead of seeing the people that we are there to lead as humans and as resources who are entrusted to the leader to take care of, instead of seeing that we are supposed to go first as the leader, we use people as assets for the vision.
• 20:48
  Dr. Lee: We will also do this to ourselves.
• 20:51
  Dr. Lee: We will use ourselves.
• 20:53
  Dr. Lee: People who are gifted in this area, you use yourself.
• 20:57
  Dr. Lee: And you fall on the sword, you go first, you sacrifice, you do whatever needs done in order to reach the vision, in order to make the vision occur.
• 21:05
  Dr. Lee: Except when you do that, you're not actually operating within the gift in the aligned way because you're not using it for eternal best.
• 21:14
  Dr. Lee: You're not using it for long-term best.
• 21:16
  Dr. Lee: What's good for you long-term and eternally, like, that matters.
• 21:20
  Dr. Lee: What's good for the people in front of you long-term and eternally, that matters.
• 21:25
  Dr. Lee: So if you're using people as assets, then you're probably not thinking about what's gonna happen on the other side of that usage, okay?
• 21:33
  Dr. Lee: Now, the consoler gift, when the consoler gift lacks love, this is one that's actually pretty tough to look at.
• 21:41
  Dr. Lee: And I'm saying this for anyone who has the primary gift of consolation, because if you do, consolation is literally like if we look at where it's located in the body, so to speak, it's your heart.
• 21:53
  Dr. Lee: You feel.
• 21:55
  Dr. Lee: And so if there's a lack of love in consolation, you're probably more rescuing than providing mercy because it is so uncomfortable for you to witness or see suffering that it feels better for you to just rescue the person and try to fix it rather than discerning what's actually gonna serve them long-term, what's gonna will their good.
• 22:24
  Dr. Lee: And also, you might end up pretty bitter and resentful and start looking for people to, give you mercy and to show you compassion because you have burned yourself out to a crisp, and, you don't have any mercy left.
• 22:40
  Dr. Lee: And so I see this a lot in distortion is that it's, like, distorted, distorted, distorted, diminished because people go,"Never mind, I'm not gonna be kind or consoling or offer compassion or offer mercy anymore because I've just been burned too many times trying to help people." And that shows me that, like, there was distortion happening for so long that the gift literally got burned out.
• 23:05
  Dr. Lee: So this can look like you wanting to be rescued yourself, this can look like you trying to rescue others, and this can also look like at the extreme, you getting to the point that you don't wanna help anybody or you don't want anyone else's help when you are suffering or when they are suffering because it all just feels too painful.
• 23:25
  Dr. Lee: Now, the steward gift without love, this looks like giving a resource allocation for the purpose of influence or leverage or control or proof of how useful you are.
• 23:41
  Dr. Lee: So you give not because it's being done from this, like, generous, loving, charitable place.
• 23:47
  Dr. Lee: You give because it makes you look good, or because it puts you in a position of power, or because it then gives you a quid pro quo to, like, hold over someone's head.
• 23:55
  Dr. Lee: It attaches strings.
• 23:57
  Dr. Lee: It gives you leverage.
• 23:58
  Dr. Lee: Or because it makes you look really useful, and then people go,"Wow, she's so amazing.
• 24:04
  Dr. Lee: Look at all she gives." Can you see how resentment and bitterness could show up in that one, too?
• 24:09
  Dr. Lee: I see resentment and bitterness in all of these, and again, it often comes on the back end of being in a distorted pattern for several years.
• 24:20
  Dr. Lee: So the steward is managing and administering and giving and is doing that to try to get something back.
• 24:30
  Dr. Lee: The consoler is giving mercy to try to get something back.
• 24:33
  Dr. Lee: The CEO is leading to try to get somebody else to lead.
• 24:36
  Dr. Lee: The coach is helping other people transform so that somebody else will help them transform.
• 24:40
  Dr. Lee: The professor is offering all this knowledge and, and asking all these questions and, and trying to be really interested in this other person so that somebody will do that for them.
• 24:48
  Dr. Lee: The judge is, providing all of this really helpful discernment so that somebody will do that for them.
• 24:55
  Dr. Lee: That's not love.
• 24:57
  Dr. Lee: That's manipulation.
• 24:59
  Dr. Lee: Now, the last one is the builder, and this is where service becomes indispensability, and we know it's distorted.
• 25:08
  Dr. Lee: We know that there's a lack of love when you're like,"Look at how much everyone needs me." Now, that sentence could be said other way.
• 25:14
  Dr. Lee: "Oh my gosh, look at how needed I am," right?
• 25:17
  Dr. Lee: "Nothing can go without me" or,"Oh my gosh, everybody needs me all the time.
• 25:22
  Dr. Lee: Like, nothing can happen without me." One of those is the distortion's working for you still, and one of those is you've gotten bitter and resentful So we've gotta put these through the love test.
• 25:34
  Dr. Lee: And I want you to notice we can see the gift through all seven of these expressions, but it's a different sort of formation.
• 25:41
  Dr. Lee: The formation happens because you learn to develop your gift so that you can get something from someone else.
• 25:48
  Dr. Lee: So that other people, when you put that out into the world, they will pay you back.
• 25:55
  Dr. Lee: So you express it in a different way.
• 25:57
  Dr. Lee: Subtly, but it's there.
• 25:59
  Dr. Lee: I say this as someone who used to have very distorted gifts.
• 26:02
  Dr. Lee: When I express my gifts, even with subtle distortion, I get results, but then they always end up not going the way I want.
• 26:10
  Dr. Lee: They produce fruit that rots over time And the way in which I, as the tree, have to use assets in order to produce that fruit wears me out, burns me out, exhausts me, depletes me All right?
• 26:28
  Dr. Lee: This is one of the best analogies that I was ever given to understand why love is so important, and why being connected to God and directing our gifts in the way that God wills us is so crucial We have to receive love from God in order to be able to love ourselves well enough to be able to then love other people I'm gonna say that again'cause I might have just blown some minds here.
• 26:57
  Dr. Lee: We have to be able to receive God's love deeply enough that we can learn how to love ourselves, and then through that we can use our gifts that God gives us to love other people.
• 27:12
  Dr. Lee: Because if we receive the love from God And the assets from God that, and we trust him.
• 27:18
  Dr. Lee: We trust that he loves us so much that he will never leave us or forsake us.
• 27:22
  Dr. Lee: He is always with us.
• 27:23
  Dr. Lee: He has always been there.
• 27:24
  Dr. Lee: He always will be If we truly trust that and we receive God's love, then I don't need someone else to do something in response to how I express my gift.
• 27:37
  Dr. Lee: Because no matter how I express my gift, I trust that God will care for me.
• 27:41
  Dr. Lee: I trust that God will take care of me.
• 27:43
  Dr. Lee: I trust that he will provide and protect and shelter, and even if things don't go the way I want them to go, he will still love me and care for me.
• 27:53
  Dr. Lee: If not anymore in this life, if things go as badly as they could, most assuredly in the next.
• 28:01
  Dr. Lee: So if we are trees that produce fruit, trees don't eat fruit Trees drink water and they soak up the nutrients from the ground and the sun.
• 28:14
  Dr. Lee: So God is the sun, and the Earth, and the living water.
• 28:18
  Dr. Lee: Mm, you like how I did that?
• 28:19
  Dr. Lee: The living water, Jesus, the Word.
• 28:22
  Dr. Lee: All of that is what we need to receive in order to love God.
• 28:27
  Dr. Lee: And by the way, loving God is willing His good, and He wants us to receive His love.
• 28:32
  Dr. Lee: One of the best ways to divinely direct your gifts is understanding that you receiving everything that God wants to give you is loving Him.
• 28:42
  Dr. Lee: You not blocking what God has for you is loving Him All right?
• 28:49
  Dr. Lee: Now, this is why this is important, because when we then get into the back half of First Corinthians and we read that love is patient, love is kind, I want you to hear this in two ways.
• 29:05
  Dr. Lee: So the first way I want you to hear this is we can tell if the way that you are expressing your gifts towards others is loving because look at how when you are in expression, when you are teaching, when you are coaching, when you are leading, when you are consoling, when you are giving or ministering or managing When you are practicing discernment and sharing what you see, are you being patient?
• 29:32
  Dr. Lee: Are you being kind?
• 29:34
  Dr. Lee: Are you honoring others?
• 29:37
  Dr. Lee: Are you self-seeking?
• 29:40
  Dr. Lee: Do you delight in the truth?
• 29:42
  Dr. Lee: Do, do you not keep a record?
• 29:45
  Dr. Lee: Do you not tie strings?
• 29:47
  Dr. Lee: Do, do you move with humility and not boast?
• 29:51
  Dr. Lee: If you're using your gifts that way, if you teach that way, if you judge that way, if you coach that way, you build that way, if you do those things, then that helps us see, yeah, okay, my formation, it's divinely directed because I'm doing this in the way that God tells me.
• 30:07
  Dr. Lee: This is how I know if I'm being loving.
• 30:10
  Dr. Lee: Now, here's the part that if you haven't gone,"Ugh," yet, you might How do you treat yourself?
• 30:18
  Dr. Lee: How do you love yourself and how do you perceive God's love of you?
• 30:25
  Dr. Lee: Do you perceive God as patient?
• 30:29
  Dr. Lee: And do you practice being patient towards yourself?
• 30:34
  Dr. Lee: Do you perceive God's kindness and do you practice leading yourself in a kind way?
• 30:40
  Dr. Lee: Do you perceive God as righteous and do you treat yourself in a righteous way?
• 30:46
  Dr. Lee: Do you perceive God's love as self-seeking or manipulative?
• 30:50
  Dr. Lee: And do you treat yourself that way?
• 30:51
  Dr. Lee: Do you manipulate yourself Do, do you delight in the truth of God's word?
• 30:58
  Dr. Lee: And do you tell the truth about yourself?
• 31:01
  Dr. Lee: Do you think God keeps a record of everything you've done in order to hold it against you or to praise you?
• 31:09
  Dr. Lee: Do you keep a record of everything you've done and use it to grade yourself?
• 31:14
  Dr. Lee: Now, I, don't want you to, like, create a scorecard here, okay?
• 31:19
  Dr. Lee: I, I do want you to think about this.
• 31:22
  Dr. Lee: If you don't believe that God is kind, and loving, and patient, and honorable, and isn't self-seeking, and like, if you don't believe that God is those things, then that's where you start because you have a distorted view of God.
• 31:38
  Dr. Lee: If you believe those things about God and you receive His love, you think you've received His love, and yet you don't act those ways toward yourself, you're not loving yourself.
• 31:50
  Dr. Lee: And so if you're not doing those two things, how do you express your gifts in a loving way?
• 31:57
  Dr. Lee: Now, there's one last piece to this, and that's the last part of this reading for today, and it's 1 Corinthians 13:8 through 12.
• 32:08
  Dr. Lee: And I'm gonna read that to you here.
• 32:10
  Dr. Lee: "Love never fails.
• 32:12
  Dr. Lee: If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing.
• 32:15
  Dr. Lee: If tongues, they will cease.
• 32:17
  Dr. Lee: If knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
• 32:20
  Dr. Lee: For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
• 32:27
  Dr. Lee: When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child.
• 32:33
  Dr. Lee: When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
• 32:36
  Dr. Lee: At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.
• 32:42
  Dr. Lee: At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
• 32:48
  Dr. Lee: So faith, hope, and love remain these three.
• 32:52
  Dr. Lee: But the greatest of these is love." Now, our gifts belong to our present partial human experience.
• 33:04
  Dr. Lee: Love endures eternally Paul right here is saying that we currently know in part.
• 33:12
  Dr. Lee: We can use all of these gifts in part, and we can do our best to use these in God's will and, and to use them in a way where we love Him first, and we love ourselves, and we love others.
• 33:22
  Dr. Lee: And even when we're genuinely gifted, even as we are genuinely gifted, and we are experienced, and we are trusted, and we are useful, our understanding, our ability to see and know everything, to fully participate in love remains partial.
• 33:40
  Dr. Lee: When we die and we get to meet God, that's when instead of looking in a dusky mirror where we can kind of only see what's happening, that's when Paul says we're gonna see it all.
• 33:56
  Dr. Lee: And I think that this scares a lot of people because For a lot of people, it makes them think,"Oh, I have to try harder.
• 34:01
  Dr. Lee: I have to try harder.
• 34:01
  Dr. Lee: I just have to try to know more." Y'all, we're never going to understand perfect love until after we die because that's when we are fully reunited, right?
• 34:13
  Dr. Lee: And we get glimpses of it while we're here.
• 34:16
  Dr. Lee: And I believe, this isn't what Paul's saying, this is fully Dr.
• 34:21
  Dr. Lee: Lee, so take it back and pray on it, but I believe that our gifts are a glimpse.
• 34:27
  Dr. Lee: I know when I am receiving God's love to the best of my ability and I am loving myself as much as I can, when I'm in those moments and I'm just really being patient and kind to myself because I'm receiving how God is patient and kind towards me, and then I turn that outward, I've seen what it does.
• 34:48
  Dr. Lee: I've seen how it softens hearts.
• 34:50
  Dr. Lee: I've seen how it makes light bulbs go off.
• 34:52
  Dr. Lee: I've seen how it can take the most incredibly difficult situation, the most hopeless of situations, and change them for good.
• 35:01
  Dr. Lee: And so your gifts brighten the space.
• 35:06
  Dr. Lee: Your gifts make it a little easier to see Your gifts are partial, and our knowledge around how they get used and how they are related to love remains partial, and that doesn't mean we don't try.
• 35:19
  Dr. Lee: It means we own our humanity, and we practice humility.
• 35:24
  Dr. Lee: We own what we do have the capacity to do, which is to love God and to love ourselves and to love others, and it's to do it imperfectly.
• 35:32
  Dr. Lee: Our capacity in our current state is to love God, love ourselves, and love others imperfectly.
• 35:38
  Dr. Lee: And every time we notice that we're doing it imperfectly, we have the ability to turn back towards perfect, which is God.
• 35:45
  Dr. Lee: We need to own that that is not the original design, that is the way in which our design carries out today.
• 35:52
  Dr. Lee: Instead of being insecure about it, and instead of going,"Oh my gosh, I have to try to be better so that..." No.
• 35:59
  Dr. Lee: You don't need to try to develop your gifts further if you're not going to direct them in a loving manner.
• 36:06
  Dr. Lee: All you're going to do is end up with more distortion and eventually, diminishment.
• 36:12
  Dr. Lee: So if the questions that you have been asking about your gifts and where God wants you to take these and, and what He wants you to be doing and the spaces He wants you to be entering into.
• 36:24
  Dr. Lee: If your questions have been,"What are my gifts?
• 36:26
  Dr. Lee: And how strong are they?
• 36:27
  Dr. Lee: And how do I get better at them?" Those questions are awesome.
• 36:31
  Dr. Lee: They are great questions to start with.
• 36:33
  Dr. Lee: Identification is helpful, and recognizing how developed they are and how they have been formed is helpful.
• 36:41
  Dr. Lee: And as you increase in your maturity by growing, we gotta, we, we get to start asking some different questions Who am I becoming as I use these gifts?
• 36:52
  Dr. Lee: Because ooh, ooh, what kind of fruit am I producing?
• 36:55
  Dr. Lee: Am I becoming someone who's more patient, more kind, more loving, more honorable, less self-seeking, more interested in truth, less interested in keeping a record, more humble, less prideful?
• 37:09
  Dr. Lee: Am I seeing the fruits of the spirit be produced?
• 37:13
  Dr. Lee: Am I becoming more disciplined and gentle?
• 37:16
  Dr. Lee: Am I seeing and experiencing more joy?
• 37:18
  Dr. Lee: We talked about that last week.
• 37:20
  Dr. Lee: How am I loving God, and how am I loving myself, and how am I loving other people through These gifts?
• 37:28
  Dr. Lee: The question I ask myself, and, and please hear me, I still don't ask this question as much as I hope to ask it one day, and it's a tough question.
• 37:40
  Dr. Lee: Is the way that I am showing up in my primary motivational gift increasingly resembling Christ?
• 37:47
  Dr. Lee: If the answer to that is no, then I, I, I might have an identification problem.
• 37:53
  Dr. Lee: I probably have more of a formation problem, and that's where we get to move from this fascination with giftedness and instead go to, let me look at the formation of the person carrying the gift.
• 38:05
  Dr. Lee: There are a lot of people who have done incredibly evil, harmful things on this planet who are so gifted, and if we look at how their gifts were formed, I bet you could see, oh, that was missing love, and that was missing love, and that was missing love, and that was missing love.
• 38:20
  Dr. Lee: So love is the key here.
• 38:21
  Dr. Lee: Without it, we have noise, and we have frivolity, and we have nothing.
• 38:29
  Dr. Lee: So Grow In your gifts is not gonna just be seven weeks of simply telling you what your gift is.
• 38:35
  Dr. Lee: We're gonna identify those gifts, but then we're really gonna dive deep into this formation, and you're not going to solve your formation problem.
• 38:43
  Dr. Lee: Like, you're not going to get to the end of these seven weeks and be like,"Ah, yes, I'm fully formed." Y'all, you're not even gonna get through those seven weeks and have a full formation plan.
• 38:53
  Dr. Lee: You're gonna understand how to approach formation so that you increase in divine direction and development, and you decrease in diminishment and distortion, and you're able to order all seven of your gifts in a more godly way, and you're able to really center yourself in your primary motivation and experience more joy, and you're able to produce more of that internal and external fruit.
• 39:14
  Dr. Lee: But y'all, the whole plan is not gonna be there we're looking in dirty mirrors.
• 39:21
  Dr. Lee: So we can see enough to know what to do next, and we can see enough through God's word to know where we are trying to end up.
• 39:30
  Dr. Lee: That's it So we're gonna look at your competence and your primary motivation, and one of the biggest things we're gonna talk about is that for some of you, the thing you're best at is not your primary gift.
• 39:45
  Dr. Lee: I know.
• 39:46
  Dr. Lee: I know.
• 39:47
  Dr. Lee: Guess what?
• 39:49
  Dr. Lee: The two things that I was more developed in when I started doing this work neither of them were my primary gift.
• 39:55
  Dr. Lee: So I'm gonna be talking about that more next week in our solo episode.
• 40:00
  Dr. Lee: And on Thursday, you're gonna hear from an incredible guest, LaTonya, and she's gonna talk about how her gifts were distorted in this way.
• 40:09
  Dr. Lee: And I think you If you are somebody who has given and given and given and given and served and tried and helped and led and done all the things, and then you ran out of your own assets, and you're like,"Well, now what?" If you are somebody who used your gifts in a distorted way until the point that you got burned out and resentful, that episode's for you.
• 40:28
  Dr. Lee: Okay?
• 40:29
  Dr. Lee: And next Tuesday, I'm gonna go way deeper into what if the thing you're best at isn't your primary gift.
• 40:37
  Dr. Lee: And again, come join Grow In Your Gifts, because I think, I think you'll really enjoy it.
• 40:41
  Dr. Lee: If you enjoyed this podcast, you are going to really enjoy Growing Your Gifts.
• 40:45
  Dr. Lee: All right?
• 40:46
  Dr. Lee: The, the program's linked down in the show notes.
• 40:48
  Dr. Lee: You can join through the 21st.
• 40:49
  Dr. Lee: I hope to see you inside.
• 40:51
  Dr. Lee: And I just wanna close in prayer, and it's a simple prayer today So just take a moment, take a breath.
• 40:59
  Dr. Lee: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
• 41:03
  Dr. Lee: God, thank you for this episode today.
• 41:06
  Dr. Lee: Thank you for guiding my words.
• 41:08
  Dr. Lee: Thank you for opening the heart of the person listening.
• 41:11
  Dr. Lee: I pray that you will develop what you've given us, you will help us to turn towards you, and to allow you to direct our growth plan, that you will show us where things have become distorted over these next several days, that you will teach us to use our gifts for the good of the people that you've entrusted to us, that you've made us responsible for, or that we've made ourselves responsible for And I pray that you let the way that we carry your gifts increasingly look like your Son, Jesus.
• 41:44
  Dr. Lee: Help us to resemble Him more and more each and every day.
• 41:48
  Dr. Lee: And I pray all this in Jesus' name.
• 41:51
  Dr. Lee: Amen.
• 41:52
  Dr. Lee: All right, y'all, we'll see you next time.