If it’s not a Spiritual Gift it’s a Spiritual Discipline

I have to be honest with you.

I don’t have the gift of hospitality.

I know that’s a strange confession for a pastor to make. But it’s true. If you knock on my door unannounced, I will welcome you. I’ll make you a cup of tea. I’ll be warm, I’ll be kind, I’ll be genuinely glad to see you. But I will not experience profound spiritual joy. That’s not me being rude — that’s me being honest.

Some people absolutely light up when someone shows up at their door. They don’t just cope with it; they thrive on it. Their home is always ready, their kettle is always on, and you can practically feel the love radiating through the door before it even opens. For them, hospitality isn’t an effort. It’s a gift.

For me, it’s a discipline.

And that distinction — simple as it sounds — has changed everything about how I understand the Christian life.

The Line That Changes Everything

Here it is, as plainly as I can say it:

If it’s not a spiritual gift, it’s a spiritual discipline.

That’s it. That’s the insight. But don’t let the simplicity fool you — there’s enormous freedom buried in that sentence.

The New Testament gives us multiple lists of spiritual gifts. From Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4, we have somewhere around 20 gifts, and there are more — teaching, prophecy, encouragement, mercy, giving, healing, administration, hospitality, apostleship, and more. The apostle Paul tells us that every believer has received at least one. Peter goes on to say:

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” — 1 Peter 4:10

Not might have received. Not could receive if you try hard enough. Have received. It’s done. The Spirit distributes them as he sees fit: “All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.” (1 Corinthians 12:11)

But here’s what we rarely talk about: most of us don’t have most of the gifts. And we were never supposed to.

The Pressure We Put on Ourselves

One of the quiet burdens many Christians carry is the pressure to be good at everything the Bible calls us to. We’re all called to give generously. We’re all called to have faith. We’re all called to show mercy, to encourage one another, to welcome the stranger. So when we find those things hard, we assume something’s wrong with us.

The person sitting next to you in church who weeps every time someone shares a struggle — who runs toward pain rather than away from it, who always seems to know exactly what to say to the broken-hearted — they have the gift of mercy. When they show compassion, the Spirit of God is actively at work through them. It flows supernaturally. It costs them very little.

For others of us — and I’m putting my hand up here — showing that level of compassion takes real effort. Not because we don’t care. Not because we’re spiritually immature. But because mercy isn’t our gift. For us, being merciful is a discipline we have to choose, a muscle we have to intentionally exercise.

And that is perfectly fine.

The distinction frees us from a subtle but crushing form of comparison. You stop asking “why can’t I be more like them?” and start asking “what has God actually given me, and how do I grow in what He hasn’t?”

Gifts Are Supernatural; Disciplines Are Intentional

A spiritual gift, when it’s operating, has a quality of ease and fruitfulness to it that goes beyond natural ability. It produces joy. It produces results that surprise even the person using it. When a person with the gift of encouragement speaks into your life, something shifts — not because they’re naturally clever with words, but because the Holy Spirit is working through a vessel that’s been fitted for it.

Jesus himself modelled this. Though fully God, he chose not to cling to the advantages of his divinity. He did ministry as a human being, dependent on the Spirit — led by the Spirit, filled by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit. “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.” (John 5:19)

He is our model. And the gifts of the Spirit are the same means by which God has chosen to continue the ministry of Jesus through his church.

But a spiritual discipline is different. A discipline is a practice we build into our lives — not because it flows naturally, but because Christlikeness requires it. I may not have the gift of mercy, but I am called to be merciful. I may not have the gift of giving, but I am called to be generous, tithe and contribute. I may not have the gift of faith at the level someone else carries it, but I am called to trust God.

So I practise.

I practise mercy by putting myself in situations where I have to choose it. I practise generosity by giving even when I don’t feel the supernatural pull to do so. I practise faith by speaking God’s promises out loud when my feelings tell a different story.

Paul says it clearly: “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 14:1) There’s room to desire more. There’s room to grow. But the foundation is this: know what you’ve been given, and build the rest into your life with intention.

Why This Matters for How You See Others

When my three sons were younger, I noticed they each had entirely different strengths.

Same family. Entirely different gifts.

If I’d pushed each of them to be more like the others, I’d have crushed what was unique about them. What they needed wasn’t to be rounded off into a homogenous version of “the ideal person.” They needed space to discover and develop what they actually had.

The church is no different. Paul’s picture in 1 Corinthians 12 is a body — and a body doesn’t need every part to do every function. It needs each part to do its function well. When the part that sees tries to do the work of the part that hears, you don’t get a better body. You get a confused one.

So when you see someone whose mercy flows effortlessly, don’t envy them. Celebrate them. They’re filling a gap that you were never designed to fill. And find your gap — the one that only you can fill.

What to Do With This

Two things.

First, discover your gifts. Pay attention to where you experience joy and ease in serving others, where things seem to work supernaturally, where people confirm that God is using you in a particular way. Ask God to show you. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has graciously given us.” (1 Corinthians 2:12) You have been given something. The Spirit wants to help you understand what it is.

Second, name your disciplines. Look honestly at the things you’re not naturally gifted in but are still called to as a follower of Jesus. Don’t be ashamed of them. Build them into your life with intention. The Spirit will meet you in the discipline just as he meets others in the gift.

You are not a half-finished version of the person in the next row. You are a gift machine — naturally gifted, shaped by experience, and supernaturally equipped to do the specific part of God’s work that only you can do.

But the parts that aren’t gifts? Don’t abandon them. Discipline them.

That’s not a lesser way to live the Christian life. That’s maturity.

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This post is drawn from Empowered: Discovering and Developing Your Spiritual Gifts by Paul Benger. Available on Amazon.