What Are Spiritual Gifts?
Let me tell you something that might challenge everything you were taught in Sunday school: spiritual gifts are not special powers handed out by God to a select few. They are the natural expressions of your divine nature. They are the fingerprint of the Holy Spirit already alive within you, waiting to be recognized.
I spent decades sitting in churches where spiritual gifts were treated like some kind of cosmic lottery. “You get prophecy. You get healing. You? Sorry, you get ‘helps.’” As if God were handing out party favors with varying degrees of importance. That theology did real damage. It made people feel left out, unworthy, or worse—terrified of their own spiritual experiences.
Here’s what I know after 30+ years of walking this path: every single person has spiritual gifts. Not because they earned them, not because they said the right prayer, and not because they belong to the right denomination. You have them because you are made of the same stuff God is. You are an extension of the Divine. And the gifts of the Spirit are simply what happens when you stop blocking that truth.
The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” Notice he didn’t say “to some” or “to the especially holy.” He said to each one. This is not about being chosen. This is about being awake.
In A Course in Miracles, the same truth is expressed even more directly: you are not separate from God, and therefore every quality of God is already within you. Your gifts aren’t something you receive from the outside. They are something you uncover as you peel away the layers of fear, shame, and false identity that have kept you from knowing who you really are.
If you’ve ever felt a sudden knowing about something you couldn’t logically know, if you’ve ever placed your hands on someone and felt energy move through you, if you’ve ever spoken words that you didn’t plan but that landed with perfect precision in someone’s heart—that was the Spirit working through you. That was your gift in action. And it’s time to stop being afraid of it.
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: A Metaphysical Understanding
The Bible contains several lists of spiritual gifts, primarily in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, Romans 12:6-8, and Ephesians 4:11. Traditionally, the church has categorized these into tidy little boxes. But when you read scripture through a metaphysical lens—the way the mystics have always read it—something far more expansive and beautiful reveals itself.
Let’s walk through the core gifts, not as theological abstractions, but as living energies that are available to you right now.
The Word of Wisdom
This isn’t intellectual cleverness. This is the ability to access divine intelligence—a knowing that transcends the rational mind. When you are aligned with Spirit, wisdom doesn’t come from studying harder. It arrives fully formed, often in the quiet of meditation or in a flash of insight during an ordinary moment. This is the Holy Spirit speaking as you, not just to you.
I experience this almost daily in my channeled healing sessions. Words come through me that I didn’t think or plan. They carry a precision and a power that my human mind alone could never produce. That’s the word of wisdom in action.
The Word of Knowledge
This is the spiritual gift of knowing things you have no earthly way of knowing. In metaphysical terms, it’s an opening of the third eye—an ability to perceive information directly from the field of divine consciousness. You might suddenly know that someone is carrying a specific pain, or receive a name, a date, or an image that carries meaning for another person.
This gift is deeply connected to your spiritual awakening. As the veil of ego thins, your access to divine intelligence naturally expands. You don’t have to try to develop this gift. You have to stop trying so hard and start listening.
The Gift of Faith
True faith isn’t believing hard enough despite the evidence. It’s the deep, unshakeable knowing that God is real, that love is the only power, and that you are held. This is the kind of faith that A Course in Miracles points to when it says, “If you knew who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.”
This gift of faith is what allows spiritual healing to work. Not because you’re manipulating reality with your belief, but because you’re aligning with the truth that God’s love is already whole and complete. There is nothing to fix—only illusions to release.
Gifts of Healing
Notice the plural: gifts. There are many expressions of healing. Physical. Emotional. Spiritual. Generational. Healing is not about curing a disease through willpower or positive thinking. True spiritual healing happens when the presence of God moves through you and restores someone’s awareness of their own wholeness.
I’ve been a channel for healing for decades. What I’ve learned is that the healer doesn’t heal. The healer creates the conditions—through surrender, through love, through absolute trust—for the Holy Spirit to do the healing. If you feel called to this gift, your first job is not to learn techniques. Your first job is to surrender to God completely.
The Working of Miracles
A Course in Miracles defines a miracle as a “shift in perception.” That’s the most accurate definition I’ve ever encountered. Miracles aren’t about supernatural spectacles. They happen when you shift from fear to love, from separation to oneness, from judgment to compassion. When you operate from this place, what looks “miraculous” to the world is simply the natural outcome of an aligned life.
When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:10 that some are given “the working of miracles,” he’s describing people whose presence alone can shift the energy of a room. People who, by their very being, create openings for others to heal, transform, and awaken. You’ve met people like this. You might be one of these people.
Prophecy
Prophecy is not fortune-telling. It’s not predicting the end of the world. In its truest form, prophecy is the ability to speak truth that comes directly from the Divine. It’s the gift of being a clear channel for God’s voice. The prophet doesn’t speak for God as if God were absent. The prophet speaks as an instrument of God’s living presence.
This is one of the gifts Paul urged the Corinthians to desire above all others (1 Corinthians 14:1), because prophecy builds up, encourages, and comforts. It’s not about power. It’s about service.
Discerning of Spirits
This is the ability to perceive the spiritual energy behind a person, a situation, or a teaching. Is it rooted in love or fear? Is it from the Holy Spirit or from ego? This gift is essential in our spiritual lives because not every “spiritual” experience is aligned with truth. Discernment is your inner compass, and it becomes sharper the more you learn to hear God’s voice.
Speaking in Tongues and Interpretation
These are perhaps the most misunderstood of all spiritual gifts. Metaphysically understood, speaking in tongues is the movement of divine energy through the body expressed as sound—a prayer language that bypasses the logical mind and speaks directly from Spirit. The interpretation of tongues is the ability to translate that energy into words and meaning that others can receive.
Whether or not you speak in tongues in the traditional sense, you have likely experienced moments where Spirit moved through you in ways your mind couldn’t explain. Trust those moments. They are real.
How to Discover Your Spiritual Gifts
I’m going to tell you something that will save you from a lot of wasted time: you don’t need a spiritual gifts test to discover your gifts. Those online quizzes can be a fun starting point, but they’ll never tell you what the Holy Spirit can reveal in five minutes of genuine stillness.
Your spiritual gifts are already active. The question isn’t “What are my gifts?” The question is “Where am I already being used by Spirit, and where am I blocking it?”
Here’s how to begin the discovery:
Pay Attention to What Comes Naturally
What do people consistently come to you for? What can you do with ease that others seem to struggle with? Do strangers open up to you about their deepest pain? Do you sense things about people before they tell you? Can you walk into a room and immediately feel the energy? These are not coincidences. These are your gifts showing themselves.
Notice What Gives You Energy
Your spiritual gifts don’t drain you—they fill you up. Even when the work is hard, when you’re operating in your gifts, there’s a sense of being carried, of being in the flow. If you feel depleted after serving in a particular way, that might not be your gift. But if you feel alive, expanded, and deeply fulfilled, you’re probably right in the center of it.
Get Still and Ask
This is the most powerful method of all. Go into meditation. Get quiet. And ask the Holy Spirit directly: “What gifts have you given me? How do you want to use me?” Then listen. Not with your mind, but with your heart. The answer will come—maybe not in that moment, but it will come. It might arrive as a dream, a synchronicity, a conversation, or a sudden inner knowing. The Spiritual Awakening Circle is a beautiful space to practice this kind of deep listening in community.
Look at Your Life Story
Your wounds often point directly to your gifts. The person who has walked through addiction and come out the other side often carries the gift of compassion and the ability to hold space for others in their darkest hour. The person who survived religious trauma may carry the gift of prophecy—the ability to speak truth that sets others free from the same lies. Your pain was never pointless. It was preparation.
Signs You Have a Spiritual Gift
Many people are walking around with powerful spiritual gifts and don’t even know it. They’ve been taught that spiritual experiences are “just their imagination” or that only ordained clergy can operate in the gifts of the Spirit. That’s a lie, and it’s one I’ve spent my entire career dismantling.
Here are the signs that you have a spiritual gift that’s ready to be activated:
You Feel Things Deeply
You’ve always been “too sensitive.” You absorb other people’s emotions. Crowded places overwhelm you. You cry at things that don’t seem to affect others. This isn’t a weakness—it’s the gift of empathy, and it’s often the foundation of healing and prophetic gifts.
You Experience Unexplainable Knowing
You’ve had moments where you just knew something was going to happen before it did. You’ve thought of someone moments before they called. You’ve had dreams that later came true. These are expressions of the gifts of knowledge and prophecy working through you, even if you’ve never been trained or recognized.
People Are Drawn to You for Comfort
Strangers tell you their life stories in the grocery store. Friends call you first when they’re in crisis. People feel better after being around you, even if you didn’t say anything particularly profound. You carry the gift of healing presence. The Holy Spirit radiates through you, and people can feel it.
You’ve Had Mystical Experiences
Visions. Out-of-body experiences. Feeling the presence of God so strongly that you wept or laughed uncontrollably. Hearing an inner voice that speaks with love and authority. Experiencing a dark night of the soul that broke you open and remade you. These are not signs of mental illness. These are signs that you are deeply, powerfully, spiritually gifted.
You Feel Called to Something Greater
There’s a restlessness in you that no career, relationship, or achievement can satisfy. You know you’re meant for something, but you can’t quite name it. This longing is itself a gift—it’s the Holy Spirit calling you into your purpose. Don’t ignore it. Follow it. It will lead you home.
How to Develop and Use Your Spiritual Gifts
Discovering your gifts is only the beginning. The real work—and the real joy—comes in developing them and putting them into service. Here’s what I’ve learned about this process:
Commit to a Daily Spiritual Practice
Your gifts need a container, and that container is your daily practice. Meditation, prayer, journaling, scripture study—whatever connects you to the Divine. Without this, your gifts will remain unpredictable and inconsistent. With it, they become reliable, powerful tools for service.
I cannot overstate this: the single most important thing you can do to develop your spiritual gifts is to show up daily in silence with God. Not talking. Not asking. Just being present. This is where the Holy Spirit teaches you, refines you, and prepares you.
Find a Spiritual Community
Your gifts are not meant to be developed in isolation. They are meant to be practiced, tested, and refined in community. Find people who see your gifts, who challenge you to grow, and who hold you accountable. The Spiritual Awakening Circle exists for exactly this purpose—it’s a safe space where you can explore your gifts without judgment.
1 Corinthians 12:14-20 makes this beautifully clear: “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many… The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’” Your gifts only reach their full potential when they interact with the gifts of others.
Practice Surrender
The biggest block to your spiritual gifts is your ego’s need to control the outcome. When you channel healing, you don’t get to decide what gets healed. When you speak prophetically, you don’t get to edit God’s message to make it more palatable. Your job is to get out of the way and let the Spirit move.
This requires a radical level of trust. It means being willing to look foolish, to say things that don’t make sense to your mind, and to follow promptings that defy logic. This is what it means to let go and let God.
Serve Without Agenda
Your gifts were given for one purpose: love. Not to build your brand, not to prove your spirituality, and not to gain followers or influence. The moment you use your gifts for personal gain, you’ve disconnected from the Source that powers them.
As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
Use your gifts freely. Give them away. That’s what they’re for.
Get Mentorship
Every gift benefits from guidance. Find someone who has walked the path before you—a spiritual teacher, a mentor, a guide who can help you navigate the challenges that come with spiritual development. Developing gifts like prophecy, healing, and discernment without guidance can be disorienting and even destabilizing. You don’t have to do this alone. In fact, you shouldn’t. Seeking a spiritual mentor can accelerate your growth exponentially.
Spiritual Gifts in A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles doesn’t use the traditional language of “spiritual gifts,” but make no mistake—it teaches about them extensively. The Course reframes gifts as the natural extensions of who you are when you remove the blocks to love’s presence.
Every Gift Is Already Yours
ACIM Workbook Lesson 166 states: “I am entrusted with the gifts of God.” This is a radical departure from the traditional view that God distributes gifts selectively. The Course teaches that every gift of God belongs to every child of God. Nothing has been withheld from you. The only question is whether you are willing to accept what has already been given.
This is the fundamental shift that changes everything. You don’t pray for gifts. You pray to recognize the gifts that are already yours.
The Holy Spirit as Your Internal Teacher
In the Course, the Holy Spirit functions as your inner guide—the voice for God within your own mind. This aligns perfectly with Paul’s teaching that the Spirit distributes gifts “as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11). The Holy Spirit knows exactly what gifts you need to fulfill your function, and it activates them as you become willing to receive them.
The key teaching from ACIM is that your willingness is everything. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to be used. The ACIM Workbook is one of the most powerful tools for cultivating this willingness.
Miracles as Your Natural Right
The very first principle in A Course in Miracles states: “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.” This means that the “gift of miracles” isn’t about one person being more powerful than another. It’s about the universal truth that when you align with love, miracles—shifts in perception from fear to love—happen naturally.
You don’t perform miracles. You allow them. And you allow them by doing the one thing the Course asks of you again and again: choosing love over fear in every moment.
Common Spiritual Gifts and Their Meanings
Let me break down some of the most commonly experienced spiritual gifts in practical terms that you can actually relate to your own life:
The Gift of Healing
What it looks like: People feel better after spending time with you. You may feel heat, tingling, or energy moving through your hands. You’re naturally drawn to holistic health, energy work, or helping professions. Animals and children are drawn to you.
How it works: You carry the frequency of wholeness. When someone is in your presence, their own healing intelligence is activated. You don’t “do” the healing—you hold the space for it. Channeled healing sessions are an example of this gift in its fully developed form.
The Gift of Prophecy
What it looks like: You often know what someone is going to say before they say it. You receive messages—through inner words, images, or feelings—that carry truth for others. You feel compelled to speak up even when it’s uncomfortable.
How it works: You are a clear channel for divine truth. Your ego has thinned enough that the Holy Spirit can speak through you without excessive distortion. This gift requires courage, because prophetic truth often challenges the status quo.
The Gift of Empathy
What it looks like: You feel other people’s emotions in your own body. You can walk into a room and immediately sense the mood. You’ve always been called “too sensitive.”
How it works: Your energy field is highly permeable, allowing you to receive information from others at an emotional and energetic level. This gift is the foundation of compassion and is closely related to the practice of spiritual healing.
The Gift of Teaching
What it looks like: You naturally explain complex spiritual concepts in ways people can understand. Others frequently say “I never thought of it that way” after talking to you. You’re drawn to studying, synthesizing, and sharing truth.
How it works: The Holy Spirit works through your mind to translate divine wisdom into human language. This is one of the gifts that Paul specifically identified in Ephesians 4:11 as essential for the growth of the body of Christ.
The Gift of Discernment
What it looks like: You can tell when someone isn’t being authentic. You have a strong inner “lie detector.” You immediately sense whether a spiritual teaching is rooted in love or fear.
How it works: The Holy Spirit has sharpened your ability to perceive the energy behind appearances. This gift protects you and others from spiritual deception, and it’s particularly valuable in an age where spiritual teachings abound but not all are rooted in truth.
The Gift of Intercession
What it looks like: You feel pulled to pray for specific people, often without knowing why. You wake up in the middle of the night with someone on your heart. Prayer isn’t a duty for you—it’s a calling.
How it works: You are a bridge between the human and the Divine. When you pray for others, you’re not begging God to intervene—you’re holding the vision of their wholeness and connecting with the Holy Spirit on their behalf.
The Gift of Encouragement
What it looks like: Your words lift people up. You can see potential in others that they can’t see in themselves. People leave conversations with you feeling more hopeful and empowered.
How it works: The Holy Spirit speaks through you to remind people of their divine nature. In a world that constantly tells people they’re not enough, your gift is a counter-voice—the voice of God saying, “You are loved. You are worthy. You are more powerful than you know.”
Frequently Asked Questions About Spiritual Gifts
What are the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit?
The traditional seven gifts of the Holy Spirit—wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2-3)—come from the Catholic and mainline Christian traditions. Metaphysically, these represent seven dimensions of spiritual awareness that open as you deepen your relationship with God. They are not separate gifts given to separate people; they are capacities within every soul, activated through surrender and spiritual practice.
What are the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Bible?
The nine gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Paul presented these as manifestations of one Spirit working through many people. They are not rankings or hierarchies—they are diverse expressions of the same divine love.
Can anyone have spiritual gifts?
Absolutely. Scripture is clear: “To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given” (1 Corinthians 12:7). A Course in Miracles goes even further, teaching that every gift of God belongs to every child of God. You don’t need to be ordained, baptized in a particular tradition, or spiritually “advanced.” You already have these gifts. The work is in uncovering and accepting them.
How do I know what my spiritual gift is?
Start by looking at what comes naturally to you, what gives you energy, and what people consistently recognize in you. Then get still and ask the Holy Spirit directly. Your spiritual awakening journey will progressively reveal your gifts as you release the blocks of fear and ego that have kept them hidden.
Are spiritual gifts the same as natural talents?
Not exactly. Natural talents (artistic ability, athletic skill, intellectual capacity) are human-level abilities. Spiritual gifts operate on a deeper level—they are expressions of divine consciousness moving through you. That said, your natural talents often point toward your spiritual gifts. A naturally empathic person may carry the spiritual gift of healing. A born communicator may carry the gift of prophecy or teaching. Your talents and gifts work together.
Can you lose your spiritual gifts?
No. Your gifts are permanent because they come from God, and God doesn’t take back what was freely given. However, you can block or suppress your gifts through fear, unhealed trauma, addiction, or persistent ego identification. The gifts don’t disappear—they go dormant. They reactivate the moment you return to willingness and surrender. If you feel disconnected from your gifts, a channeled healing session can help clear the blockages.
What does A Course in Miracles say about spiritual gifts?
ACIM teaches that you are “entrusted with the gifts of God” (Workbook Lesson 166) and that nothing real has been withheld from you. The Course doesn’t list specific gifts the way Paul does, but it teaches that miracles, healing, true perception, and holy communication are all natural abilities that return as you release the ego’s grip. Your gifts aren’t earned—they’re remembered.
How do spiritual gifts relate to the fruits of the Spirit?
The fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—Galatians 5:22-23) are the evidence that you are connected to the Holy Spirit. The gifts are how that connection expresses through you. Think of it this way: the fruits are the soil, and the gifts are the flowers that grow from it. Without the fruits, the gifts become ego-driven performances. With them, your gifts become genuine channels of God’s love.
Your Gifts Are Waiting
I want to leave you with this: you are not an accident. You are not broken. You are not unworthy of God’s power moving through your life. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not reserved for pastors, priests, or spiritual celebrities. They are your birthright as a child of God.
The world doesn’t need more people sitting on their gifts. The world needs you—awake, activated, and willing to be used by the Holy Spirit for the healing of all.
If you’re ready to discover and develop your spiritual gifts in a community that sees you, honors your journey, and walks with you into the fullness of who you are, I invite you to join the Spiritual Awakening Circle. This is where we do the real work—together.
And if you’re feeling the call to go deeper right now, book a private session with Mark. Let the Holy Spirit speak directly to your gifts, your blocks, and your next step. You deserve that clarity. The God Immersion Program is also a powerful 10-week journey for activating your spiritual gifts in the context of a deeper relationship with the Divine. Explore all of Mark’s programs and offerings to find the path that calls to you.
The gifts are already yours. It’s time to unwrap them.