 to show and no better day than to start that today. I'm Angela Madden and I'm joined by Corey Langford and we are your hosts for Hope Today. Today, Corey, I think we have a phenomenal show prepared and I think our guests, our hosts, our audience, all of us are gonna just glean a whole lot from today's interview. Yes, Angela, this is gonna get really into some deep questions and some mysteries that a lot of the church has been experiencing, especially when it comes to spiritual gifting. And who am I? What am I supposed to be doing for the kingdom? How is God using me? And have I been utilizing that and governing that and stewarding that correctly? Has somebody maybe said something about my personality that isn't accurate to what God really wants me to do? And that's something I think a lot of people are in the wrong positions because somebody out of ignorance, and a lot of times even scriptural ignorance, as I was reading through this book, Andy Reese's new book, The Spiritual Gifts Blueprint, which is phenomenal. He'll be joining us soon. This wonderful book really scripturally goes into and breaks down how we come to the foundation or understanding of this book. So I'm excited. I know you have all kinds of spiritual gifts. Girl, listen, listen, I feel like truly the question of spiritual gifts and purpose, that's always at the forefront of our conversations. That's always what we're thinking about. And I'm excited to kind of discuss and figure out how is it that we can discover our own spiritual gifts? And how does this help us to navigate our life and to know if we're operating in our purpose, our God-given purpose? Right, exactly. Because one thing that Andy talks about in the book is the misconception and understanding of personality versus the actual gift. So a lot of times people can feel like, hey, I have this personality, therefore I'm this kind of gifting. And that's not always the case. So we're gonna go into that a little bit more. So listen, I have a question for you. Are you doing what God created you to do? After all, God has gifted each of us with many talents and a purpose for our lives. But for many of us, finding that purpose and living it out can be a real challenge. Founder and president of Freedom Prayer, Andy Reese is our next guest and he's written a book called The Spiritual Gifts Blueprint. He joins us now to help us better understand how we can determine our spiritual gifting and live out our plans God has for us. Andy, welcome to Hope Today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Cory and Angela. Thank you, it's an honor to be here. Absolutely. Listen, for the time we have, we have to get into this book. We have some wonderful questions for you. But first, first to start it off, listen. The Burning Plane. That introduction about how God spoke to you. Listen, can you talk about that first experience that was the initial prompt to God bringing you into this world of understanding spiritual gifts? Talk about the Burning Plane. Sure, sure. I was being a young, I was a young elder which was an oxymoron, but I was a moron to say yes to being an elder at 32. And I was getting on a small plane, a twin prop so you know it was a lot of years ago. And I was basically being a brat with God. I said, what am I supposed to do? I've been invited to go full-time ministry in a church, but my engineering career is just taking off and I love doing that. And I said, I need answers. You know, I need you, you know, why are you, you know, I don't know what I said, but God just smiled, I'm sure. And we got on this airplane and we're going along and God began to share Ephesians 2-10 with me. I'm His workmanship. I'm created in Christ Jesus for good works. The Father's prepared those beforehand. Your job is easy, just walk in those works. And I'm like, but, but, but you know, I had all the butts and all of a sudden the woman across the aisle yells, the plane is on fire, the plane is on fire. And of course we, I looked out the window across the aisle and of course my whole side of the plane leaned to her side of the plane. So the whole plane went, you know, like that. And sure enough, there was flame shooting out of the engine and people were screaming and crying. And I'm sitting there just, I'm not a screamer or a crier, but I'm a fix it dad, but there was nothing I could fix, you know, and so I was just, and the captain pulls the curtain back, walks back, looks out the window and goes, oh, that word. And you don't want the captain to say that at a time like this. So anyway, God said to me, I have a book written about you too. I was bitchy because Jesus had a whole book. It was easy for him to know what he's doing. And he said, I have a book written about you too, but I wouldn't tell you because you'd go do it. I want to do it with you. By the way, in that book, it's not written you're gonna die today. And I was just like, and not get hurt either, right? You know, it's just that thing, well, we landed in flames and everything. And I sat on the runway and God literally laid out the framework for this book while I sat on the edge of the runway so many years ago. And I slowly put it together and taught it for a number of years in different settings. A lot of Lipscomb kids, probably two or 300 Lipscomb kids were taught it. And in each case, their homework was to tell me how it went. And in each case, they said, I know who I am. This is crazy. Why is this so easy? You can help me find my spiritual gifting with the two questions. Oh my gosh. So anyway, so that's been fun. Wow. So this traumatic experience on this plane, you already have an argument with God getting on to the plane and then boom, this moment happens and God tells you, don't worry, I got a book written about you. And by the way, you're not gonna die in this plane. So it's like, he's not worried about that at all. So you go on to this journey, he's lays out this framework. So let's get into this. What are these two primary questions that are so, so invigorating to for people to know who they are in Christ? Sure. Well, let me just say briefly that we have taken various, what we call gift lists in our ignorance and lump them all together into this big pot. And it's like having a shelf with food and cleaning products and clothing. And we've just put everything on the same shelf. And Paul goes to the Corinthians, I think in the Greek it says you idiots. But anyway, it goes to the Corinthians. Look guys, you've got it wrong. And he then separates the things we call spiritual gifts onto four separate shelves. He says there is a, and it's an interesting Greek word I don't have time to get into, but there's a distribution of charisma gifts. And those are the seven in Romans 12. Those are the who you are. There's a distribution of ministries, what you do with who you are. And that's totally described in Ephesians four. Jesus laid out, he is, and one Jesus, he says, just distribution of gifts, one spirit, ministries, one Jesus, distributions of energize, it's causing things to work together, one father. And oh, by the way, the stuff you're all concerned about, tongues, prophecy, those things, never called spiritual gifts in scripture, not even once. Oh my gosh. So he says, by the way, those are power tools for you to use using your gifting in the ministry Jesus has for you. When you get stuck, I'll give you a word of knowledge. I'll give you tongue, I'll give you what you need to do what you need. And when you put them on the right shelves, everything becomes easy. Everything becomes straightforward. And so the question you asked was, what are the two questions you asked? Well, there's three speaking gifts and three serving gifts. So with two questions, you can throw yourself into the speaking or serving box. So question one is, and you gotta kind of play act it out here, but question one is, so the city council also has somebody come and talk at Nashville, 40 council people, blah, blah, blah. They haven't come on Friday. It's Wednesday, the person on Friday canceled. Would you be willing to give a talk on something interesting to the council on Friday? Now, if your first thought is, no, no, not only no, but H no, I'm not gonna do that. And all your friends say it'll ruin your life. Then your primary gifting is in the serving area, not in the speaking area. But even with some nervousness, you go, I could do that. And your friends say, yeah, let's make sure it's really good. Then your primary gifting area is in the speaking. Then you just begin to focus there and there's three serving, one who serves, one who gives, and one who shows mercy. There's three speaking, prophecy, teaching, and encouragement. And you have an arc. If you look at the back of the book, you'll see a circle there that lays all that out. There's a little colored circle and you have an arc in that circle. And as you begin to say, Jesus, what do you want me to do? Varieties of ministries, I want Jesus. Jesus, what would you like me to do? You naturally, supernaturally, begin to walk with Jesus into the fullness of your gifting. And it comes from experience, not taking a test. Because you are so unique, no test can give you what experience with Jesus can give you. And when you're using your gifting in the ministry Jesus has for you, the Father causes all things to work together for good because you love Him. And you're called according to His purpose. What's His purpose? Using your gifting in the ministry Jesus has for you. It's simple, you know? And when you see it that way, you go, oh, this is conceptually incredibly easy. I can do this. And that's what all the students said. They said, I can do this. Wow. So that's how it came about. That is so profound, Andy, in its simplicity. And I think that is gonna help so many people. You mentioned about Paul talking about the gifts and how he tells us to earnestly seek these things, you know? And when I hear that, I think of discernment or words of knowledge. But you said those are available to us at any time. Can you explain to us, if I'm a person and I just heard what you said, and I think, okay, well, I'm a serving. I've got that serving gift. And I know that it's mercy, okay? What does it look like in those moments to ask and receive one of those gifts? Give us an example. Okay, so I'm not exactly sure of your question, but let's say the person says, I know that my primary area is one who shows mercy. That, you know, my friends would say, oh yeah, that describes you to a T. So now I'm in a, there's been a tornado ripped through downtown Nashville. And I'm helping people, I'm comforting them. I'm saying, this is gonna be okay and I'll help you get help and all that. And I'm not sure what to say. I'm not sure, and all of a sudden, I'm saying things that are better than I could ever say them. And God is giving me words of knowledge. I say, you seem very, very distraught. Are you missing something? Did you lose something? And it's, oh, I lost my, you know, I lost my jewelry box. And you say, let's look for it. And somehow you know where to look. And those are the power tools that God uses because you need power tools. You need tongues, you need prophecy, you need interpretation of tongues. Those are the three basic power tools. You need words of knowledge, words of wisdom. And, oh, what's the other one? Well, anyway, I have to just space it out. Words of knowledge, words of wisdom and the other speaking one. And then you need faith, healing and miracles. So the top categories, you change the laws of nature. The second category is you know something you shouldn't know, but you know it. The bottom category is you're saying things that are better than you could ever say them. And tongues is the basic starter set and prophecy. You see in the book of Acts, when the spirit fell, they began to speak in tongues. Because tongues flows out of my spirit, bypasses my mind and out into the world. Jesus says, out of your belly will flow rivers of living water, by this he spoke of the spirit. Tongues is an expression of that river. And it teaches your mind to be the steward, not the master. Your spirit is the master. Your mind, will and emotions are the steward and your body is the slave. But we as Christians, we make our mind the master. Exegesis and hermeneutics become the master. And Paul calls those people psychicos Christians, psychological mind Christians. He says, no, you need to be a pneumaticos Christian, a spiritual Christian. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 says concerning pneumaticos, the same word he used when he says, this is the kind of Christian you should be. Here's the structure that you live in. So it gets crazy interesting when you see that. Wow, Andy, this is really deep in there. And I know it's not enough time to really, really take it all in, but I wanted to ask this. You had broken down some things because you had said something and quote, you said the church has a problem that got between God's probable intent and our actual spiritual gifts. And you had broken down the different categories of denominations. And some, if you're in this denomination, they don't really believe this heavily in prophecy and speaking of tongues. And you're over here, they believe in a different aspect. So for the viewer who's listening at home right now, how do they begin to approach through a God intended spiritual perspective, how to begin to let God say, this is who you are versus someone else or versus falling into their personality strength, but who God really sees them to be? Yeah, and personal and gifting normally don't conflict. They support each other, but your gifting is at the core of your spirit, whereas your personality is in your soul, your mind, your will and your emotions. Your gifting has to flow out of your spirit. Everything in your spirit has to flow in that river that flows out through your mind, your will and your emotions and out into the world. And so you train your mind to discern the flow of the spirit, to understand it. And you're gonna make mistakes. You just get another take. God doesn't care about mistakes. God cares about your heart, your willingness to say, God, I'll go where you send me to go. I'll say what you want me to say. I'll be who you want me to be. I'll make mistakes. Thank you, God, that you don't count those against me. In fact, mistakes, if a child is learning how to ride a bike and they fall, you don't go, you idiot, you go, good job. Good job, you are so brave. And that's what God does to us when we just say, I feel like I might should say this. We don't have to understand the manifestations. And remember the 12 things in Romans, in First Corinthians 12, or the nine things are called manifestations of the spirit. Never called gifts, the church has it wrong. And so we've got to go back and read it 10 times ago. Okay, the gifts are in Romans 12. Paul lays them out, he calls them Charisma, uses the word. The word Charisma is never once used to describe the things we call, the things Charismatics do. It's kind of funny. You go back and you look at it and you just, you kind of go, oh, I'm putting things on the right shelves. This goes on this shelf. This is on the manifestation shelf. This is the gift shelf. This is the Ephesians four. Those are never called gifts either, not Charisma, they're called Doma. Gifts, the measure of Jesus is really what they are. Jesus measured himself out to you, Metron in Ephesians four. And that's my ministry in Jesus. And then the father says, okay, you're doing the things you call to do. Watch what I make happen. You suddenly, you look at the airport where they have that moving sidewalk. And people on those sidewalks aren't walking faster, but they're moving faster. And that's how your life begins to look when you understand you're gifting and you say, Jesus, I'll do what you asked me to do. Not the thing some friend told me I'm good at. Not the thing my gift, my personality told me I'm good at. Jesus, I'm gonna say yes to the things and there will be some uncertainty, right? Otherwise he's just dictating to you and your slave. There's uncertainty, but there's never risk. And those are two very different words. Wow. Andy, this has been incredible. Listen, what I want you to do for the viewers right now, those who are struggling with understanding who they are, can you just briefly pray for them right now, hear live so they can invite the audience? Yes, yes, yes. Father God, oh, Papa, it is your good pleasure to give us the kingdom. It is your good pleasure for us to know our gifting and to walk in it. You cause all things to work together for good. Why, because you love us. You love us with a desperate, intense love. We cannot, if our heart wants to obey you, we cannot mess up bad enough for you to take even an inch step away from us. So Father, I ask that you would encourage the listeners now to say, I am gifted, I am. And it's easy to find. It's like Easter eggs that are hidden for me, not from me. It's easy to find the things Jesus has for me. And God, my only response is to say, yes, I'll be alert. And each morning I'll say, God, today, I'll follow you. Thank you, Papa, you love us. Amen. Thank you so much, Andy, for taking the time to be with us today. It has been a blessing to have you here with us today. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you and bye everybody. Absolutely, listen. Now, let's check in with Sydney and see what she has coming up on this week's edition of The Glory Hour. Hey, family, coming this Wednesday on The Glory Hour, you don't wanna miss it. We're talking about the truth and reality behind Jesus' resurrection. Professor and public defender of the faith, Dr. Mike Lacona, he's gonna break down the evidence for Christianity and even share his personal story of how he even doubted in the midst of his research. You don't wanna miss that. And have you heard about this? Is Russell Brand becoming a Christian? The viral video showing the comedic actor's spiritual exploration for Jesus and the cross. We're gonna take a look at that and talk about it. And I wanna ask you this, are you one of those that consider yourselves a religious nun? Well, we're gonna take a look at a new study finding out what atheists and agnostics really believe. So join me for The Glory Hour Wednesday at 3 p.m. streaming all day on Wednesday. Cornerstone Tells Network's YouTube page. You don't wanna miss it. So be sure to subscribe to The Glory Hour podcast that is exclusively, the whole full version, exclusively on YouTube. I'll see you there. Thank you, Sidney. Be sure you catch episodes of The Glory Hour on Cornerstone's YouTube page and its debut on television will take place this Saturday at 11 p.m. right here on Cornerstone Television. I love seeing Sidney step into the more that God has for her. But do you know that God has more for you too? Today's scripture comes to us from Ephesians 2 verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. You know, Corey, I love this scripture and I love all scripture, right? It's truth. But I love this scripture because it tells me that we were created in his workmanship and he's a good worker. He's a professional at this, right? And he prepared good works for us beforehand so we could walk in them. I know you have so many different giftings and you've walked this journey and are going through different, even elements of discovering your talents, Corey. What would you say if there's someone who's watching and they're like, I don't know what I'm purpose to do, how would you encourage them to just go for what they see now? What I love about that particular scripture is he talks about there are gifts that God knew beforehand. So that's stuff that God has already placed in you. He says, I knew you before you were in your mother's womb. I understand you. And so there are aspects of God that he will push us to places knowing what's already in us, kind of like the mama bird kicks out baby birds. She knows you can fly. She knows that you just need a level of pressure to be able to do purpose. And sometimes the thing that we're afraid of God is pushing you into because even in panic, they start to, wait a minute, wait a minute, I didn't realize that. And we'll get upset at God when he puts us in uncomfortable situations, just like Moses, you know, he's like, go and tell the people, let my people go. But he began to idolize his issue. He began to idolize his struggle and say, wait, wait, wait, God, wait, wait, wait. I don't think you really fully read my resume. I think you misunderstood that I have a stuttering problem and you're asking me to do something that I'm insecure about. And God turns around and says, who made man's mouth? You're offending, like a lot of times we offend God when we begin to tell him more about ourselves than how he feels about us. Like as if he's surprised. Surprise God, do I have these struggles that I deal with? And you know, sometimes I get fearful and I have panic attacks. He's like, I know you, but in his presence is the fullness of joy. In his presence brings a level of confidence. And if you've ever been in the presence of God and God is moving to Angela, I know that you get into the presence of God. You may walk in dealing with some kind of insecurities, but the presence of God brings a confidence on a surety and an authority to walk in that mantle. Tell me about some times that God has like accelerated your ministry. Yeah, you know, I think, like you said, I think there are always these moments where there's trepidation and fear. And you see like, man, I am so not qualified. Look at my history, look what I struggle with. But that's why his word came to encourage us that he through Christ Jesus created you for good works and myself, you know, there have been so many moments that I've been afraid to step into the gifts that I see on my life or explore where it is that the Lord's opened up doors for me. But I rest assured that it's his work through Christ Jesus that he prepared before I was ever formed. Like he told Jeremiah, I formed you and I prepared you and I purposed you before the foundation of the world. And today if you're sitting and you're watching and you think, you know, I don't have any idea of what I'm created for. I don't think anything great could be for me. Can I tell you, there's nothing further from the truth. Ephesians here tells us that you were created for good works, not through your own efforts, not by your own doing, but through Christ Jesus. And he has a plan and a purpose for you to prosper you and to bring you into good and beautiful, wide open spaces. So today we encourage you, if you need prayer, if you're struggling to find your purpose or maybe even just finding and navigating your way with Jesus, we encourage you to call the prayer line here at CTVN at 1-888-665-4483. And they would love to give you a word of encouragement or look into your scriptures today and take one more step in your purpose by discovering who God is and who he says you are. Oh my goodness, that is so powerful. And as you were speaking, I felt like I heard the Lord saying that there has been a battle for your voice. There has been a battle. It reminds me of the Little Mermaid. I went to the original Little Mermaid when she had such a voice and she was a princess in the kingdom, but she wanted another life, but the price was her voice because the voice was the gift, the ability to communicate. And I feel that for many of you, there have been people that you love who have tried to define you which has paralyzed your voice. It might have been your mother, it might have been your father, a friend, a relationship that no longer exists yet. And because of that, you have associated an identity with yourself and said, well, that's just not who I am. Who told you that and who put that in you? So what the spirit of the Lord begins to do is it begins to eradicate false voices that have come into your life. There are demonic entities that attack certain mantles when there is a mantle over your life to go forth. Trust and believe, if God has given you a prophetic mantle or he's given you a specific manifestation of the Holy Spirit gifting, the enemy's gonna try to sabotage that and paralyze your progress with insecurity. But what all of us have to do here at the station, here all over the world, we have to surrender the idols of our struggle that make and dictate to us to say, God, you can't use me, I've done too much, I've messed up, I've been through a divorce, I've lied, I've cheated, I am not appropriate, I am not worthy, I am not enough. All of that eradicates because, God is saying this, I am the enough. That's literally why he told Moses. What do I tell him? What do I tell him? Tell them that I am sent you. He didn't say I am the provider, I am the protector, I am the fighter. He said no, I am everything you need. I am dot, dot, dot, whatever you need. I am your confidence. I am your courage. I am the spirit. I am that what you need the most. Lean into God, more than anything. Cut off the phone, cut off social media, and sit still in the presence of God, and tell him, ask him, Lord, tell me who I am. Bless you, have a wonderful week.