Monday Bible Study: Clearing the Distortion of Your Primary Gift

Scripture Focus: 1 Peter 4:10-11

"As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." — 1 Peter 4:10-11

Last week, we established three foundational truths from Romans 12:4-6: our gifts each have a distinct function in the body of Christ, every gift requires specific "nutrients" to thrive, and our gifts are not for our own benefit — they exist to glorify God.

We closed with a foreshadowing of this week's topic: how depriving us of the nutrients we need to thrive "is one of the ways the enemy most easily distorts the use of our gifts."

This week, we're diving deep into DISTORTION of your gifts via DYSREGULATION.

Before we can discuss how dysregulation leads us away from using our gifts the way God designed, we must create an operational definition for distortion.

God is the Source of all creation and He has designed us as RESOURCES "in His image" who are able to create using the assets He gives us (time, money, knowledge, and energy.)

The devil twists our understanding of our role as a resource, distorting our understanding in order to lead us to treat ourselves (and/or others) as the SOURCE itself (aka playing God) or as an ASSET (objectifying ourselves for an unholy purpose.)

Peter names three ways that our God-given gifts can get distorted in this way, particularly our primary gifts.

The devil tries to lead us to:

• Change how we understand the purpose of our gift (the POSTURE)
• Change how we employ our primary gift (the USE)
• Change our focus to the wrong primary gift (the MOTIVATION)

When any one of those three distortions occur, we are drawn away from God's will, and this causes both God AND us significant grief and suffering.

1. How the Enemy Severs Your Gift from Its Source

Satan's main goal is not to destroy our gifts outright, but to sever it in these three critical pieces — and he will start in the place you are weakest and most vulnerable.

1) Distortion of Heart Posture

A hardened heart doesn't want to glorify God — it wants to glorify self/others.

When our hearts are not fully submitted to God's will and full of surrender, faith, and hope, we use our gifts to create from a posture of pride, fear, and/or rebellion/resentment.

If our hearts have been closed off to God's mercy, compassion, grace, love, and providence — we are prone to submit to false gods, or act like gods ourselves.

We see this time and time again in the Bible, in both the Old & New Testament: our gifts get used to serve mammon, our own egos, our lust for control/power/success, other people who feed off our attention, and more. We turn away from God who creates and wills all things, and instead worship things that don't hold His level of power or His love.

And here's a part that many people don't understand — God ALLOWS it, to a point, because:

• He unwaveringly values and honors our free will, and
• He knows how to use the hardening/distancing of our hearts to lead us right back into His loving/caring hands (more on this in a moment)

2) Distortion of Use

We often use our gifts "for good" from a place of limited human understanding, trying to do the "right" thing without consistently praying/discerning God's will for how He specifically wants us to move (and then acting on it wholly, without delay!)

Here are a few examples of what it looks like to use our gifts in a way that honors OUR will, and not God's:

• A Professor uses her knowledge to try to evangelize people to Christianity via short-form content, when God wants her to write/record long-form content for over a year.
• A Taskmaster keeps trying to build their own business solo when God wants them to support other people in their businesses.
• A Motivator keeps shouting into the void on the internet, when God wants them to share their gift of exhortation at local in-person events and in their Church's youth group.

When we use the gifts we've been graced with by God, but do not actively practice submitting our actions to His will, we often end up doing what the world (aka our business coach, social media influencers, or well-meaning loved ones) suggest, instead of spending time in prayer and meditation on Scripture to discern His will for our situation.

3) Distortion of Motivation

In the work we've done mentoring/coaching entrepreneurs, this is perhaps the most subtle AND the most pervasive distortion that presents when people are struggling…

Because most people don't know what their primary gift IS. They've experienced so much trauma and manipulation from the outside world that they don't even realize they are operating from a primary gift that is NOT what God intended for them. The world has convinced them to develop a gift that is more "useful/important," rather than centering their work in their true primary gift.

(NOTE: We'll talk more about this next week in our study on how the enemy diminishes our primary gifts.)

Here are some examples of how distortion can root our internal motivation in the "wrong" gift:

• A person with a JUDGE primary gift centers their work in the COACH gift because they were taught that they needed to be more encouraging/optimistic and less judgmental in order to be liked/successful.
• A person with a PROFESSOR primary gift centers their work in the CEO gift after growing up in a home where there's a gap in parental leadership, or a consistent push to "be more responsible/less childish" while growing up, and is never able to take the time to read, write, study, or explore what they feel called to more deeply understand.
• A person with a TASKMASTER primary gift centers their work in the CONSOLER gift, after spending their childhood learning they needed to "fix" someone's problems with actions, rather than being able to simply sit with/listen to someone in their suffering.

2. Confusion and Dysregulation: How the Enemy Uses Our Gifts Against Us (and Others)

One of the main ways the enemy distorts the type of gift, heart posture, or use is by dysregulating us.

Dysregulation comes from 1 of 2 places (or both):

1. An inaccurate assessment of threat
2. An inappropriate reaction to the assessment of that threat

(Want to learn more about dysregulation? Watch this video HERE.)

When we are dysregulated, our inaccurate assessment or inappropriate response leads us to lose our focus on acting from LOVE. Instead we end up reacting from fear, scarcity, anger, and/or other unloving states in an attempt to control what feels unsafe/uncertain.

And one of the BEST ways to dysregulate someone is to threaten what is important to them to operate WELL.

As we discussed last week, each gift needs specific "nutrients" to thrive — and the enemy often creates situations that threaten/deprive us of that nourishment in an attempt to get us to adopt the wrong heart posture, usage, or motivation.

For instance:

• Judges need clear channels and space to discern, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations that overwhelm their senses, deprive them of clarity, or foster misunderstanding.
• Professors need input and space/time to think, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where they aren't able to collect information, are forced to make decisions that "don't make sense," or where someone is lying and pretending their words are truth.
• Coaches need communication and space to grow/encourage, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where negativity is the norm, change/transformation is discouraged, and people are resigned to "the way things are."
• CEOs need authority and space to decide, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where people refuse to come together for a greater purpose, only care about short-term results, or want the leader to make snap judgements that have long-term implications.
• Consolers need connection and space to explore how they feel, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where they are isolated, expected to shove down their feelings, and/or forced to speed up their more naturally slower ways of decision making.
• Stewards need networks and space to plan, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where they are cut off from assets, forced into inefficient systems with no ability to influence how things are done, and/or expected to spend/save assets in a misaligned way.
• Taskmasters need direction and space to execute, so they are more easily dysregulated by situations where they are expected to do activities that have no long-term benefit, expend energy in ways that don't benefit others, or receive unclear instructions re: what they are expected to produce.

When entrepreneurs chronically experience life in a way that dysregulates their primary gift, the gift doesn't just always go dormant — it often compensates, twisting on itself to serve in a way that is not aligned with God's will. And that compensation is where distortion lives.

The hardest part about distortion? The gift is still being "used" — just not how God intended.

• A Professor teaching to gain admiration, money, or approval is still teaching.
• A Judge using their gift to post videos that shame/humiliate others to make them feel inferior is still judging.
• A Consoler offering compassion to feel needed rather than reflect God's mercy is still consoling.

Peter's stewardship language in this week's verse makes this plain: a good steward manages what belongs to someone else according to the owner's wishes, not their own.

The moment we start managing our gifts according to our own fear or ego, we've stopped being faithful stewards. Instead, we've tried to control our own anxiety by using our gifts to manipulate ourselves and others, often subconsciously, in order to try to control outcomes.

And the outcomes are GOD's responsibility, NOT ours.

3. Divine Providence: God Orders What the Enemy Has Disordered

When we use our gifts from a hardened heart, a dysregulated state, or a naive understanding, God orders all our "mistakes" and missteps influenced by the enemy and uses them to refine and sanctify us — for our good and His glory.

The simple fact is this: the enemy cannot permanently corrupt what God has declared good.

Here is where we have to be honest about something tender: when we realize we've been using our gifts in a distorted way, it can be easy to fall into shame or despair. We look back and see the ways we taught from ego, led from fear, comforted from need, or served from control — and it can feel devastating. But this is exactly where the enemy wants us to stay. Shame is not from God. Conviction is. And conviction leads us back to the gift framework, not away from it.

"All that happens to us against our will — by men or other causes — happens to us only by the will of God, the disposal of His Providence, by His orders and under His guidance. If we can't grasp the meaning, we get to attribute it to Providence and believe firmly that He does not send it to us without cause." — St. Augustine

Let us never attribute our losses, our disappointments, our afflictions, or our humiliations to the devil alone — but to God as their real source and their real redemption. Whether the distortion was due to someone else's sin or our own, it is within God's Providence. He wishes to make us see our own faults, humble ourselves, and be freed from vice so He can lead us to virtue. He designs it in ways that place each one of us in the best, most suitable situation for working out our salvation.

Jesus modeled the use of gifts perfectly — and He attributed His Passion to God, not to the Jews, the Romans, or Judas. He used His gifts well and rebuked distortion, fully trusting God and His plan and design. That is the invitation for us too.

Not perfection, but surrender.
Not control, but stewardship.
Not our strength, but the strength God supplies.

Peter says it plainly: use your gift to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

A good steward manages what belongs to someone else according to the owner's wishes, not their own.

The moment we start managing our gifts according to our own fear or ego, we've stopped being stewards and started being something else entirely.

But the moment we return by surrendering how we use and appreciate our gifts back to God, He takes what the enemy disordered and orders it for our good and His glory.

That context?

It changes EVERYTHING about how we grow in our gifts.

(Haven't identified your Primary Gift yet? Discover it today at growinyourgifts.com)