Flesh and the Five P's

Should you know your spiritual gift(s)?
I believe you should and here are three reasons why:
Stewardship
"As each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." (1 pet 4:10)
You can't be a very good steward of what you don't know you have.
Purpose
To help you live according to the purpose for which God has made you, to determine priorities and even the will of God.
Contentment
You'll stop comparing yourself to others, stop feeling inadequate, stop wishing you were like someone else, freeing you to function better with the strength that God supplies.

There are many spiritual gift surveys online, you've probably taken at least one in your life.
I personally never found them to be very helpful. Admittedly, that was probably because I tried to work them to fit what I wanted to be instead of what I really was. The speaker, at the conference I mentioned earlier, introduced me to the idea that our spiritual gifts manifest themselves differently if we are walking in the flesh. I got a good picture of that uglier side of things and suddenly, like an instagram picture, my spiritual gifts became very clear to me. It all made sense to me now. Flesh and the five P's: performance, perfectionism, popularity, praise and pride, were dominating my Christian life and I had not been taking that into account. Now, by recognizing the ways flesh distorts my spiritual gifts, I have a better vision of where I need to crucify the flesh, and of where I need to surrender to the Spirit's control.

You may identify with a few characteristics of several gifts, but look specifically at the ones where the majority are true of you. These are traits that you find to be true more than 75% of the time. Avoid going with the traits you wish you had. Recognize that any traits above that you find in yourself, reflect the Spirit's power, not your worth. You may find a little bit of genetics come into play through your God given personality, and you may even find traces of your parents' gifts. Remember, however, these are not fleshly abilities, but divine gifts empowered by the Spirit.

In an attempt to help debunk the five P's, I searched for a spiritual gift survey that included statements on the flesh. In the end, I had to create my own. Over the past few years, and having sat down with many people to talk about the results of this survey, a few things have stood out to me. I've noticed that, though each person has a variety of gifts, differing from one to another, the combination itself is divinely grouped to create a mix uniquely equipping each person. I've seen how God has so uniquely combined gifts that the combination itself takes on a different "personality" you might say. I've been amazed at our Lord's sovereign creativity. Understanding your unique combination, frees you to serve God the way He intends for you to, in His design created to cause the mature growth of the church, into the stature of Christ.
It is truly a beautiful thing!

I have also noticed that some gifts are more prevalent than others. For example, manifestations of the gift of exhortation/encouragement appear in almost 3 out of 4 people, while manifestations of the gift of evangelism appear in as low as one out of ten. What does that tell me? Obviously, that those with the gift are not meant to be doing all the evangelizing. Since we should all evangelize, I believe that we need those with the gift of evangelism to play a role of motivator within the church rather than bearing the burden all by themselves. A similar thing could be said of the gift of giving, which also has a low ratio. I don't have the gift of mercy, but I know ladies in my church who do. These ladies have young children and it isn't always practical for them to act on the need they see, so they call me. I won't ever think of it, but I'm happy to go sit with someone in the hospital if someone with the gift of mercy tells me to. The parts of the body need to work together as a whole, and we do that by working our gifts together. If you have the gift of leadership, but lack administration, then don't just build your team with your friends in the church, with those people you like and get along with, build your team specifically with those who have the gifts that are needed.

When the Lord showed me that He had given me the gift of discernment, I wondered how I was to use it. For many weeks I would ask Him to show me. You see, where the person with the gift of helps can easily see what to do, the one who discerns can't just freely offer that to the other person whenever he wants to. Most people don't welcome such exercising of a gift uninvited.

Here is what I have come to see as the most important way for me to exercise the gift of discernment; I must pray. When the Spirit shows me that "red flag", I must pray. I must always pray, because this is the only way to know the mind of God, and since this is His gift that He chooses to use as He pleases, I must pray! And here is the really crazy part of it, the Lord convinced me that the best way for me to pray about the discernment He gives is to pray that I am wrong. Do you know how hard that is to do!

In a real practical sense, no spiritual gift should be practiced without praying.