Ep 24: The Enemy Knows Your Gift: Why Operating in Your Calling Invites Spiritual Attack (Romans 12:6)

Dr. Lee  did not plan to teach this one the way it came out.

She had an outline. She had a whole different direction. And then for the few days beforehand the enemy got LOUD. 

She woke up at 12:30 AM unable to sleep, and she knew exactly what was going on.

The more you step into operating in your spiritual gifts, the more the enemy is going to come after you. Not because you are doing something wrong. Because you are doing something right.

In this week's training, Dr. Lee scrapped the outline and went straight to the teaching she believes is one of the most important she carries: the difference between knowing your spiritual gifts and actually being rooted in them.

She walks through all seven of the motivational gifts St. Paul outlines in Romans 12:6–8 — what each one looks like when it is developed, when it is distorted, and when it is suppressed. And she shares the exact attack the enemy uses against the gift you are most called to operate in.

In This Training, Listeners Will Learn:

• Why operating in your spiritual gifts will irritate the devil — and why that is actually a sign you are on the right track.
• The difference between a gift that is developed, divinely directed, distorted, or diminished — and how to identify which one is at work.
• The Architect vs. Craftsman framework — how the seven gifts break into two profiles and one connecting gift, and what that means for how leaders build and operate.
• A breakdown of all seven motivational gifts: the Judge, the Professor, the Coach, the Consoler, the Steward, the Taskmaster, and the CEO gift.
• Why the enemy targets leaders most in the area of their primary gift — and why our gifts are designed for others, not for ourselves.
• The prayer for each gift — what it looks like to surrender your primary gift back to God and let Him be the source.

Key Quotes:

• "You operating in your gifts is gonna irritate the devil. Plain and simple."
• "Your gifts are for other people. When you operate from that primary gift and go help others, those are for other people — they're not for you."
• "In order to get peace that surpasses understanding, you have to be willing to not understand."
• "He is the source, and we are the resource."
• "I have yet to meet someone who does not struggle personally in the area in which they are most gifted. This is how the enemy gets us best."

Resources Mentioned:

Grow In Your Gifts Masterclass — live inside Regulated Roots Academy starting July 1st

Anchor Verse: Romans 12:6–8 — "We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us."

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

• Discover your Primary Motivational Gift: www.growinyourgifts.com
• Join Our Regulated Roots Academy: skool.com/regulatedrootsacademy
• Explore our Agency services: regulatedroots.com/agency

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

Transcript

Copy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this week's weekly regulated roots academy training call. Aka R CEO Growth Hour. I'm so excited to be here with y'all. Today we're going to be talking about what the difference is between understanding your spiritual gifts and truly being rooted in them and operating from them. And I feel like this is such an important topic. And it's also something that like it's been on my mind a lot lately. And also, I'm not going to lie to y'all. The spiritual warfare has been real, really real. It's been this thing that just even over the last couple of days, I can feel the enemy is like really finding all of the places that he knows that I have been given gifts by God's grace. And he's okay, let me poke here, let me poke here, let me poke here, let me poke here. And so it's funny because I was planning on talking about something a little bit differently. So the way that I prepare for these is I go through and make a whole outline, and I'm like, okay, this is what I'm gonna say on these days. And then every now and then it'll just be like, nope, that's not what you're gonna say. That's not what you're gonna talk about, that's not what we're gonna do today. And so I want to just first off start by pausing and praying and just doing something that I think is one of the hardest things to do when the enemy, Satan, is coming after us. And so I think that's what we're gonna do today. And we're gonna just see how long this prayer goes because I don't know how long this prayer is gonna go. But just starting off with the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. God, thank you. Thank you for waking us up this morning. Thank you for another opportunity to just get to put you first as you've commanded us to, and to really just draw closer to you, to experience your love, to experience your mercy, to experience your compassion and your wisdom and your provision and your protection and your grace and your goodness. And just to get to worship you and to appreciate you, to be grateful for everything that you've given us, God. I know that there's so many of us that are battling. And we are not battling flesh and blood, we are battling with powers and principalities, we are battling with the unseen. And while it may look like we are battling and struggling with things in the scene, in the sensory world where we can see things and hear things and touch things and feel things, so much of what we're experiencing is in the unseen. So much is spiritual. And it can be so difficult when our eyes and our ears and our bodies, our nervous systems are telling us that something is going on out here and we should be afraid and we should be scared and we should be reactive and we should be just concerned. And yet, your word tells us not to fear. Your word tells us that even when our flesh is struggling, even when our flesh is afraid, when it is anxious, when it is worried, when it is tired, when it is weary, when it is full of doubt and full of questions, and when our sensory systems, our nervous systems are being attacked by the enemy when he's putting words into our ears and he is putting words into other people's mouths, when he is showing us things with our eyes and having us imagine things or dream things or see things in a way that is not of you, God. It can be so difficult to tune that out. It can be so difficult to just trust that you're still there and that you're always there, and that you're right there with us, that you, the Holy Spirit literally lives in the tabernacle of our hearts, that we have this powerful advocate. We have this paraclete within us that wants to assure us of your love and your mercy and your protection and your provision. It can be so difficult to get quiet enough and still enough to hear that voice, that inner nudge that comes from you, God, right? It is of us, but it is of you. It can be so difficult to hear that. It can be so difficult to pause and get still enough and to just really allow that advocate in our hearts to be the loudest voice. And to let it kind of just push away all of the other things that we are sensing and seeing, and just allow it to bring us that peace and that joy, the patience, the self-control, the love, the kindness, the gentleness that you talk about as fruits of the spirit, to allow the spirit to really plant those seeds within our hearts that allow them to be cultivated and nourished and to bloom over time. And God, we know that you don't promise that we're going to live lives that don't have suffering in them. You so beautifully demonstrated for us the power of suffering, the power of sacrifice, of offering something up for a sacred purpose with Jesus in the cross and his willingness to die for all of us in order to be forgiven and saved and reconnected to you to have that redemption. And so when we suffer, and the enemy comes in and he tries to twist that suffering into something that's not supposed to be happening. When he tries to convince us that the pain we're going through or the trials and tribulations that we're experiencing, those aren't supposed to be part of everyday life. And we shouldn't be struggling this much, and we shouldn't be experiencing this much heartache or this much turmoil or this much whatever. I think it's really so beautiful to be able to get quiet and hear that still small voice say, Hey, I know what it's like to suffer. I suffered too. I know what it's like to suffer. I died on the cross. I know what it's like to suffer. I watched all of you struggle for so long to choose to turn away from me and in your free will to not be connected to me. I know what it's like to suffer. I sent my only son to die. I know what it's like to suffer because I created you, and now I watch you choose to make decisions that take you far away from me. Like, God, Jesus, I understand suffering. And while God doesn't want us to suffer, he deeply understands it. And so I think it's just God asking you for help to not view the suffering as something that you are doing to us, but to view view it as something that's not a something that you are choosing to do because you don't love us or because you're an imperfect parent, but understanding that the suffering comes because we live in a broken world. The suffering comes because of sin and other people's choices. And you, when we turn back to you in our suffering and we offer it up to you, you do something really beautiful with it and you use it for good. You use it for good and you use it for redemption and you use it to draw us closer to you, and you use it as a way of giving us more of the fruits of the spirit, giving us more of that peace and that love and that patience and that kindness and the self-control and the gentleness. And that I think is just one of the most beautiful things. And I think that's why the enemy gets so loud. God, so I just pray that you give us wisdom. You give us wisdom and you give us discernment, and you help us understand that when the enemy comes after us and he starts trying to bring suffering into our lives, or just other people who are peopling bring suffering, or sometimes even we cause the suffering ourselves in a moment of sin or pain or struggle in all of that, just understanding that if we continue to focus on the struggle and if we continue to focus on how difficult it is, we are taking our eyes off of you. And Scott, I just I hope and I pray that you help us to put our eyes back on you. You help us to put our eyes back on you. And as CEOs, as business owners, as leaders who are called to Christ to preach the good news, whether we are in ministry or not. And as St. Francis said, at all times preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. Help us to live it out. Help us to live it out as entrepreneurs, help us to live it out as CEOs, help us to live it out as leaders and parents and spouses and community members and just in love. Help us to decenter the struggle and to put you back in the center and remember that the suffering and the struggle is not the point. The point is that we keep our eyes fixed on you and we keep drawing towards you in our suffering and in our joy and in our happiness. And no matter what we're experiencing in our flesh, no matter what we're feeling, no matter what is going on, we always turn back to you and stay connected to you. And so that's my prayer. And I pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Hey, y'all. I was like, how long was that? Was that like 10 minutes? Okay. So today I wanted to talk about being rooted in our gifts. And so I think that prayer that just kind of came out there is so in alignment with what I want to speak about today, because God has designed us all the same and he's designed us uniquely. Okay. So when we talk about being, when we talk about spiritual gifts, because at regulated roots, that is one of our core teachings, is helping you understand your unique profile of the seven spiritual gifts that St. Paul talked about in Romans chapter 12, verses 6 through 8. And he also mentions this in 1 Corinthians, and he mentions it in, I believe it's Ephesians as well. And the clearest explanation of our spiritual gifts is in what St. Paul actually lays out what those gifts are, is in Romans chapter 12, verses 6 through 8. And in our regulated Roots Academy, we're actually going to be walking through a masterclass called Grow in Your Gifts, which is going to explain all seven of those gifts in detail. And today I wanted to talk about why it is important for us to learn about those gifts. So when it comes to spiritual gifting, St. Paul talks about how our gifts are given to us in measure with God's grace, according to God's grace. So when we experience being inside of our gifts, it's supposed to feel good. And I think that this is the thing that really throws people off because I just prayed this long prayer about suffering, this prayer around the fact that so often the devil's getting in our head, the enemy's like messing with our senses, and he's trying to turn our gifts into something that feel like a burden, that feel painful. And the thing is that our gifts that God gives us by his grace, this unique makeup that he gives us, yes, when we operate in our calling, it is going to lead to suffering. And a lot of that suffering comes from the fact that the devil knows that you operating within in alignment with the unique spiritual gifts that God gave you, that he instilled in you, that he knit in you as he was knitting you in your mother's womb. If you operate within those, you will do good. You will bring people closer to Jesus. You will bring people closer to their faith. You will help them deepen in the fruits of the spirit. You will help them have a stronger connection to God because you are going to be living as Jesus commanded you to. All right. The more we operate within our spiritual gifts in alignment with our spiritual gifts and in a divinely directed way, the more good you do. And I'm not talking about this relative or nuanced good. I'm talking about good, like capital G. Okay. So personally, these last several days, my husband will tell you, he's our co-founder of Regulated Roots, and he's on here with us. He will tell you that the enemy has been coming after me so strongly. And even as somebody who understands how the enemy comes after us, even as somebody who understands, oh, the more you start stepping into operating in your gifts, the more you ground into the design that God has placed over you, and not just the plan for your life, but like how He wants you to operate and to be a part of the body of Christ. As you start to understand these things and you start to operate that way, you're gonna really struggle because the enemy's gonna come after you. Okay. This is so important to understand. Oh, it's all good, love. Don't worry about it. No, okay. So I love Michelle that you said that. Michelle's in Regulated Roots Academy with us, our school community. And y'all, you never have to apologize in our space for taking the time that you need to do what you need to do. Plus, it's summer. If you haven't joined Regulated Roots Academy, you can go to school.com backslash um regulated roots academy and you can join us. So at as I was saying, you operating in your gifts is gonna irritate the devil. Okay, let me just say it that way. You operating in your gifts is gonna irritate the devil. Plain and simple. Because his goal is to divide and to destroy. Right? His goal is to hurt God. And he hurts God through us because he knows how much God loves us. Plain and simple. So you start drawing closer to God, you start relying on him, you stop looking to the world for your peace and your joy and your comfort. You stop putting things between you and God. And that's gonna make the devil real men. Okay. Anybody experience that on here? Any of you like, oh, hi, hello, it's me. And I see this a lot in entrepreneurs in particular, in people who feel called to something strong. People who feel called to doing something really important in their life. People who are starting to really operate within their gifts. I'm gonna talk through those in a minute. But people who are really starting to get in alignment with how they are designed, you're scaring the enemy. Because he knows what happens if you get into that lane and if you start feeling confident and strong and connected, you start experiencing the fruits of the spirit, you start hearing the voice of God, you start being able to discern his nudges and his intuition, you stop listening to the loud voices in your head and you start getting quiet and still, you stop distracting yourself and you start locking in and really praying and fasting and paying attention to other people and serving and sacrificing rather than being all wrapped up in how you are personally feeling, that's scary because the devil knows that he can't use you when you're like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Okay, you're less accessible to him to do his bad.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

All right. So if you are a Christian, if you love Jesus, if you want to follow the first commandment of putting God above all else, then guess what? You are called to operate within your divinely designed spiritual gifts. And by the way, I want to be really clear here. I am not talking new age. I'm not talking that, okay? Because a lot of times people hear this divinely aligned as spiritual gifts and those words divine and alignment, like y'all, I am not talking new age, I am not talking spirituality, I'm talking Christianity, okay? I'm talking our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm talking our trying God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, okay? Don't get me twisted. And I don't hear a lot of people in very like strong, self-professed Christian spaces talking about our spiritual gifts outside of the church. We don't talk about these things outside of the church. We talk about how we're gonna serve God inside the church, but that's not where the majority of us live. I don't know about y'all. I actually spend a good amount of time at church each each week. I'm probably there, I don't know, three to four hours a week between volunteering and going to mass. And that is such a small amount of my week. 99% of the time I am out in the world interacting with other people, and a lot of them aren't Christians, or a lot of them are Christians who have stepped away, or they are they're not sure, they're not sure where they're at, or there are people who are like actively against Christianity, or who are very deeply instilled in another religion or another faith or a lack of faith.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So I've got to be able to operate within my spiritual gifts, not just in the church. And so do you.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

You've got to be able to understand your gifts and operate within them outside of the church. Okay. Because if you don't, if you can't, then guess what? It's gonna be really hard for people outside of that sanctuary, outside of those church doors to meet Jesus through you. Because if you are struggling, if you are suffering, if people are seeing you not living out the fruits of the spirit, and they're like, oh, but she's a Christian, he's a Christian, but this is how he acts, this is how he shows up, that's a problem. And I'm not saying this to you to make you feel bad. Please know if you're ever on a live with me, if you're ever in a training with me, if you decide to join Regulated Roots Academy, I'm not saying any of this to call you out, I'm saying this to call you in because I know that if you understand your gifts and you start learning how to operate within them, I know what that does for the kingdom. Okay. So back to the story I was telling, the devil's just been in my ears the last few days. And I knew it was him. I knew it was him. Because I kept checking in and going, oh my gosh, should I be doing these live? Should I be setting this up the way that I've designed it? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this? And I didn't hear God say a dang thing about stopping. All right. I there was no discernment in my system around not doing this live, not starting to run the academy the way that we just started designing it, not starting to step more into my primary gift, my primary motivational gift of the professor, of teaching. Okay. So when we understand our gifts, a lot of times people are like, oh, okay, Lee, I've taken the spiritual assessment of gifts for entrepreneurs. I've taken we call it the stage diagnostic. I've taken the stage diagnostic. I understand my gifts now. Great. That is the first step. Okay, that is the first step. If you don't understand how to then put those into play, and by the way, you don't have to be an entrepreneur for this, okay? We're actually developing a spiritual assessment of gifts for everyone. Actually, we're doing a couple. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm in the process of making sure that we've got evidence-based spiritual assessments of gifts for not just entrepreneurs. But that's where I started. I started with entrepreneurs because God's really called me to talk to entrepreneurs. God has called me to talk to entrepreneurs or other people who want to be in the marketplace and using their gifts to show other people what it's like to do business God's way. To help other people meet Jesus and experience the love of Christ through an encounter at a farmer's market or through walking into a store andor a sales experience where they're like, wow, that felt so different than anything I've ever done. Why? Oh, that was Christ. That was Jesus' mark on this person, and that was this person operating within their design that God has created for them. Okay. So of the seven spiritual gifts that St. Paul talks about in Romans, the professor is mine.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

That's my primary gift.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And we are called to operate in all seven gifts and to develop in them and to grow and to use them in divinely directed ways. We all have a gift that when we operate with that as our central primary gift, things just go better. And they feel easier and they feel more joyful. Joyful and they feel more aligned, and the fruits of the spirit start coming out more strongly. And in fact, when we take that primary gift, and then we take all the other gifts and we direct them towards that gift, it totally changes things. It totally changes things, it totally changes things. Okay. So my hope is that number one, you will feel more inclined to go figure out what your primary gift is. Okay. And to understand how the other six gifts are operating, how you're operating within them. Like where has that spiritual gift been developed? Where has that spiritual gift been divinely directed? And where is that gift getting distorted? And where is that gift getting diminished? Okay, so when we look at spiritual gifts, we look at them in four key areas. Okay, we look at them from are they being, have they been developed? Are they being used in a way that God is calling you to use them? Have they been twisted or distorted, or have they been suppressed, diminished? Okay. And that's really important to understand. And particularly around your primary gift. All right. Particularly around your primary gift. Because if you are not operating within that gift in a divinely directed way, if that gift has not been developed, if that gift is actually suppressed, if that gift is distorted, you're gonna have some problems. All right. And what I see is that for a lot of people, for those of you who don't know, I used to run an international online trauma institute. I taught people about nervous system regulation and trauma and recovery and all of those things. And I taught it to people without Jesus involved. And so what was so interesting was that I was acting in my professor gift, my teaching gift, I also used to teach at the College of Nursing. And I used to teach pathophysiology and pharmacology and health assessment and advanced skills for acute care nurse practitioners. And I taught some policy classes for master's students. I got my doctorate. So this professor gift of mine, highly developed. I'm teaching all over the place. I'm teaching in my business. I'm teaching in my literal profession, my career, I'm precepting students. Everything that I'm doing, I'm feeling called to teach. I'm feeling called to help other people learn. I'm feeling called to disciple other people in deepening their knowledge and embodying their gifts. Right. And while I did a lot of good in those places, and why all of those pieces God used for good, there was a lot of distortion in my work as a professor, and in my work as a nurse practitioner, and in my work as a coach, and in my work as the CEO of a trauma institute. And there was a lot of distortion in that because Jesus wasn't in it. I wasn't using my gifts to try to honor and respect and worship Jesus as best as I could to practice the first commandment. That's not why I was using my gifts. I was using my gifts to try to get better. I was using my gifts to try to be better, to grow my own strength, to grow in my own wisdom, to grow in my own ways. And y'all, I'm sharing this with you again. This is not a call out, okay? If you're hearing this and you're like, oh my goodness, that's what I've been doing. If you are trying to grow your business, scale your business, get better in your career, be a better parent, a better wife, a better mom, a better this, a better that. And the so that behind that is not because it honors God, because it's what Jesus called me to do, because I know that it is the way in which God designed us to show up. If the so that after that is anything else, guess what? You got some distortion. Okay. The beautiful part about being able to understand that we have distortion around how we are operating in our spiritual gifts is that now we know what the issue is. We know, okay, I'm not using this gift to try to glorify God and honor God. I'm using this gift to try to glorify myself, glorify my parents, glorify somebody, prove that I'm worthy, prove that I'm deserving, to try to get assets that God would probably gladly give me if I just trusted him to do so. So that distortion shows up a lot. And a lot of times that distortion shows up because of our past painful experiences, because we had imperfect parents, because we had people tell us that we couldn't use our gifts the way that we wanted to, because we had people tell us that our spiritual gifts were dumb or stupid or whatever. Okay. So for some of us, we're operating in a very distorted manner. Others of us were operating in a diminished capacity. Some of you never had a chance to really develop your gifts. They're divinely directed, they're just massively suppressed. Suppressed gifts look like I know what I'm supposed to be doing and I'm not doing it. I know what God's calling me to do and I'm not doing it. All right. And if you're like, I'm not surely, number one, you can go take this age diagnostic again. It's linked in my bio. Number two, I'm gonna really quickly, and when I say quickly and quickly, I'm gonna run through these seven gifts for you real fast. All right. And the reason that I'm gonna do that is because number one, we're doing a much deeper masterclass in our grow in, it's called growing your gifts, and that's inside of our regulated roots academy. It is one dollar a month, legit, one dollar a month to join. And there's a seven-day free trial, so you could even join and then try it out. And then if you're like this is trash, I don't like it, you can leave no harm, no foul. But you can join the school, it's in school, but it's called Regulated Roots Academy, and you can join that in our bio as well. One some point I'm gonna learn how to actually link everything on here, but I don't know how to do that right now. Thank you. Yes, Saint Michael did intercede, absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yeah, no, we played we prayed the St. Michael prayer in church on Sunday, and I was like, yes, Lord, please. If any of you aren't familiar with Saint Michael, he is one of our strongest warrior saints, and we pray for him to protect us in the world, like to keep us out of the snares of the devil. So he's awesome. So I'm gonna run through these really quickly. And my invitation to you is go take this age diagnostic, or you can come join us in a regulated roots academy. Okay, if that feels right for you. If not, this might be all you need, and that's cool. And I'm gonna be doing these lives every week on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. Okay. So if that's what's gonna feel best for you, please come back. Okay. So, seven spiritual gifts, all right? There are two categories of gifts. We've got our the gifts that we label as more of an architect's profile, and we've got the gifts that we label more as a craftsman profile. So, difference between an architect and a craftsman. An architect is the one who designs the blueprints, they design the building, and they are more of a visionary, they are more high-level. Okay, that's where they love to operate. The architect gifts are also speaking gifts, they're really big about communication. So those are the architect gifts. And then we've got the craftsman gifts. If the architect is the one who creates the blueprints and communicates them out, the the craftsmen are the project managers and the bricklayers. Okay. And the central gift that connects the architect and the craftsman profile is the CEO gift. All right. So there are three gifts that fall into the architect profile, and there's three gifts that fall into the craftsman profile. And by the way, this is not in the Bible. All right. So pray on it, use your discernment. The seven gifts are in the Bible. This architect profile and craftsman profile and the CEO gift that I'm talking about right here, these are things that I have developed and names I've developed for entrepreneurs in particular, for leaders in particular, because it makes a lot of sense to them. Okay. And I'm not God, I'm not Jesus. All right. I'm human, I'm fallible, we make mistakes. So I always tell people, please take whatever I share with you back to Jesus, back to the Holy Spirit, and run it through your own discernment and make sure that what you are sensing, I am saying, doesn't feel like please, okay? Because I don't want anybody ever going, oh yeah. Lee said, no, go off of what Jesus said, okay. And please feel free to check me if I ever say something and you're like, Lee, is that actually biblically aligned? I am not afraid to be wrong anymore. And we're gonna talk about that in a second. But this is the seven spiritual gifts. So in this architect profile, we've got three gifts we have the judge, we have the professor, and we have the coach, the motivator. All right. In the craftsman profile, we have the consoler, the steward, and the taskmaster. And then we've got that CEO gift and connecting in the middle. All right. So from top to bottom, this is not an order of priority. This is actually an order of our nervous system. So one of the things that I spent the last year doing was tying these spiritual gifts to how our bodies work. Because St. Paul, when he talks about these gifts being given to us by God's grace and how they help make up us as the body of Christ. And he talks about how the church has many members and we each have our own roles and they all matter. I think it's really helpful to understand how these gifts connect with our body because God has given us these spiritual gifts and God has taken our spirits and put them in bodies. And a lot of times, what we do, and particularly, this is something that I used to practice and I learned to do in new age spiritual spaces, is we separate the spirit from the body. And we can't do that. We can't separate the spirit from the body. If God wanted our spirits to be separate from bodies, he would have made us angels. Okay. God put us in corporal bodies, he made us from the dust, and he put us in bodies that have feelings and emotions and thoughts and desires. And that is good. Okay. They get twisted up by sin, they get twisted up by the enemy, and our bodies are good. He designed them the way he designed them for a reason. So our gifts are actually connected to our bodies. All right. So the the judge gift, this is the canary in the coal mine. This is the person who's very highly perceptive from a sensory perspective.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

All right. The judge gift is my second highest developed gift. This person knows when things are off from a spiritual perspective.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Their sensing system of their nervous system is so good at being able to tell when something is out of spiritual alignment, out of alignment with God's word and God's will.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

And this person, if this is their primary gift, they love to sit back and assess situations and really feel into them from a spiritual perspective. They are a very strong judge. So a lot of times these people come across as, you can imagine, judgmental. The judge gift is one of the gifts that I see that when it is distorted, is the most painful in today's society. When your judge gift is distorted, oftentimes you are so worried about who's right and who's wrong from a moral, political, communal perspective. And you are not worried about what God thinks is good or bad. You are not worried about what God thinks is right or wrong. Or you're so worried about what God thinks is right or wrong that you are forgetting about his grace and his mercy and his compassion. So the judge gift, particularly if this is your primary motivational gift, you are so good at interceding for other people, at praying for them, at being able to look at their situation and go, the devil's got you right here. This is where you're struggling. This is what's going on. Okay. Now, I want to be clear here because I just mentioned that this is one of my strongest gifts. This is not my primary motivational gift. My primary motivational gift is the next one, and I'll tell you why. And for a long time, my primary motivational gift was so distorted that it ended up that I was acting a lot of times from the judge gift perspective. Like I was really distorted there as well. So when our primary gifts are really distorted or really diminished, they're gonna mess with all of our other gifts. And we're gonna talk about that more in the masterclass tomorrow. So the judge gift, beautiful. This is our prophets. If you go back and read the Bible, particularly the the Old Testament, those prophets, those ones who are willing to stand there, like Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Isaiah, they're willing to stand there and call people out. Call people in. Hey, what you're doing is against what God wants. And they're not doing it in a mean way. They're not doing it to try to hurt or harm people. You want to see a prophet who's distorted in the Bible? Jonah. A messenger who's distorted, who's using his judge gift to decide that people are wrong, Jonah. He's got a very strong judge gift and he uses it not in a divinely directed way and ends up in the belly of a giant fish. Okay. So that's the judge gift. The professor gift is also known as the teacher gift or the discipleship gift. You, if your primary motivational gift is that of the professor, you are like me. Yay. You love to teach, you love to learn, you love to understand things better, you love to make sense of the world.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

You deep dive into topics. You want to learn as much as you can to teach it to other people. Okay?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

To share it with other people, to help them understand how to embody that wisdom and live differently. Okay. There is a crucial distinction between the professor gift and the next gift I'm going to talk about, the coach gift or the motivator gift. And the professor is very interested in what is right or what is wrong, but from a logical, practical, rational place, they want to make sure that the actions that they are taking are grounded in reason and logic, and they are coming up with good plans and good strategy based in solid understanding. All right. So that's not just books, that's not just research, that's also God's internal revelation to us. Okay. And if you have a primary motivational gift of professor, and you're not reading your Bible consistently, you're not getting in the word consistently, you might not be reading, you might be listening to it. But you're not connecting with God's word on a consistent basis and deepening your wisdom around that and asking for God's wisdom and his revelation in the word to you, like his inspiration as you're reading it, you're probably gonna have a distorted or diminished gift. Because you're getting all this worldly wisdom and you're not able to tie it back to God's wisdom. All right, so that's the professor gift. So the professor loves to make sure that people understand that they have the knowledge that they need to practically do what God calls them to do. The judge, that gift, they are so motivated by making sure that people are aligned with what God is calling them to do.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

The professor is is in love with making sure that people understand God's teaching, that they uh deepen in his wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

The coach gift, the motivator gift, they care about transformation.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

They care about your growth.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

All right, they want you to move, they want you to take action and transform into who God is calling you to be. Okay, so for the vast majority of my life, I thought being a motivator was my primary gift.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I thought God was calling me to help me get people to move.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

And that led to a lot of distortion for me because honestly, and this is something that I'm always like hesitant to admit, but I think it's important to own for anybody else who's more of a professor than a motivator. I don't care if you move or not. I want you to have the knowledge and the understanding that you need in order to be able to make a choice. I want you to have enough wisdom that you can decide if you move or not.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

The motivational gift, they are here to be your hype human. They are here to help you move when you are ready.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Okay, so a lot of us, as particularly as entrepreneurs, we are taught as mentors or as coaches that we are supposed to help people move. We're supposed to help people get transformation. In fact, I remember way back in my beginning coaching training days, it was all about, and as a nurse practitioner, this happened too. How do you motivate people to do what is best? And I'm like, I don't want to motivate anybody to do anything. I want people to have enough information to be able to make the choice that they want to make. And then if they want to move, they can move. And if they want my help moving, I'm happy to help them. But like, I would rather teach you what you need to know than help you get into motion.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

The motivator gift loves helping people get into motion when they're ready. But this can get very distorted because sometimes you can try to help people move before they're ready, or sometimes you can learn to not help people move when you could be their hyperhuman. You could help them move and you don't. Those are the three architect gifts: the judge, the professor, and the coach. All right. My invitation to you is if you're like, oh wow, yeah, one of those really sounds like me. And not this is what people taught me to do, but this is really how I love to operate. If I had a choice, this is what I do. And here's what I also want you to hear. Some of you think that one of these is your primary gift, and this is gonna shift this for you, and you're gonna go, oh, hold on, let me hear the other three gifts. Because maybe that's not it. Do you love to speak? Do you love to talk? Are you extroverted? I'm not saying you have to be excited to talk in a room full of people or on a stage or on social media. You don't have to want to go live. And again, a lot of times our past painful experiences can distort this. So I'm not asking if it's something that you're currently doing. Because a lot of you are speaking and you don't want to be. A lot of you are out here being motivators, coaches, judges, professors, and you actually don't want to be, but you're doing it because it's how people taught you how to do business. What I'm asking you is if you're honest with yourself, if you close your eyes and check in with your heart, do you love teaching? Do you love talking on stage and speaking and motivating people? Do you love preaching or sharing God's word or sharing messages that you have received from Him? Do you love calling people in the places that you see that they are out of alignment? Because the answer to all of those is like, no, I don't really want. I'm not that visionary. That's not actually what I love to be doing. I don't love to be up at this high level, really looking at the overall strategy and blueprint for how helping people to do what God is calling them to do. I'm somebody who wants to be more of a bricklayer or a project manager. Then okay, great. Let's go through those three profiles quick so you can understand them. So, craftsman profiles. The first one is the consoler. And a lot of times when people hear this, they go, that can't be rightly. Because when you console people, isn't that more of an architect's gift? That's not an action gift. Y'all, the word mercy, which is the word that St. Paul uses to describe this particular gift, the gift of mercy, the word mercy in English means active compassion. And the word compassion means suffer with. So if we are practicing the gift of mercy, the gift of consolation, what we are doing is we are sitting with someone in their suffering. All right. Some of you have probably had this experience where you went to someone that you thought was going to give you counseling, consolation, and instead they gave you coaching. Right? You came to somebody to try to have an experience where you could just have someone sit with you in that suffering and just be with you and not try to fix it, not try to change it, not try to show you where you're out of alignment, not try to teach you something, not try to transform you or move you, just be with you. And sometimes to really fuel you up so that you suffer less. So this is active. Sometimes it's sitting with you and just holding you or hugging you or being with you while you talk and listening. Other times it's helping you discern what you need.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

What do you need? What type of support would be helpful for you right here? I'm sitting with you in this, and oh my gosh, this is so awful. How can I help? How can we help?

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Alright. Now, this is a very special gift. The judge gift is tied to our sensory system. The professor gift is tied to our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that is responsible for thinking about our thinking. The coach gift is tied to our voice.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

The consoler gift is tied to our heart. It is profoundly emotional. All right.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

So a lot of times I see people think that they have a judge gift as their primary motivational gift, and in reality, they have consolation as their gift. They're not sensing that something's off with this person. They're feeling this other person's emotions. They can feel this other person's emotions, and they feel them oftentimes very deeply. And so a lot of times, people with this gift of the consoler, they feel the distortion happens because they think that they are supposed to be like a coach, or supposed to be like a judge, or supposed to be like a professor. They're supposed to be speaking life into this person, or speaking transformation into this person, or helping them get aligned. And also, on the flip side, the consoler sometimes thinks that they're supposed to be like the steward or the taskmaster. They think that they're supposed to do those jobs that I'll describe in a second. And the thing is that if you have the gift of consolation when it is being used in a divinely directed way, and if it's been developed, what happens is you sit there and you're just present with somebody and you just listen and you just love on them. And at the end of it, they go, Oh my gosh, thank you so much. That was so helpful. Thank you for just being here for me. Thank you for being a safe space I can come to. Thank you for just knowing exactly what I needed. And I think it's really wild because a lot of times people with the gift of consolation, they feel like they're not doing anything. They're like, I just sat here, I just listened, I just called, I just checked in to see how this person was doing. I just offered a shoulder to cry on. I just, I hear this a lot with the consoler gift. I just. And it's one of the most powerful gifts, and it's also one of the most underrated gifts right now. One of the huge rises in AI use has been people going to chat to ask for consolation. And yes, sometimes they go there for answers or they go there for wisdom, advice. And a lot of times they just need a place to pour out their heart. And so, consolers, if their gift has been distorted, a lot of times they don't have a place to pour out their hearts. They take it on for everybody else. Everyone else shares, and they don't have a place that they can go and share it. And so they can get very distorted. They get distorted oftentimes from a place of burnout and resentment. And I see this a lot with therapists. A lot of therapists have very strong consolation gifts, and the systems in which they operate make it very difficult for them to be divinely directed and to really develop in that gift because they're taught they have to do all of these other things when really the person in front of them just needs them to sit and to not rush them through intake forms or anything like that. Same with nurses, a lot of physicians, a lot of healthcare providers come in and they have a gift of consolation. All right. Not all. That wasn't mine. That's not the thing that lights me up. And for a lot of people, that is the thing that lights them up. Okay, so if you've gone into healthcare, you've gone into entrepreneurship, and your primary gift as you listen to this, or if you go take the sage diagnostic, if your primary gift is that of consolation, that's very important to know because that will very deeply affect how you go through the world and your work in particular. The judge gifts and the consolation gift are the, or the consoler gift, excuse me, are the two gifts that when distorted or diminished, we can actually see some of the most internal destruction. All of them we can see internal destruction, but those two in particular can be pretty devastating. And I believe that the enemy goes after those two gifts in particular because those gifts are very sensitive. Very sensitive. The consoler gift is very sensitive to emotions, super sensitive to emotions. The judge gift is very sensitive to changes in nervous system, arousal in the room, vigilance. Okay. So the last two gifts in the craftsman profile are the steward and the taskmaster. So the steward, this gift, if this is your primary gift, you love managing assets. You're a really good manager. All right.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Whether it's developed or not, you love to ensure that everything is stewarded appropriately.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

That you have the time and the knowledge and the money and the energy, the capacity, and you love to help other people increase their capacity. All right. Now, I've seen professors and stewards, motivators and stewards, I've seen people be like, I can't tell which one is my primary gift. Because I love to plan, right? And a lot of times people take the steward and they go, Oh, the steward loves to plan. No. What the steward loves in the moment to connect people with assets.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

The steward in the moment loves to connect people with assets. They love to make sure that they have what they need. All right.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

When this gift gets distorted, a lot of times people either get very stingy or they're like too generous. So they either keep it all for themselves or they don't keep any for themselves. A lot of times, people who have a diminished steward gift, if this is their primary motivational gift and they're diminished, they love making sure everyone has what they need in the moment. And they feel like that's not important, or they feel like they're bad at it. So I know a lot of stewards, and they are like, I'm really bad with money, I'm really bad with time management, I'm really bad with making sure that I do things in the right way in the right time. And a lot of times that's just because they haven't been taught how to use their other gifts to support them in their stewardship. All right. And then the last gift is the taskmaster. Now, a lot of people show up as taskmasters. A lot of people are look like that is their primary gift. And that is because of the world that we live in today. We have been taught to do as much as we can and as much like with as little time as we can and as little assets as we can. And so this is why the steward and the taskmaster, a lot of times, I see these gifts not talked about a lot in today's society, but the steward is one that's not talked about a lot, but is it massively important? And the taskmaster, a lot of people are forced into that, and it's not their primary gift. Okay, so I have a few taskmaster primary gift people in my life. They are the people that love to get stuff done. Now, hear me again. This is not based on past trauma. This is not based on how they were trained, how they were raised, how they were nurtured. This is based on their nature. They love to check to do lists off. They love to take a project that somebody else is like, oh, I really would love to get this done. I would really like to see this happen. And they love to bring it to fruition. They love to hand something completed to someone and say, look what I did.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

All right. And yet they've been taught they're supposed to get stuff done.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

The steward, the way that you can tell the difference between the steward and the taskmaster is the steward loves to make sure that everyone has the resources to get the job done. The taskmaster likes to get the job done. So stewards are usually the ones asking, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need? From the sense of what resources do you need? What assets do you need? The taskmasters ask, what do you need? From what can I do for you? Okay. So notice this question. And I think that this is really, and this is something that we've been playing with that I'm bringing more into the master class. When you ask someone, how can I help? Because for me, the way that I know that the professor gift is my primary gift, the one that I when I operate in it, everything goes better. I know that because when I say how can I help, and someone says, I just need to figure out how. And I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, let's go find, let's go find the answers. Let's talk this through. And what I love to do even more than let's go find the answer. Because that can sound a little stewardy, right? Even more than let's go find the answer is a lot of times people already have the answer. They have the wisdom, they have the knowledge. It's in them. They just need some really good questions asked to bring it out. So people will tell you, the ones who surround me, a lot of times, like when we are talking through something, I ask them so many questions. And I'm asking them questions, number one, so I can figure out where the gaps in knowledge are. Like, what do they know and what do they not know? Where do we need to fill the gap in wisdom? And where do we already have the wisdom? And what I love is that so often when I sit and talk with somebody and they've got an issue, and I'm like, okay, lay everything out. I'm gonna ask you a billion questions. I'm a big whiteboard queen. You're gonna start seeing those on these weekly lives. I pull out that whiteboard and I'm like, okay, let's figure out what we know and what we don't know and where the gaps are. What are the questions that we need to be asking? What needs answered? And then from there, we can go figure out what we need. They can go figure out what they need. But so often people already know the answer. They already know the answer. It's inside of them. And so I love helping people realize like, hey, this wisdom that you're desperately seeking, you've already got it. Or God's already written it in the Bible. So you don't even have to go looking far. Here you go. Here's the scripture. The answer to what you're looking for, God already provided for you in his word, or he already put it inside of you, or you already learned it at a previous point and you just didn't realize it. And here's the last thing I want to say today before we wrap up is that right there is where my distortion comes in.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

That right there is where the enemy gets me.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Because so often, and I won't say so often, I have yet to meet someone that they do not struggle personally for themselves in the area of which they are most gifted. And this is how the enemy gets us the best. This is how he tried to get me for the last week. What the enemy kept whispering in my ear over and over, to the point that I couldn't sleep last night, which, if you know me, I can always sleep. But I'm up at 12 30 eating a peach because I can't sleep. What he does is he's in my ear saying, You don't know. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing. You don't know what you should be saying. You don't know. You don't know how to help people eat. You don't know how to ask the right questions, you don't know what to say on these lives. You're gonna fail.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

Do you hear that? Is that not wild?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

He's saying this thing that you know how to do so well for other people that God, by God's grace, He has gifted you to be able to do and you love it and you enjoy it, and you're able to sit here and talk for over an hour without a script and teach this from memory. And as I'm teaching, I can see the I can see the whiteboard in my head.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

That that gift you have, you can't use it on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

All right, your gifts are for other people, and I think this is one of the toughest things to understand when you operate from that primary gift and you go out and help others in that way, and other people are like, wow, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

You're so good at this. Those are for other people, they're not for you, and this is something that I see take people out time and time again because they help people, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

That question, how can I help? They help people in the way they love to help over and over again, and they can't do it for themselves, and oftentimes they're surrounded by other people who can't do it for them. And this right here, the enemy can use to just get you to go to feel burned out and resentful and bitter and be like, I'm not doing this anymore, because nobody does for me what I do for other people. Nobody sees me the way I see other people. Nobody understands me the way I understand other people. Nobody cares for me the way I care for other people. Do you know who's supposed to care for you like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

I'll give you one guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

God is the one who's supposed to care for you like that. And yes, other humans can step in and do that for you. Please don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that if you're a professor, you never get to have other professors in your life. In fact, you have to seek out other professors in your life. I actually do have other humans who can do that for me. And a lot of times I have to go seek them out. Okay, but you know who I always have available to me to help me with the professor gifts? God. I can always go back to him in prayer and say, hey, God, can you please give me your wisdom? Can you please help me know what to do next? Can you please help me understand? Can you and not can you help me do it in my own strength? Can you help me lean on your understanding? And a lot of times, this is the prayer. Hey, God, can you help me not need to understand this? There's scripture that says God will give you peace that surpasses understanding. In order to get peace that surpasses understanding, you have to be willing to not understand. I know. My fellow professor primary gifts are like, that's gross. I know. In order to be able to get the peace that surpasses understanding, you have to be willing to not understand. You have to be willing to go, hey, God, you know what? Your ways are greater than my ways. So for the judge, they've got to be able to say, hey, God, I don't know everything that's right or wrong. You do. So help me to not judge in scenarios where you don't want me to judge. Help me to be comfortable in you using this gift for me, you convicting me, you judging me, you evaluating and you giving me that when you want to give it to me, and me also being comfortable enough and well-versed enough in your word to know if I'm in alignment or not. This is where the Bible comes in. This is where the word comes in. This is where being in community with other people who are growing and who can give scripture and who can offer that sort of support is so important. And also, this is why you've got to have that personal relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. Because if you have a primary gift of judge, that's where He you're going to receive that perception and that knowing from for yourself, that discernment from for yourself. And where you're going to be able to receive, hey, God, you can discern better than I do. I trust you. You got to lean on him for that. The professor gift, you've got to lean on him and say, Hey, God, I don't need to understand if you do. And if you want me to understand here, if you're willing to give me your wisdom, if it's within your will, I want it. The coach, God, I don't need to help people grow or help people move if you don't want them to move, if it's not in your will. And God, please help me know where you want me to grow and where you want me to move and where you want me to stay still. You want me to wait. You want me to do things differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

The consoler, God, please console me. Please give me consolation. Please extend your mercy on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Please help me hold all of what I am holding for other people. Please give me what I am giving out to so many. For the steward, God, please grant me the assets to be able to steward the taskmaster.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

God, please give me the strength and the energy to be able to do what it is that you call me to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

The gifts that God gives us by his grace, the way that we deepen in those, and the way that we operate more in alignment with them, in a divinely directed way, is we always put him first.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

We always go back to him first. He's where we start because he is the source and we are the resource. And our gifts and the way in which we then go out in the world and use those gifts allow us to take the assets of the gifts that he's given us and use them for his good.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

Okay. So if you'd like to learn more about these gifts, one last invitation. You can go to growinyourgifts.com and you can go take our spiritual assessment of gifts for entrepreneurs. Like I said, we're going to be making some other versions of this for other types of people. And right now, the entrepreneur one is where we started. You can take it even if you're not an entrepreneur. Okay. It'll still give you some really great insight. And you can also join us inside of Regulated Roots Academy. Starting July 1st, we're doing a monthly masterclass for the entire space. It's called Growing Your Gifts. And that reporting will then live in that space. And then we're going to have weekly Bible study. And then if you decide you want to move deeper into the academy and go into our higher tiers that have more access and more learning, more support, you can do that as well. We have weekly trainings, we have monthly challenges, we have all sorts of amazing things happening in there for entrepreneurs who truly want to grow their business God's way. I just want to end this with a prayer for everyone. God, I just pray that you help everybody who this live touched today and beyond those who weren't able to make it, those who need this. I just pray that you give them your wisdom. I pray that you help them to greater discern their primary spiritual gift and also just how all of their spiritual gifts have been developed and directed and distorted and diminished over the course of their lives. Help them to better understand how you have designed them and how you have gifted them with these gifts through your grace, by your grace, and help them to come into alignment with the good that you have planned for their lives. And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

Bye, y'all.