By: Fred Reid
Wattup folk?! This is a quick but hopefully meaningful approach to spiritual gifts. I feel like often times they are stressed but not defined or explained and thus become something that is kind of feared or approached nervously instead of boldly and correctly. What I want to point out in this devotional is that your gift is nothing to be scared of or nervous about, its actually QUITE beneficial to you and others!
Of course there’s the famous scripture about your gift making room for you and bringing you before great men and women, but I don’t even wanna get that big on gifts today cuz that still feeds into the grand-scheme that makes them somewhat unapproachable for some people. Instead I wanna point out that your gift is something that you’ve had from jump street! Romans 11:29 says the gifts AND calling of God come without repentance. So whether you get saved or not the Lord has imparted something in your life that you can use! Without Christ, gifts are often used to make money (singers, psychics, motivational speakers) but once you DO get saved your gift is supposed to be used to build up the kingdom of God.
Another scripture about gifts I wanna point out is Ephesians 4:11-16. I'm not going to type it all here but I really hope you take a moment to read those verses, basically they point out some of the gifts that Christ left to the church and the purpose that they serve. Your gift is to help the church, verse 16 points out how every joint supplieth. So whatever your gift is WE NEED YOU TO SUPPLY! If you aren't are contributing you are making somebody else work harder than they have too! Also I want to point out that there is no hegemony of gifts pointed out in this scripture. Somehow in the church we have lifted those who are preacher, prophets, evangelists and other pulpit offices above the other gifts of the church. However, I think its important to realize that these offices CAN NOT carry the church! If everybody was preaching there would be no one listening, or welcoming new members, or teaching and breaking down the word into applicable scenarios, or singing songs to help get the atmosphere ready for a move of God.
In closing, don’t be afraid of whatever your gift is because 1) it’ll be something that you enjoy doing and probably have been indirectly doing your whole life and 2.) we need you! Think of it as basketball team, we all on the team but we need somebody to be the PG and somebody else to run center. Not because anybody is any better or more important than anyone else…but simply because we need all positions filled to be effective.
Over and Out : )
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