1Corinthians 12:1-31
Romans 12:6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10 Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.
observation
Today we see another thing that the Holy Spirit does for us is that he gives us special abilities and he decides who gets what gift (1Cor 12:11). It would be easy to think that your abilities are something that is a part of your personality or it is something that you developed but we have to remember that everything that we have is from God, even those abilities and talents that we may take for granted as being a part of our personality. If you are an administrator, a teacher, a helper or whatever you are it is because you received a gift from the Holy Spirit.
It just occurred to me that the Bible is a story of gifts, and guess who is getting all the gifts, it is all about you and I getting all the presents. God gave us life and love, Jesus displayed God’s love and gave us eternal life, Holy Spirit gives us our giftedness, he gives us help, guidance and strength. That would be a good study to blog someday.
But you didn’t just get your abilities and talents so that you can boast about how special you are, there isn’t any room for boasting, there is only room for boasting in the Lord:
Jeremiah 9:23 This is what the LORD says: “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches. 24 But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things. I, the LORD, have spoken!
Your spiritual gift wasn’t given to you to build yourself up but so that we can build each other up by helping each other (1Cor 12:7). The proper use of you gift is very important so that you will be a help to the body of Christ and not a sore thumb sticking out there drawing attention to yourself. Our gifts must be used in love with the purpose of bringing unity to the wellness of the whole body of Christ, this is so important that in the next chapter (1Cor 13) Paul tells us that the most important thing is love.
application
I will use my gifts wisely so that they are beneficial to the body and helps the body, I do not want to bring glory to myself, rather I want to be useful in my local church so that Christ will be exalted.
prayer
Keep me humble in ministry Lord, allowing me to be useful for your glory, knowing that my abilities came from you.
