Your Gift

I have written a couple times in posts this week about being all in as a follower of Jesus Christ.  Another area important to highlight in being all in is allowing God to work through you in the exercise of the gift He has given you.

An individual who is all in following Jesus uses the gift that God has graciously given to him or her to to obey Christ, build His people, and serve the world.

Every follower of Jesus has been given a spiritual gift. These are more than talents. These gifts are not natural, coming to us at birth, but are supernatural, coming to us at rebirth.

At least three primary places in the Bible give lists of the gifts God gives to His followers. These passages include 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. Why does God give us these gifts?

1. He gives these gifts to bring Himself glory. Exercising a gift we did not obtain naturally allows us not to take credit for it or to glory in the work accomplished through its use.
2. He gives these gifts to build up His community of people. We have differing gifts to accomplish different tasks and meet different needs among God's people. When each person exercises his or her gift, the people of God have what they need and function as they should.
3. He gives these gifts for reaching the nations. As God's people use their gifts and see the church, though imperfect, built up and strengthened, the church becomes a display of God's glory among the nations. Jesus declared that the church, by its love for one another, would be a loud testimony so that all the world would know we are His followers. Utilizing the spiritual gifts God has given is an act of love for each other and a testimony to the world.
4. He gives these gifts for meeting spiritual need. Our physical talents and gifts can be used within the church. Yet the church is first and foremost a spiritual community of worshipers who have spiritual need and work. The giving of spiritual gifts meets the spiritual needs of the church and enables the church to accomplish its spiritual work.

I am not in any way trying to be exhaustive with this list. What stands as most important is that God has given to each of us a spiritual gift God does not intend to be left unused or under-utilized. 

How has God gifted you? How are you using your gift(s)? You have been placed where you are to use your gift for God's glory, His people, and the advance of His kingdom.

Take a Daniel moment:

1.  Thank God for His grace to give us generously all things.

2.  Ask God to make clear how He has gifted you.

3.  Pray for wisdom in how to exercise the gift He has given you in the way He desires.

The Only Way to Please Him

There is only one way to please God the Father. Spending time in Hebrews makes this one way abundantly clear. The write says that faith is the only way to please God. Whoever draws near to God must believe the He is and that He rewards those who seek after Him.

Faith is the unwavering, unflinching, unreserved trust in God. It is a trust built on the confidence of God's character and God's track record of deeds. 

Faith that pleases God chooses Christ's sacrifice for our sin over my feeble attempts to earn salvation.

Faith that pleases God leads us to obey His perfect will rather than follow our own wisdom.

Faith that pleases God spurs us on to seek Him daily instead of seeking Him at our convenience.

Faith that pleases God focuses our eyes on the reward stored in heaven as opposed to earthly treasures.

Faith that pleases God dares to live a life of impact for God's glory over living for safety and my glory.

How will we live today? 

It is by faith that the people of old have received their commendation. Noah, Moses, Rahab, David, Joseph, Joshua, Seth, Enoch, Samson, and more have all received their commendation because of a faith fixed upon the unchanging, unmovable, unstoppable God of heaven.

How should we expect to receive the commendation of Christ our Savior and King any other way?

We either live by faith in the One who sees all things perfectly or we live by the sight of what we can see, grasp, and figure out.

Will we live today a life of faith that pleases God? Will we live today pursuing hard after a God who has rescued us from darkness into His marvelous light.

Take a Daniel moment:

1.  Celebrate God seeking after us that we would be found in Him.

2.  Thank God for giving us faith to believe in Jesus Christ.

3.  Ask God to enlarge your faith in Him.

4.  Pray for strength to live every moment, every situation, every decision, and every day by faith.

God Can Use What You Have

God can use what you have! I confess my own guilt of looking at how God has gifted or resourced others and thinking that if I had what they had then God could use me or do a great or greater work.

The major issue with this that God has brought me to is that I have become the focus every time this occurs. What I have to give is viewed greater than what God possesses in Himself. My power to make things happen and do His work supersede in my heart and mind the power of God that is unlimited.

But even more that all this, when I compare myself against another with the silent hope and dream of having what God has given to them, I despise the unique way God crafted me and the ways He has chosen to gift and resource me. I do not trust that God, in His great wisdom and according to His perfect will, has placed me in His mission to accomplish what He has planned for me rather than someone else.

He can use what I have. He can use what you have.

A young shepherd on the hills of Bethlehem learned that God could use what he possessed rather than what others had or tried to give him. David came into Israel's base camp and was immediately offended by a giant named Goliath who mocked God and the people of God. So he offered to go and fight.

He didn't have a sword. He possessed no coat of arms or shield. No spear stocked his arsenal. David could have looked at the giant and said, "God cannot use me to do that work because I don't have what the soldiers possess." They had training, experience, and weaponry.

What's interesting to note is that David perceptively saw that God too had given him training, experience, and weapons, though very different from the soldiers.

David had been trained while watching sheep. His greatest training included how God shaped David's heart to follow Him and live for God's glory.

He had experience that came when a lion and bear both came to kill one of his sheep. He fought both not with a sword or spear, but with his own hands and won.

David had weaponry very different from the soldiers. He had a slingshot and 5 smooth stones. It is doubtful any of us, especially me, would even dare take on a giant and the army backing him with such a weapon. Even the soldiers and king Saul thought it was crazy so they tried to give David armor and a sword.

It just wouldn't work.

But isn't that why this story is so fascinating for us? Isn't this why the story impresses us so deeply? A young man allowed God to use what He had. In doing so, as ridiculous as it seemed, it meant David was completely unable to take credit for what God did by His power through David.

I don't have a slingshot and stones. I don't have a sword or spear. I don't have Moses' staff or Paul's intellectual acumen. But I do have what God has given me. I do have the place God has entrusted to me. And God can use what I have right where I am. What about you?

Take a Daniel moment:
1.  Thank God for His power, wisdom, and perfect will.
2.  Ask God to show you what He has specifically given to you that He can and wants to use.
3.  Pray for Christ to make Himself known through you.
4.  Trust Christ to use you to fulfill His purpose where you are and with what you have.