1st Peter 4:10-11, "10God has given gifts to each of you from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God’s generosity can flow through you. 11Are you called to be a speaker? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Are you called to help others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then God will be given glory in everything through Jesus Christ. All glory and power belong to him forever and ever. Amen."
Every believer has a gift that they have been given by the Lord Jesus Christ at the point and moment they received Him. Not only this they have been given natural abilities so that they may sing of His praises and use the abilities He has given them for the rest of their remaining lives as long as they should live. Yet people in our societiy would seem that intellect and power and greed are something to be proud of and esteemed? It is exactly this line of logic that leads one straight into the firey pit of hell? As if every blessing didn’t flow from the throne of God? As if everything that has breathe will not sing of His praises at the Second Coming of Christ? As if His enemies on that day will not be trodded down and defeated falling at His very feet in a heap of blood and their bones fall and clatter in His very presence? As if we could bring anything to the equation that truly mattered except our hearts and our lives?
Sadly many would like to think that they bring something to the equation with God. The sad fact though is that we are all sinners hanging by a thread in need of a Savior, as believers we cannot depend upon self or the world for our comfort but look ahead to the prize set before us, running the race towards eternity, not towards the primary objectives or treasures that we so often look for. Often we view life as a measure of success telling ourselves if we acheive this standard then we will in turn rise up to meet the next one. Instead of basing our faith upon Christ and looking up and relying on the Holy Spirit within us, we rely upon our self esteem our works to acheive that which we want.
It is time that we submit to our Lord crucified our desires at the foot of the Cross, and instead pick up that very Cross and become servants of the Lord rather than servants of our self made desires and pleasures. Philosophy may try and influence us but philosophy with all of its intellectual properties cannot save us, for salvation was purchased on a tree on a hill on Calvary for us so that we might nail the passions of self to it, and in turn move on with our lives. Our God is not a God of WAS, He has said that HE IS THE GREAT I AM! If we desire to have fellowship in Him let us walk therefore in the Light of His presence in the awareness of His ever guiding influence upon us, instead of walking around stumbling in the dark as if we had to do that as believers as conqueres in His name.
Our guiding influence as believers is Christ, and it is our dependancy upon Him that will guide us through.
What are your spiriutal gifts?
Encouragement Acts 14:22 ability to motivate God’s people to apply and act on biblical principales especially when they are down or wavering in their faith; te ability to bring out the best in those around them.
Wisdom 1st Corinthians 2:1; 6-16, the ability to understand God’s perspective on life situations and share those insights in a simple yet understandable way. The ability to explain what to do and how to do it.
Discernment 1st Corinthians 2:14 the ability to distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Service Acts 6:1-7 the ability to recognize unmet needs in the church family and take the initative to provide pratical assistance quickly, cheerfully and without a need for recognition.
Mercy Romans 12:8 the ability to manifest practical compassionate cheerful love towards suffering members of the Body of Christ.
Hospitality 1st Peter 4:9-10 the ability to make others especially strangers feel warmly wlecomed, accepted and comfortable in the church family. The ability to coordinate factors that promote fellowship.
Pastoring 1st Peter 5:2-4, the ability to care for the spiritual needs of a group of believers and equip them for ministry. The ability to nuture a small group in spiritiual growth and assume responsiblity for their welefare.
Giving 2nd Cor 8:1-7 , the ability to generously contribute materaial resources and or money beyond the ten percent tithe so that the Body of Christ may grow and be strenthend.
Music, Psalms 150, the ability to celebrate God’s Presence through music, either vocal or instrumental and to lead the church family in worship.
Knowledge Daniel 1:17, the ability to discover, collect, analyze and organize information that is vital to individual believers or the entire church family. Thea bility to comprheend a large amount of information and provide it when needed for effecitve decision making.
Miracles Mark 11:23-24, the ability to pray in faith specifically for God’s supernatural intervention into an impossible situation and see God’s answer. The ability to sense when God is promoting you to pray this sort of prayer.
Tongues with interretation. !st Cor 14:13-15, the gift of tongues is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to receive and communicate a message of God through divenely anointed utterance in a language they have never learned.
Interpretation, the gift of interpretation is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to make known in the vernacular the message of the one whos peaks in tongues.
Arts and crafts Exodus 31:3-11, the ability to build, maintain or beautify the place of worship for God’s glory.
Intercession Colossians 1:9-12, the ability to pray for the needs of others in the church family over extended periods of time on a regular basis. the ability to persist in prayer and not be discouraged until the answer arrives.
Healing, James 5:14-16, the ability to pray in faith specifically for people who need physical, emotional, or spiritual healing and see God answer. The ability to sense when God is prompting you to pray this k ind of prayer as well.
Hebrews 13:7-17, the ability to clarify and communicate the purpose and direction "vision" of a ministry in a way that attracs others to get involved, the ability to motivate others by example to work together in accomplishing a ministry goal.
Adminstration 1st Cor 14:40, the ability to recognize gifts of others and recruit them to a ministry. The ability to organize and manage people, resources and time for effective ministry. The ability to coordinate many details and execute the plans of leadership.
Faith, Romans 4:18-21, the ability to trust God for what cannot be seen and to act on God’s promise; regardless of what the circumstances indicate. The willingness to risk failure in pursuit of a God given vision expecting God to handle the obstacles that will come with it.
I pray that our focus will not be upon the gift itself but upon the Giver of the gift, the reason for the gift. For it is only as we develop intimacy with our Lord and Savior that the gifts that we possess will in turn become stronger as we ourselves become stronger warriors for our Lord and Savior. Nail the passions of the flesh on the Cross and move on with your life, turning your heart and your mind towards heavenly things.
This quote is from my sermon on Matthew 5:3 titled Recognizing our needs, "It is when we allow though the Spirit of God to crucify and shed His light on our lives that we come to a true understanding of what our needs really are. Our need is to be crucified completely to Christ. After all, Christ became Man in part so that we could inherit the Kingdom of Light instead of the Kingdom of Darkness. If we don’t allow the Light to shine in our lives then we cannot say we have the Light in our lives. We really have the darkness that has captured so many, and even those who say they are really in the Light are really in the Darkness. When we recognize our needs, and as we come to an understanding deep within our wills that, yes, Jesus is the answer to the darkness of our souls. When this happens, we are then able to let the Light of Christ radiate in each area of our life. The result is a complete crucifixion of the flesh, and an embrace of the Way of Life that God has given us through the Blood of Jesus."
May our focus always be upon the Giver-the Lord Jesus Christ and upon developing intimacy with Him everyday.
God bless you,
Pastor Jenkins
