What are spiritual gifts? You can ask 100 people and get 101 different responses. Many times we try to put these gifts into a specific place, but the truth is that there are more spiritual gifts than we can even begin to imagine. To see some that folks in the church have used in the past, watch the video below.
Those are fun stories, and as you watched the video, you were probably thinking of many of your own stories that are similar to that. Hold on to those stories, and to those memories.
In the previous post, we started talking about 5 Cups of Coffee. This is a series of posts and sermon messages that are put together to help us do one main thing in two ways. The main thing they are supposed to help us do is the mission of the church.
This is the mission of the United Methodist Church. It is the main thing, and there are two ways that we begin to carry it out. The first takes place on an individual level. These are the 5 Cups of Coffee. Each post in this series can be a conversation that we have with someone else. Those conversations can help us explain to others: why we have faith, why we come to church, and why we put our faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
The second way that we carry this out is that these posts will help us put together our vision for our church. Our vision is how, as a church, we'll live out the mission. The vision is made up of where we have come from, and who God has made us to be, and then leads us into the future.
The first post sets the stage for us. It was about Joshua and the Israelites who were crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land. This was the land that God promised them. You can read about this in the first few chapters of Joshua.
In chapter 4, they were across the river, and God tells Joshua to build a memorial of stones that were taken from the river. They were to be a symbol for Israel, and then we get to my favorite verse in this chapter:
When asked, what the stones mean, the Israelites were supposed to tell their children. For them, they meant that God was with them. God didn't give up on them, and God led them into the promised land, out of the trials, struggles, and hardships that they had experienced before, and into something new.
We aren't going to build a big stone memorial, but we can still answer the question. In each post there is a question that goes with it. It'll be at the end of the post. How we answer those questions become our stones that we'll build into a memorial. Those stones will serve as the foundation for the vision that God is leading us to as we go forward. As we lift up our "stones" we'll lift them up in a prayer.
One of the other things that this helps us to do, is to see the gifts that God has given to us. In the middle of all the stones that we lift up, there are many gifts that God has given us that have made them happen. Take a look now at 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. In particular, start with vs. 7
Everyone is given a gift, and we uses these gifts of the spirit to both live our lives, and to build up the common good and build the Kingdom of God in the best ways that we can. Everyone has a gift. What's important is that we recognize what gifts we have. You can spend a lot of time looking for these gifts using spiritual gifts inventories or assessments, but those are the wrong places to start. First, remember this:
It's not the type of gift that matters, its that they come from the Holy Spirit. That's what's important. God gives them to us. Remember the first people that Jesus called as disciples. They were fishermen. Jesus calls them, not the priests in the temple, and says he will make them fishers of men. Jesus is using who they already are, tweaking what they're doing a bit, and sending them out to do his work. God does the same with us.
Most of the time God uses who we already are and the gifts that we already have. Sometimes God uses the gifts we have, just as they are, and they can make a difference for the Kingdom of God. Sometimes he tweaks what we have just a little, and then they make a difference for the Kingdom. Finally, sometimes God does lead us to gifts that we didn't know we had and says use this to build his Kingdom. Take a look at this questionnaire, its simple and short, but is meant to get us thinking.
As you look at your answers to that, ask yourself, "how can God use this?" Along with that, here is the question for this post. When you answer it, use two of the gifts that you wrote down for the questionnaire.
Take a look to see the gifts that God has given you, and find ways to use them. And always know that God is leading you, no matter where you find yourself.
No comments:
Post a Comment