1 Corinthians 12:1-12
Ephesians 4:1-16
Jeremiah 29:11-13
If you are familiar with Myers-Briggs, a personality profile used by behavioral scientists to help us talk about the wide diversity of personalities in God’s creation; you will understand when I say I am a “J.” I like everything in order. I plan my work and work my plan. I make a “to do” list on my day off. It is part of the way God wired me.
So I resist the sense that God has made a wonderful plan for each of our lives. I realize that there is nothing set in stone. I may make a plan for working on this blog ahead of time, but life happens. How much more does God allow life to happen in our world! God grants us immense freedom in choosing to live our lives.
So, I prefer to think that God has hopes and dreams for our lives. Not every detail is anticipated, because, God knows fully well, we are often unpredictable in our choices. God is big enough and powerful enough to allow this and even encourage this. God values the privilege of free will.
At the same time, God does invite, woo, encourage, entice, attract, request, and call us into specific decisions and directions. How do we discover God’s directions for our life? I’ll talk more about discerning God’s will next time. This week let’s focus on this simple formula: g + p + c = God’s ministry.
G is for gifts. The passages above are just a few of the passages discussing spiritual gifts in the Bible. And nowhere do any of the lists imply or state that this list is the exhaustive and complete list. Most of them have minor differences.
The point is that God has already planted within us the potential ability to do in a wonderfully effective way whatever God dreams for us to do. Not all of us have the same gifts. In fact, there are a plethora of gifts. (I looked that up in my word book.) Discovering our spiritual gifts will be a significant clues to discovering God’s hopes and dreams for our lives.
Let me share a couple more teachings about spiritual gifts. No spiritual gifts are more important than other spiritual gifts. Check out the rest of 1 Corinthians 12. Every gift is important and needed. No gift gives any believer a special status distinct from the rest. The characterization of the believer is servant. There is only one Lord and Master.
The purpose of spiritual gifts is to build up the body of Christ. Check out 1 Corinthians 14. Paul believes that a gift that only benefits one person is fairly useless.
Spiritual gifts are different from talents in that they always point us towards not the individual believer, but Jesus Christ. The spirit of the believer resembles that of Jesus. Check out Philippians 2:1-11.
How do you discover your gifts? It is a longer journey than this, but here are a couple of clues. One, talk with people who understand God’s spiritual gifts and know you well. Two, read the scriptures where these gifts are demonstrated. When does your heart race a little faster? What stories or characters inspire you? Why? Three, there are some diagnostic inventories that can help point the way, but we cannot reduce God’s ways of working to computer generated graph. It is merely a tool that might help us in our search. Four, experiment. Try some ministries that put you in a place to use those gifts. How does it go? Is it effective ministry? How does the Spirit witness within you and others?
P is for passion. What do you care about? What is it that makes you weep? What is it that makes you leap out of bed in the morning?
It took me awhile to discover that what I enjoyed about being a pastor is not the preaching. (I really am uncomfortable being in front of people.) It is not the pastoral care and counseling. (After all these years of experience and training, I still just want to tell people to “Get over it!”) It is seeing God take something that is unfinished and underdeveloped and growing it to the next level. For example, I get excited seeing a teen discover their niche in life or seeing a church create a new ministry or seeing a disciple learn a new skill to use to help others. That fires my boiler!
Gifts plus passion plus community equals ministry. There may be some examples of this, but I cannot think of any in my personal experience. Ministry does not happen with lone rangers. It always connects with a spiritual community somewhere. Even missionaries going to isolated parts of the world depend upon a spiritual community somewhere for prayer support and accountability.
Spiritual community encourages me when I grow frustrated. Spiritual community gives me energy when I run out fuel. Spiritual community holds me accountable for the use of the gifts God has entrusted to me.
So here are the questions for your pondering this week:
- What are the spiritual gifts God has planted within you? Where are you using them? How is God blessing you through them; and blessing others through you?
- How are you living out the passion God has planted in your heart? Are you finding the opportunities for your passion to fuel the use of your gifts?
- Who is on your team? Who is your support and accountability system?
Real spiritual leadership comes not from position, title, or status. It comes from God’s Spirit working through real people who are simply, but passionately using their gifts for Jesus’ sake.
Are you the leader God dreams and hopes you will become?
August 20, 2009 at 11:29 am |
I don’t know that I have a full understanding of the gifts God has placed in me but I do know that I function as a learner, a planner, and a teacher. Recently, much of my outlet for these gifts has been through blogging and social connections – both personal connections and electronic connections – and in trying to live the Gospel as best I can.
Living the passion – not nearly as much as I would like. I need to spend some more time on this both in terms of understanding and investment.
On my team – certainly my wife, as well as my pastors and the eldership of my church, and a large number of people to whom I am connected. Not every person to the same level, but I view them all as being part of my team.
Thank you for asking these questions.
August 20, 2009 at 11:36 am |
I would like to quote a section of this in my blog (http://bdentzy.com) with a link back to yours for the rest of the story. May I have your permission to do that?