Far too often people live their lives without fully realizing their God-given gifts. People will just walk through life and not take chances with their gifts God has blessed them with. I’m a victim on complacency and being content with the life I have. And there’s nothing wrong with being content in life. But how many of you live your life, knowing that there’s more you can do? God has blessed each one of us with spiritual gifts, or better known as Gifts of the Spirit.
Before reading this any further, I challenge you to read 1 Peter 4: 10-19.
Gifts of the Spirit are special abilities provided by the Holy Spirit to Christians for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. The list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11:
- 8 For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
- 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
- 10 to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
- 11 It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things.
The gifts of the Spirit are simply God enabling believers to do what He has called us to do. 2 Peter 1:3 says, "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." The gifts of the Holy Spirit are part of the "everything we need" to fulfill His purposes for our lives.The Holy Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as He sees fit. God does not want us to be ignorant of how He wants us to serve Him.
However, it is very easy for us to get caught up in what spiritual gift(s) we have and then only serve God in that area of ministry. That is not how it works. God calls us to obediently serve Him. He will equip us with whatever gifts of the Spirit we need to accomplish the task or tasks He has called us to. Yes, God calls some to be teachers and gives them the gift of teaching, but that does not excuse the person from serving God in other ways as well. Is it beneficial to know what spiritual gift(s) God has given you? Of course, it is. Is it wrong to focus so much on spiritual gifts that we miss other opportunities to serve God? Yes!
There is no magic formula or spiritual gift test that can tell you what gifts of the Spirit you possess. What we need to focus on is serving God. If we seek God's will and obey His leading, He will always equip us with whatever gifts of the Spirit we need.
But then it comes down to one thing, you. You and you only. It comes down to whether or you take God’s gift, and use it to further the kingdom. All you have to do is jump. That’s it.
I was on Facebook one afternoon at school and came across a video that moved me, and it came from a man that I didn’t really believe felt this way. That man being Steve Harvey. Harvey talked about a topic similar to what I’m discussing— jumping. He didn’t talk about this on his daily show on ABC, but after a taping of Family Feud with a small audience. In that video, he said some interesting things and I’d like to share some of those with you.
Just jump. It’s as simple as that. But it’s a lot easier said than done.
Switching gears for a moment, "Facing the Giants" is my all-time favorite movie. In that movie, there is a scene where it talks about using your gifts. I’d like to show that scene of the movie now.
Brock was content with his gift of leadership. But thanks to motivation from his coach, Brock’s gift of leadership was expanded. Brock death crawled the length of a football field with 160 pounds on his back.
Don’t settle for jumping 50 yards, jump 100 yards. It may hurt and it may not go the way you want it to at first, but as Steve Harvey said, "It’s a promise from God that he will lead you through."
All you have to do is jump.
