Whose gift is it? In His Word 3-11-2024
I always
thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you
belong to Christ Jesus. Through him, God has enriched your church in every
way—with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge. 1 Corinthians
13:3-5
God has
given us gifts, specific to our person. He has not grouped many together with the
exact same gift at the same time, except maybe for the Holy Spirit that came at
Pentecost.
As I
studied through the Word, my Bible, I saw many scriptures on God giving gifts,
but I see nothing about people deciding whose gift is what. There are spots
where the writers have encouraged us to figure out what the gifts are. There
are spots where we are to desire better, or more gifts. There are even places where the Disciples, or
Apostles are mentioning the importance of desiring the spiritual gifts. Still,
I could not find where anyone was told they had a gift of something that a
human gave them the skill or idea.
Sometimes
I have noticed, and this is why I studied it, that there are people who sometimes try to push
someone into a gift they think the person would be good at. But it is not our
place to push someone to do what God has not yet told them to do, any more than
it is for us to decide they have the gift.
It is the
gift of God. He gives them to us, our skills, or our supernatural skills are
given to us to use for God’s glory to the benefit of His kingdom and people
need to realize that sometimes your gift and my gift are not going to be the
same. For instant, there are different types of prayer people; some are group
prayer warriors’ others are intercessory prayer people whom God puts the person
on their heart and they run with it in prayer. This is not to say we cannot do
both, but we need to realize what type or prayer warrior we are to be in God’s
plan.
Its like
when we have a gift of teaching, or preaching, we don’t just decide to do it we
have to know that it is God giving us the gift. Read the scriptures below.
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when
the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this
power. “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my
hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”
But Peter
replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be
bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. Repent of your wickedness and pray to the
Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, for I can see that you are
full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.”
“Pray to the Lord for me,” Simon exclaimed,
“that these terrible things you’ve said won’t happen to me!” Acts 8:18-24
We cannot
just learn a gift and expect to be perfect in it on our own devices either.
Like Simon here, we cannot buy God’s blessings, He must give them to us and we
will know the difference, He will know the difference, and those we minister to
will also know the difference if we try to be someone other than whom God has
planned for us to be.
I am sure
we all have listened to teaching at some point and wondered how the person got
to teach something they did not really know about. When we try to walk in a
gift that was not ours to take it is a lot like that. Floundering around trying
to get the information out without any guidance by the Holy Spirit will become
a hindrance.
If we try
to work in hospitality, for instance without knowing we have that calling we
may do a good job… for a while. Then we will get burned out and become a
complainer. God’s Word tells us not to complain which makes it a sin. I would
say we are not walking in our gift from God if we are sinning to do , are we?
We are to
walk cheerfully before our God, doing the deeds He puts before us, walking in
our callings as He has chosen. Let’s be sure we are prayerfully considering our
next step in walking in our calling. Accept God’s gifts and walk in them.
Cheerfully
share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. God has given
each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to
serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God
himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do
it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do
will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him
forever and ever! Amen.1 Peter 4:9-11