Tuesday, August 29, 2017

USING YOUR SPIRITUAL GIFTS

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.”  (1 Peter 4:10)

Each Christian has a personality or disposition colored by the specific [spiritual] gifts present and practiced. The combination of gifts and their various manifestations determine how a person acts in relation to self and others in the body of Christ. … Many Christians, if not most, practice their gifts without being consciously aware of them. Usually after two years of growth, serious converts to Christ find a ministry consistent with their gifts -- without knowing it. I have heard many persons tell how their work for Christ was joy-filled, but they didn’t know why until they discovered that all along they were working out of their gifts.

A 70-year-old man gave an emotional testimony after a workshop where he discovered one of his gifts. He said, “All my life I knew there was something I really enjoyed doing for Christ and the church. But I’ve always had a tinge of guilt, thinking that I was doing my thing for self-gratification. This morning, while I was shaving and praying about the gifts, God revealed to me that what I had been doing and enjoying all along was coming out of my gift. I got so excited about it that I could hardly finish shaving without cutting myself. I’ve been singing all day long. And to think that I have felt guilty over the joy of doing what God wanted me to do!”

-- Charles V. Bryant in “Rediscovering Our Spiritual Gifts: Building Up the Body of Christ Through the Gifts of the Spirit”, Copyright © 1991 by Charles V. Bryant. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books.


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