USE IT WELL

 

September 12, 2024

1 Peter 4:5

“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another”

Serving one another involves excellence. 1 Peter 4:5 says, “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another” (NLT). God has bestowed upon us spiritual gift(s), and it's His desire for each of us to utilize that gift effectively. 

To use your gift effectively, there are some recommendations I'd like to share.


Discover your spiritual gift. How do you do that?

Start by exploring what the Scriptures reveal about spiritual gifts. Engage in ministry work and take note of your strengths and passions. Your spiritual gifts will become clearer as you participate in various ministries. Talking with fellow believers who are knowledgeable about spiritual gifts can provide insight into your own gifts as they observe your contributions. Do not limit yourself to one experience of ministry, and don't be hard on yourself if you try something and it just doesn't seem like a fit. Prayerfully ask God to reveal your place and purpose in Kingdom work. 


Develop and deploy your spiritual gift. In other words, once you have discovered your spiritual gift use it. Do something with it. You might discover that your gift is hospitality, but you may wonder where to start to use that gift. One approach to unpacking your gifts is to learn from others with the same gift. Serve along side of them and apply whatever you witness in them to help you effectively use your gift in hospitality, or whatever your gift is. 

Whatever your spiritual gift is, discover it, develop it, then use it faithfully. Why? Because, as the Apostle Paul taught, we are the body of Christ, and the body of Christ, the Christian Community, the Church needs our gifts to be whole as God intends. 

I believe, the Apsotle Paul explains it much better than I ever could in I Corithians 12:12-27. Read the following slowly, don't rush through it, take in the beauty of this description of Spiritual Gifts and the body of Christ.

12 There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. 13 We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. 14 So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.

15 Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. 16 And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? 18 God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. 19 If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? 20 As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.

21 The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. 23 The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care. 24 The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And he has given more honor to the parts that didn’t have any. 25 In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.

27 You are the body of Christ. 

Each one of you is a part of it. 

Thanks be to God. Amen