Even though God gives us different gifts, He wants us to be unified in serving Him. This daily devotional looks at how disciples of Christ should work together to further God’s kingdom.
Nuggets
- God calls us all to have a part in His ministry.
- God has a variety of gifts that He gives to His children.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Transformed to Perfection series
The human body is an intricate, diverse organism. It is diverse because it is made up of organs, tissues, bone — and a lot, lot more.
But it is also intricate because they all have their own functions — and they work together.
Paul used the body to describe what the church is to be like. It was a great way to show the diversity and unity.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
One Body
“Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another” (Rom. 12: 4-5 CSB)
God calls us all to have a part in His ministry.
We all have the same commission.
- “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk. 16: 15 KJV).
- “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Mt. 28: 19-20 KJV).
The Homilist reminded us that, even though the body is made of all these different parts, those parts aren’t necessarily a distinct unit. Yes, we only see through the eyes; but if they aren’t connected to the brain, it really wouldn’t be able to see.
Aren’t we trying to do that in our churches today? We parcel ourselves out by age and gender, sometimes race and ethnicity.
Seniors, adults, youth, and children — we can’t focus on the groups as it they were the whole. Substitute all the other groups — we can’t do that either.
Instead, we have to look at the Church as a whole. The Homilist wrote, “… not the individuality of the member, but the oneness of the whole community, is to demonstrate the truth of Christ’s mission.”
I am not saying do away with my Ladies’ class. I am saying that we have to always remember that it isn’t the whole.
We can take it further than that. Baptists, Catholics, Methodist … need I go on?
The name of the demonination or religion isn’t important. What is important is they believe in the Christ of the cross.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
God never intended the divisions. His gospel is for all.
- “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 NIV).
- “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (II Pet. 3: 9 ESV).
I see this as a way of reminding us that we have to focus on God and not ourselves. We sometimes like to think it is about us — who we are and what we want.
It isn’t. God’s Church is all about God and what He has done to restore our relationships with Him.
Many Gifts
“According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts …” (Rom. 12: 6 CSB)
God has a variety of gifts that He gives to His children.
There is that phrase again — sorta. “For by the grace given to me …” (Rom. 12: 3 CSB)
Last time, Paul said that the grace was given to him. This time, he said the grace has been given to all of us.
Paul is right on both counts. When we ABCD, we do get a portion of God’s grace.
Paul is also right that ministers are given grace by God to use in His kingdom for others.
What the church at Rome was dealing with was that God has given each of us different gifts to use to accomplish that mission. Melvill said the problem Paul was discussing here was envy. It was a case of I-want-what-you-have.
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No, we are not all given the same gift — and not all at the same level. We don’t all use our gifts the same way.
Harrison said that there was a form of unity here. He wrote, “There will be differences of gifts because there are differences of functions, but there must also be fitness for association, and to form a secure union all the members must be renewed by the Holy Spirit, be joined to Christ by a living faith, and exhibit the beauties of a consistent character.”
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Elaine-speak
- It takes a lot of people with a variety of abilities to complete God’s mission.
- I take fitness of association to mean a couple of things.
- We must all be children of God who have ABCDed.
- We must have honed our skills so that they can be used to their fullest potential.
- We take our direction from the Holy Spirit — “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3: 5 ESV).
- Doing God’s work is another way we gain His character and allows us a chance to exhibit that character to others.
Did you see that? Once again, it says that we have to begin by ABCDing and end by having His character.
Doing all that brings God glory and honor. That is our purpose in life.
I love how Tyson described it. He wrote, “But every individual believer has his own proper sphere of influence and activity for the general good (Ephesians 4:15, 16).”
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Think about it. We usually think of this as we have a job in the church. We do.
We have an influence, however, in so many different places. Yes, I influence my Ladies when I teach my class. It could be said that I have an influence when I sing on Praise Team and do an offertory on my flute.
But I have influence in my own home and job. I can be an influence when I am out shopping.
We can be an influence anywhere there is people. It may be in His house, on a mission field — or on our field.
I liked how Harrison said that there had to be harmony of character. We are all to have the same character — God’s.
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Regardless of whatever qualifier we try to put on, all of Christ’s disciples must have the same character — Jesus’. We are called to imitate Him because He is imitating God.
Making the Connections
Harrison noted the importance of having a division of labor. We can assign tasks to those to which they are most suited. But it is more than that.
We aren’t supposed to show up Sunday at 10:30 and expect Pastor Joey to just fill us right up. Each of us is expected to give back.
We are expected to do something. Harrison had some really strong words. He wrote, “The member who is doing nothing is worse than useless.”
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Each of us is needed to do God’s work. We’ve got to grow a loving relationship among all of the fellow believers.
Stanley stressed that we have to be genuine. We can’t witness to things we really don’t believe or value. What we use in our witness has to come from our knowledge and experiences.
This has to come from God’s truth. But Stanley warned us that “Christian truth is not of one kind only. It has lights and shades, foregrounds and distances, lessons of infinitely various significance.”
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Sometimes, we want the do’s and don’ts of the laws and commandments to be a checklist. Have we gotten it right, or did we go off the rails somewhere?
But God isn’t about checklists. He is about character. Checklists might not serve us in every situation. Character does.
The prevailing determinant must be: are we sinning against God? We have to choose the option where the answer is no.
We can’t choose to sin because the worldview people think that is what “love your neighbor” means. Goulburn wrote, “God loves me deeply, but He hates my sin, and will never consent to save me from its guilt without saving me from its power.” We won’t be saved if we allow sin to still control our lives.
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How Do We Apply This?
Look what Vaughan said. He wrote, “The measure of the faith is the measure of the life; and if we wish to raise the standard of our life, we must begin by elevating our faith. But we are to take ‘faith’ here rather as signifying not the belief, but the things believed — our creed — ‘the faith once delivered to the saints.’
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That means the measure of our faith is the level of confidence in which we have both in Christ and in our ability to serve Him which can be raised through increased faith.
Okay. So, how do we apply all of that?
- Don’t be envious of gifts we don’t have and someone else does.
- We need to promote unity. We all have the potential to be children of God. This causes us to try to help one another.
- We need to try to not cause division.
- Instead of envying someone else’s gift, we should perfect our own.
- We should be ourselves.
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Regardless of what gift we possess and at what level, it is a gift from God. He expects us to use it in His service.
Father. You are the God of peace and unity. Satan is the father of chaos. That causes disunity. Help us, Lord, to be unified with our brothers and sisters in Christ. May we not be envious of the gifts of others. Help us to grow our gifts so that they may be used in Your service. Amen.
What do you think?
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