Regardless of what spiritual gifts we have and what level they are, we are called to be unified in Christ. This daily devotional looks at how our focus must remain on Jesus as head of the Church.
Nuggets
- The emphasis should be on unity in Christ rather than diversity of gifts.
- The Church is one because we serve One Savior — Jesus Christ our Lord
- God ties our spiritual gifts with abilities that He has already given us.
- Gifts provide structure to the church.
Devotions in the Never Alone: The Holy Spirit in Our Lives series
Disciples are to use their spiritual gifts to expand God’s kingdom. That includes growing the Church – our local churches and the Church as a whole.
Let’s look at what Paul has to say.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Spiritual gifts are skills and abilities given to us by God through the Holy Spirit so that we can serve Him.
There are several lists identifying spiritual gifts. They are found in Romans 12: 6-8, 1 Corinthians 12: 8-10 and 28-30, Ephesians 4: 11, and 1 Peter 4: 11.
Of course, they are not all the same. Here is a compilation of the lists.
- Faith
- Apostle
- Prophecy
- Pastor/preaching/speaker
- Evangelist
- Teaching
- Miracles
- Healer
- Tongues and interpretation of tongues
- Serving
- Encouragement
- Giving
- Leadership/administration
- Mercy
- Word of wisdom
- Word of knowledge
- Distinguishing between spirits
Multiples of One
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (I Cor. 12: 12 ESV)
The emphasis should be on unity in Christ rather than diversity of gifts.
There are many multiples in this world. No two are alike.
This doesn’t just apply to people, even twins. Think about when a cat has kittens. Some may look alike. Some may look totally different.
Growing up, when a baby was born that didn’t look like either parent, the saying went that s/he looked like the milkman. Looking different didn’t make them not their parents’ child.
Paul was talking about unity and diversity in the church. There is diversity in unity, but there is unity because of Whose we are.
Unity in One
The Church is one because we serve One Savior — Jesus Christ our Lord.
No, we aren’t supposed to rejoice in our differences. We are to serve God the way in which He calls.
When we work together, we are better able to withstand Satan’s darts.
Gifts from the One
God ties our spiritual gifts with abilities that He has already given us.
Goulburn explained how he believes our spiritual are chosen for us. He wrote, “These supernatural gifts had something in the natural endowments of the possessor’s mind corresponding to them. Thus, e.g., corresponding to the gift of tongues, some persons have now a great facility of acquiring languages; corresponding to the girt of prophecy, we find in others a natural gift of high and fervid eloquence; some persons even nowadays have such a wonderful art of imparting what they know, that we can hardly be said to have lost the gift of teaching; others are admirably adapted for government; while even the gift of miracles itself rests on the power of mind over matter, of which power we have exemplifications in a natural way even nowadays.”
Resource
That makes being jealous of another’s spiritual gifts fruitless. We can be jealous all we want, but if we don’t have the ability within us, we would never be successful.
Let’s say God relents and does give us the spiritual gift we really want. That doesn’t mean we are going to have the opportunities to use it.
If God doesn’t call us to the work, He is not going to provide opportunities for us to do it.
God will provide opportunities for the work to which He has called us.
Gifts in the Church
Gifts provide structure to the church.
Boardman put a whole different spin on it. Where Goulburn looked at what spiritual gifts meant individually, Boardman looked at spiritual gifts as to their importance in the church.
Resource
We know God is a God of order. We also know that God likes structure.
Case in point. Remember when Moses was leading the Wilderness Wanderers in wandering around the wilderness, they wandered to where his father-in-law lived. Jethro was concerned for Moses, so he suggested a structure.
“You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” (Ex. 18: 18-23 NIV).
Those officials appointed over thousands would need different gifts than those appointed over tens. Yet, there is a structure to perform the work that God calls His church to perform.
Why wouldn’t God have several different versions of the church – all professing Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer – because He knows we all come from different places and are searching for different things? Yes, our search leads us ultimately is Him.
But how we get there differently. Just like the Sanctification Road is different for all of us. Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We can’t be having fights of interpretation on the minor things. We have to stand firm on the essential doctrines.
These essential doctrines are
- God is the eternal God Who has authority and control of our lives.
- Jesus is the Messiah come to pay the penalty for our sins by shedding His blood.
- He came to call all people to salvation.
- He could do this because He was sinless and divine.
- We have to believe in Jesus and repent of our sins.
- When we accept His Plan of Salvation, God becomes our Father.
- Believe Jesus is the only way to gain salvation and is the head of the church.
- We are called to follow God’s laws and commandments as described in the Scriptures.
We have to remember that we are all dependent on Jesus for salvation and God for everything else.
Making the Connections
We all come from different places. Someone who lost a parent early in life is going to have totally different experiences than I did, growing up with two loving parents. Someone who grew up in New York, Los Angeles, even Chicago, is going to have different experiences than I did growing up on a farm outside of a little village that seemingly had more coon dogs than people.
Their religion is going to be different – let alone their relationship with God.
Goulburn said something that I thought was very important. He wrote, “God’s purpose is that each Christian should exhibit, in the peculiarity of his circumstances, education, moral temperament, and mental endowments, a new specimen of redeeming love and grace. By various discipline here He fits and polishes each living stone for the place which it is destined to occupy in the spiritual temple; and when all the stones are made ready, He will build them together each into his place, and exhibit to men and angels their perfect unity.”
Resource
God puts us in situations and in specific environments so that we can grow the abilities He has given us. He has given us what we need to do His work.
How Do We Apply This?
- Rejoice in the gifts God has given others.
- Use our character and experiences along with the diversity of gifts to perform God’s work.
- Unite the church in sympathy
Resource
Father God. We want to be unified in Jesus. We want to love others while we serve Him. Help us to live as You want us to live. Amen.
What do you think?
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