Serving With Humility

God not only transforms our minds but He also gives us spiritual gifts with which to serve Him and one another. A key word is that “God” gives the spiritual gifts.  We don’t earn the gifts nor are certain gifts matched with different levels of obedience. We are given the gifts to use for His glory and our good.  Here is what Paul writes in chapter 12, verses 3-8:  “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”  Because God gives the gifts we are cautioned to use them humbly, not thinking too highly of ourselves.  We should not think that our gifts are better or more important than the gifts of others or that we are more important because of the gifts we’ve received. Rather, we see ourselves as a part of the body; with different functions but all important.  We are “individually members of one another”.  I really like that phrase.  We are individuals but we are not Lone Rangers.  We are not isolated.  Rather, we belong to each other.  We see this in the local church and also in ways that the church ministers to the world. When each person uses his gifts then the whole body functions well together.  I hope that you are using your gifts and I hope you are using them in conjunction with a body of believers.  That is what God intends, to humbly serve Him and others.

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