USE YOUR GIFTS!

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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

Do you have the gift of speaking?

Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you.

Do you have the gift of helping others?

Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.

Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen.

1 Peter 4:10-11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We all have a single Creator God. No one has been fashioned by anyone or anything else, no matter how much someone might try to infer.

In the Old Testament, Israel’s great king David, a man who was after God’s own heart, knew this well as seen through his own testimony. Here’s what we find from him in the 139th Psalm:

“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Vv.13-14

As David expresses so well, we are “knit together” by the very hands of the Lord Himself. Further, God, speaking through the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonian believers, goes on to let His people know that through Him, they “live and move and have...being” (Acts 17:28). This lets us know that God isn’t only at work forming us physically but spiritually as well, installing gifts within us all to be used to serve Him and others, ultimately bringing Him honor and glory.

This brings us to our scripture passage for today as we continue to look at the fourth chapter of 1 Peter. Look again at those words here:

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

Do you have the gift of speaking?

Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you.

Do you have the gift of helping others?

Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.

Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen. Vv.10-11

Note here that not one of the believers Peter writes to was exempt from getting a spiritual gift from God. Not one. The same remains true today but sadly too many Christians fail to allow the Lord to activate His gift in ways that they might be obedient to the call to “use them well to serve” others and, in doing so, “bring glory to God through Jesus”.

In other words, they let their God-granted gifts go to waste and there is no questioning that this doesn’t sit well with the greatest gift giver ever, the Giver of every good and perfect gift from above (James 1:17). We know this because of a parable Jesus told during His ministry years, one that has come to be known as the Parable of the Talents. In support of this message today, it would serve us well to revisit this passage. Jesus says this:

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.”

“The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.”

“After a long time, their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.”

“The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’”

“The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’”

“The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’”

“The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’”

“Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’”

“But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’”

“Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” Matthew 25:14-30

Three servants. Each given the responsibility to put what they had been given to use so to provide a return on investment. Two did, one didn’t.

This provides us the moral of this story and it’s simple:

Don’t be the third servant.

I mean, who would want to put themselves in a position where they receive the judgment and punishment of the Master, their spiritual gifts taken away before being cast into utter darkness to weep and gnash teeth. Only a fool would look for this kind of trouble.

My prayer today is that you, like I, will be able to identify with one of the other two servants, receiving the Master’s favor instead of His condemnation while gaining an abundance of additional gifts from Him.

The call from God’s Word is for all Christian believers to use their gifts, the gifts He has given in accordance with the purposes He has for our respective and collective lives. Today, and every day, let’s commit and devote ourselves to doing just that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.