Your Gifts Are Not Your Own
You have your gifts not so much for your own sake as for the sake of others. You are like an apple tree that produces fruit, not for its own consumption, but for the consumption of others. Your gifts are given so you can bless others by ministering to them. If you have the gift of teaching, you have it so others in the body will be taught. If you have the gift of hospitality, it is because others need the gracious welcome they receive from you. If even one gifted person fails to function, the body of Christ is deprived of a ministry it needs to function well.
We’re All Presents
During the Christmas season when our daughter was three years old, the number of presents under the tree slowly increased as the day approached. Caught up in the spirit and excitement of gifts and giving as only three-year-olds can be, one morning she was picking up, examining, shaking, and guessing what was inside of every package. Then, in a burst of inspiration, she picked up a big red bow that had fallen off one present and held it on top of her head. She looked up at me with twinkling eyes and beamed a smile as bright as the Star as she said, “Look at me, Daddy! I’m a present!”
Her words were more true than she realized! Our children are indeed the most wonderful gifts God gives us, at Christmas or any time. We may appreciate the gifts of talents and skills, either God-given or acquired; but do we consider our children as divine gifts—presents from God? What is more unique and special than our children?
To help us understand the kind of God we have, the Lord went so far as to send us God’s own Son, the most remarkable present of all!
Different Songs to Sing
The wood would be silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. –Henry van Dyke
Training for Gifts
Whenever you start talking about gifts (Romans 12)–you get into one of those exotic medieval arguments about the line between gifts and talents. And can you develop gifts? A reporter once said to George Bernard Shaw: “You have a marvelous gift for oratory. How did you develop it?” Shaw retorted, “I learned to speak as men learn to skate or cycle, by doggedly making a fool of myself until I got used to it.”
A God of Variety
Someone has imagined the carpenter’s tools holding a conference. Brother Hammer presided. Several suggested he leave the meeting because he was too noisy. Replied the Hammer, “If I have to leave this shop, Brother Screw must go also. You have to turn him around again and again to get him to accomplish anything.”
Brother Screw then spoke up. “If you wish, I will leave. But Brother Plane must leave too. All his work is on the surface. His efforts have no depth.”
To this Brother Plane responded, “Brother Rule will also have to withdraw, for he is always measuring folks as though he were the only one who is right.”
Brother Rule then complained against Brother Sandpaper, “You ought to leave too because you’re so rough and always rubbing people the wrong way.”
In the midst of all this discussion, in walked the Carpenter of Nazareth. He had arrived to start His day’s work. Putting on His apron, He went to the bench to make a pulpit from which to proclaim the gospel. He employed the hammer, screw, plane, rule, sandpaper, and all the other tools. After the day’s work when the pulpit was finished, Brother Saw arose and remarked, “Brethren, I observe that all of us are workers together with the Lord.”
God is a God of variety. In nature, what a diversity of animals! Every snowflake is different, every fingerprint, every face. Likewise, God is a God of variety in His church. What a diversity of gifts He has bestowed on believers to equip them for service! –Leslie B. Flynn
Gift and the Giver
For the real good of every gift, it is essential, first, that the giver be in the gift—as God always is, for He is love—and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of His greatest and only sufficing gift—that of Himself. No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best; therefore many things that God would gladly give us must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come. When in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things. –George MacDonald
Laughter Is a Gift
A thirty-eight-year-old scrubwoman would go to the movies and sigh, “If only I had her looks.” She would listen to a singer and moan, “If only I had her voice.” Then one day someone gave her a copy of the book, The Magic of Believing. She stopped comparing herself with actresses and singers. She stopped crying about what she didn’t have and started concentrating on what she did have. She took inventory of herself and remembered that in high school she had a reputation for being the funniest girl around. She began to turn her liabilities into assets. A few years ago, Phyllis Diller make over $1 million in one year. She wasn’t good-looking and she had a scratchy voice, but she could make people laugh.
Developing Your Gifts
One of Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” items pictured a plain bar of iron worth $5. The same bar of iron if made into horse shoes would be worth $50. If it were made into needles, it would be worth $5,000. If it were made into balance springs for fine Swiss watches, it would be worth $500,000. The raw material is not as important as how it’s developed. God says we have spiritual gifts, but their worth to Him will be dependent on how we develop them.
Only a Pebble?
Some of you remember Aesop’s great fable about an old crow who was out in the wilderness and very thirsty. He had not had anything to drink in a long time. He came to a jug that had a little water in the bottom of it. The old crow reached his beak into the jug to get some of that water, but his beak wouldn’t quite touch the water. So what did he do? He started picking up pebbles one at a time and dropping them into the jug. And as more and more pebbles accumulated in the bottom of the jug, the water rose in the bottle until finally the old crow was able to drink all that he desired.
That’s a parable of the way God has chosen to work out His plan in our world. Each of us dropping in our own little pebble—teaching that Sunday school class, serving on a committee, providing transportation for the youth, visiting our lonely neighbor. Utilizing the gifts that are ours to serve in the ways we can may not seem all that important at the time, but as the pebbles accumulate in the bottom of the jug, and the water rises, God builds His kingdom and brings His plan to fruition. You are important!