Hi
I love celebrations! It doesn’t have to be mine. I enjoy the preparation, the actual celebration, the response of the one/s being celebrated, everything. Both, wedding, graduation, promotion, retirement … the works. It gets me mushy on the inside. I also love to see the gifts which accompany the celebrations – sometimes tangible, moreso the intangibles (usually the gifts which last the longest) and sometimes try to see whether the gift matches the personality of the celebrant and the celebrated.
It’s no wonder then that today’s Holy Nougatâ„¢ feels like an entire party packaged just for one:
God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 1 Peter 4:10 NLT
Have you discerned what YOUR spiritual gift is? Did you stop to ask God about it and to understand it so that you use it well? Have you paused to celebrate God’s gift to you? (If your answer is No, you’re in good company. I didn’t always celebrate my gifts, but that’s changing, totally).
What is it about YOUR personality that would cause God to gift you in that way? Moreover, now that you’re operating in your spiritual gift, what does it reveal to you about the Giver?
A friend of mine is gifted with helps and compassion and has gone to Haiti as we speak with a medical team to minister there. She craves our prayers. Another friend is an intercessor. When she prays, the windows, doors and balconies of heaven open and things happen. Another is an excellent preacher, making biblical and spiritual principles come alive in new and profound ways. Yet another is gifted with Faith. Deep abiding Faith which takes God at God’s Word and anticipates the coming together of Word and witness in the lives of others.
Some of us are unaware of our gifting. And I pray that the Lord would reveal same to us in due season. Others are uncertain/unappreciative of our gift, wondering whether the gift is from God and if God really intended it for us. I pray wisdom and grace so that we understand God’s process in the gifting. And yet others are flourishing in the use of our gifts, perhaps even operating with multiple gifts and celebrating continuously by giving of ourselves time and again for God’s glory. I celebrate you and pray even more growth and opportunities to serve.
Remember, we each have a special gift from God, spiritual and otherwise. And we’re gifted so that we might serve each other. Every gift is important for the building up of God’s body.
May the Holy Spirit quicken and stir up those gifts in us, in Jesus’s name Amen.
In Christ’s love and grace
