Tuesday, January 29, 2013

What Are Your Spiritual Gifts?

Our music minister and his wife (Dale and Esther Julian) performed the special music one Sunday morning. Their strength and ability carried me into a time of beautiful worship of our Lord and Savior. After the service, I told Esther how their music ministered to me and she told me she gets nervous. I said, “It was awesome. I couldn’t do it.” Esther replied, “Well I couldn’t do what you do.”

That conversation made me think about God’s gifts and callings in the lives of all His children. Remembering Esther’s nervousness brought this cliché to my mind: “out of my comfort zone.” We all struggle with doing things God’s way. We often look at situations with human eyes and minds and consider what might seem to be the easier way.

Both Dale and Esther attended college to prepare for their ministry. They didn’t just learn how to sing and play musical instruments but how to polish the gift and call God had placed in their spirits. Nursing school didn’t call me to be a nurse. God had given me the gift and call and school was my opportunity to become what God had planned for my life. When I began writing, Earl gave me a computer. It was a tool that I used to hone my skills in that gift and call from God.
 
What is(are) your gift(s) and calling(s)? How are you preparing to fulfill yours?

“Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed…There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines” (1 Cor 12:1, 4-11 NIV). 

In Christian Love,

Berta

For your personal spiritual gift inventory go to http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.8051415/