Have you ever been a part of a team? Maybe for a sport, band, or even a group of friends that plays a video game together?
One of the things I always loved about playing sports and now playing games with friends is that a team can take several different skill sets and make them work together in unity to accomplish a single goal.
In football, for instance, not everyone on the team is the same. If you had a team of just small fast guys, you’d get run over. If you had a team of all big hard-hitting slow guys, the quick dudes would blow by you. If you only had quarterbacks, no one could catch the ball or keep the QB from getting sacked. A good football team needs a mix of several different skill sets of all shapes and sizes.
You need someone who can throw the ball, someone who can catch, someone who can block, someone who can run, someone who can pull, etc. You need several different skill sets. A team with only one skill set would lose every single game, it takes each person doing their individual job for the team to win.
This is true not just in sports, music, and games but it’s also true in the Kingdom of God. We are all unique in our abilities and our talents, this is intentional. The followers of Christ are a team, as a team, we have many different roles that need to be filled to accomplish the big-picture goal of making faithful followers of Christ.
Not every Christian needs to be a preacher or pastor, not every Christian needs to prophesy, not every Christian has to work at a church, not every Christian has to perform miracles. We are all given different gifts by the Holy Spirit, no one gift is better than another, it takes all these gifts to come together and work together to serve the body of Christ.
Let’s read what Paul says about these gifts in 1 Corinthians 12.
4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.
7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another, the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else, the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. 13 Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.
14 Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. 15 If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?
18 But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. 19 How strange a body would be if it had only one part! 20 Yes, there are many parts, but only one body.
1 Corinthians 12:4-19
He goes on to emphasize this point even more in the last few verses of this chapter:
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. 28 Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church:
first are apostles,
second are prophets,
third are teachers,
then those who do miracles,
those who have the gift of healing,
those who can help others,
those who have the gift of leadership,
those who speak in unknown languages.
29 Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? 30 Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! 31 So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.
1 Corinthians 12:27-31
All of you are part of Christ’s body, the Church.
Do your gifts look different than someone else’s? Absolutely!
Does that make you less than them? Absolutely not!
Can you teach? Lead? Pray? Can you serve people? I would bet that you have been gifted in incredible ways, however, we often lose sight of these amazing gifts because they come naturally to us. They’re “easy,” so we consider them valueless. They’re easy for you because you’ve been gifted by the Holy Spirit and what He has gifted you to do, isn’t easy for everyone. What comes “easy” to you, would be impossible for another.
The point of this blog is this; you are uniquely you and that’s who God created you to be. You can be happy with YOU because YOU are who God created you to be and that wasn’t an accident.
Maybe your skills, talents, appearance isn’t like someone else and that’s ok because if we were all just alike, that would just prove that God didn’t put effort into forming us and there’d be nothing unique about us to love. God loves you, the unique person that you are. With your gifts, with your talents, with your looks, with your brains, with your imperfections, God loves you.
We all have this tendency to rate ourselves based on others. We gauge our value based on how much we are like someone else. God is telling you right now, He didn’t make two of that person. You’re not supposed to be a photocopy of that celebrity, or that man/woman, or that athlete. You don’t have to be them, you’ll never be a better them than they are.
You’re already someone incredible. You’re already beautiful. You’re already talented. You’re already special. You’re YOU. In the words of the great Dr. Seuss “No one is you-er than you.” If you spend all your time trying to be like someone else, or worse, who other people want you to be, then you will fail. Whereas, if you live in confidence knowing you are exactly who God created you to be, you can have peace and strength in that.
God has already created you special. Walk-in that confidence today. You don’t have to live up to others’ standards, as Christians we live for the applause of nail-pierced hands alone. If God is pleased, then we should be as well. Use the unique gifts and abilities that God has gifted to you to build up the Kingdom of God.
God loves you and God has a purpose for you. He has never once created an accidental human, if you are here then He has a plan and purpose for you. He has a job in His Kingdom for you. I believe we are all gifted with one or more of these gifts that Paul mentioned, if you want to discover what your gifts might be, I’ll have a survey linked at the end. You can take it and it will help you realize how God has gifted you.
Spiritual Gifts Survey: https://gifts.churchgrowth.org/spiritual-gifts-survey/
** It isn’t as long as the progress bar makes it look.
Make sure to scroll down at the end to read about your top gifts and see if you agree with them. Comment below and on the Facebook post what your top gifts were!
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