God is bringing me into contact with some of the most amazing gifted people. Last night I had a meeting with someone who specializes in getting major press coverage. Basically if you want to appear on a television show, or to obtain a write up in any major newspaper or media outlet, this person can get it done. It was very interesting to learn how they began working first in the movie industry on such movies as Hannibal and Silence of the Lambs and morphed into becoming a leading PR expert relied upon by political parties and other huge entities. This person’s skills should prove to become a tremendous asset for the Renewal of America project sometime in the future.
Today I have a meeting with someone who is part of the Veritas Forum and is an “apologist”. Don’t know what that is? This gal debates non-believers at Harvard and other top universities all over the country and she is very good at it. The Veritas Forum creates events engaging students and faculty in exploring life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life. Its members are experts in debating atheists and others in the education realm. I greatly anticipate speaking with her about it and learning more of her interesting career and how we can utilize those skills in our website research center.
Later this afternoon I will meet with Evangelist Sam Rodriguez (head of the largest evangelical organization in the world with 250 million members) and several famous businessmen one of whom is a billionaire to discuss how our respective organizations can unite and work together to evangelize the world beginning right here in America.
We all have gifts that God has given to us. What is important concerning gifts is that each of us use our gifts to glorify our Lord and not just for personal objectives.
Rick Warren wrote about this subject and stated: “You can’t earn your spiritual gifts or deserve them — that’s why they are called gifts! They’re an expression of God’s grace to you:
Ephesians 4:7 – “Christ has generously divided out his gifts to us”.
Nor do you get to choose which gifts you’d like to have. Paul explains that God determines that
1 Corinthians 12:11 – “it is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have”.
Because God loves variety, and he wants us to be special, there’s no one single gift given to everyone, and no individual receives all the gifts. If you had them all, you’d have no need of anyone else, and that would defeat one of God’s purposes — to teach us to depend on each other.
Your spiritual gifts were not given for your own benefit but for the benefit of others, just as other people were given gifts for your benefit. The Bible says,
“A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other” (1 Corinthians 12:7).
When we use our gifts together, we all benefit. If others don’t use their gifts, you get cheated, but if you don’t use your gifts, they get cheated. This is why God wants us to discover and develop our spiritual gifts.
Whenever we forget these basic truths about gifts, it always causes trouble in the church. Two common problems are “gift-envy” and “gift-projection.”
The first occurs when we compare our gifts to others, feel dissatisfied with what God gave us, and become resentful or jealous of how God uses others.
I’ve seen this happen in churches. Christ describes His church as being analogous to a human body. Just imagine if God created everyone to be an eye, we could all see very well just like someone bestowed with the gift of prophecy, but we couldn’t get much of anything done aside from seeing.
Pastor Warren describes another problem as follows:
The second problem happens when you expect everyone else to have your gifts, do what you’re called to do, and feel as passionate about it as you do.
Ouch! That one hurt – I’m guilty of that sometimes. We should not judge anyone; but instead maybe gently remind them that God has given them gifts too and urge that them to use them to glorify God.
Have a great weekend and go to Honey Lake Church, (or somewhere) this weekend.
1 Corinthians 12:5
“There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord”
May 23, 2014 – Click here to listen