Spiritual Gifts

Goooood morning fambam!

We all love to get presents from people right?  I love surprise gifts from Ben, they make me so happy because I feel pretty special.  Or when Tyler's mom surprises me with a food gift or laveen gets me coffee, all these gifts...I love them!
Spiritual gifts are freaking way more awesome!  Cuz they remind me that God loves me!  When I hear someone say that they got blessed by my message or my blog or my singing or even just a text from me...I feel my heart is full because God's delight is on me for magnifying His glory!  It is a gift, not a given, to be used by God!  If you think about it, what could we possibly ever give God that is not already His?  Absolutely nothing.  Yet, God knows we were made to enjoy His love, so He gives us the gift of blessing others!  And He does this through spiritual gifts He gives us.

Everyone has a spiritual gift.  But not everyone enjoys the pleasure of having them, because these gifts are not like ordinary gifts.  These gifts are connected to  eternal purpose and epic love.  Are you starting to feel the desire to enjoy your spiritual gift?

"So also you — since you are zealous for spiritual gifts,
seek to excel in building up the church."

To find your gift God gives us the first step in having a heart to be on His mission.  The gift will certainly connect to His mission.  So before you grab your gift you must be on a mission to do something good for the Church.  (i.e.: encourage by counseling, clean rooms and bathrooms, organize education departments, media, etc.)  God wants to see your heart that is simply set on doing SOMETHING ANYTHING to build the church...before your gift is made known.  You may want to counsel, but when you do so you find out it's not your gift, so you go to cleaning and more than wanting what you want, your heart is wanting what the church needs.  Then your gift will become more clear.

"For you may very well be giving thanks, but the other person is not being built up."

A litmus test for whether your gift is truly from God will be in how it builds another up.  You may be thankful that God uses someone like you, but the real proof is that God uses you to build another up.  That's a spiritual gift.

Paul writes:
"I thank God that I speak in other languages more than all of you;
yet in the church I would rather speak 5 words with my understanding,
in order to teach others also,
than 10,000 words in another language."

Paul was a smart guy gifted in languages, and he used this to remind believers that the gift is useless without the purpose.  He said he'd rather say 5 words if it would teach people than 10,000 impressive words to show off how smart he was.  It was all about the people being built up.  His gift was for teaching, despite how much he knew or could do, he only did what was needed for the mission.  Paul enjoyed his gifts like no other!  He was content in all his life.   Cuz every gift God gave him was put to God's purpose....which is wise of God to give Paul ALOT OF GIFTS.  Happy is the one who is blessed by God!

"What then is the conclusion, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, another language, or an interpretation.
All things must be done for edification.
But everything must be done decently and in order.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭14:12, 17-19, 26, 40‬ ‭

When we come together for youth or fellowship at home with our biological families or in doing second service...we are on mission with spiritual gifts.  The flesh naturally is about yourself.  How you look, what others think about you, how you compare, etc...and the biggest hindrance to enjoying our spiritual gifts from God is self-centeredness.  God's awesome gifts are all on a purpose:  edification.
But if all you think about is yourself, then you won't have the time to enjoy God's gifts.

To the one with many gifts, God gives more, but to the one who has little, even what he has is take away, because every gift is meant to give glory to God.

"For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough.
But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." (Matt. 13:12)

The sole purpose of man's life is to glorify God.

Seek the gift that gives you purpose today.
Love you guys.

Jmegrey