I Had The Wrong Idea
Do you have a love language? Mine is gifts. What I mean by that is that the best way to tell me that you love me is to give me a gift. It doesn’t have to be a lavish gift. My wife can give me a Diet Mountain Dew and a Hershey with Almonds or a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and I’m a happy camper. If you are reading this from a link on Twitter or Facebook, message me and we can arrange you giving me some sort of gift.
Given that you now know my love language, it shouldn’t surprise you that spiritual gifts excite me. After all, God gave me a gift after I became a follower of His Son.
Unfortunately, I had the wrong idea of spiritual gifts.
I’ve thought way too often that He gave me my gift(s) so that I can preach or teach or write about Him.
Sure, I know that this gift was to be used to further His kingdom and for His glory. I’ve understood this.
Here is what I haven’t understood. The reason I have come to know this is because I’m getting ready to teach about spiritual gifts in my Sunday school class. So, I’ve been doing some study about them ahead of time.
One of the things I’ve found out is something Paul said in Romans 1:11-12. And to be honest, I didn’t get what Paul was saying to begin with.
The verse says this: “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is , that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.”
At first I thought Paul was saying that he was giving the Roman Christians their spiritual gift. And that really didn’t make sense to me. Then after looking at it for a little bit, I think I figured it out.
I think what Paul was saying is that he was going to use his spiritual gift(s) to help them, encourage them and even be encouraged himself. So the spiritual gifts Paul had were to be used for building up other Christians.
Wow!
I really had never thought of it that way.
Sure, I thought some people had the spiritual gift of encouragement and I liked being around those kind of people.
But now I’m getting my mind wrapped around the fact that I should use my gift(s) to encourage and build up my brothers and sisters in the Lord. Why? Because this is what glorifies God through His Son.
The gift isn’t for me.
The gift is for others.
Wow!!!
I had the wrong idea.
How about you? Have you had the wrong idea about spiritual gifts?
