“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren,
I do not want you to be ignorant:"
1 Corinthians 12:1NKJV
I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write this sentence into our scripture. He does not expect everything about our spirituality to be a big secret one can understand. Here in this section of scripture Paul explains to us that we are to understand our gifting. We are to be able to tell by the content whether it is from God or not. No one, speaking under the Spirit by His gifts, will put Jesus down as anything less that the Incarnate God.
We are also to understand the different gifts each of us has, the area of service it is used and the scope of its reach and use it accordingly. This means we recognize that the Holy Spirit equipping us moment by moment to manifest the needed gift. Then we recognize the position Jesus has put us in and bring our gift to bear in a way that profits and builds His people - the Church. Finally we recognize how God has structured us from before time. How we have been woven in the womb. Then we will know how far to take the gift so that it will glorify God and not us.
We need to see that though God has placed us each in a specific place in the body for a certain function that we are still one body. We are all connected in such a way that what happens to one of us happens to all of us. What each of us does or doesn’t do affects all the rest. None of us can be arrogant or declare our lack of need for the others. None of us can think we are more important than any of the others -- either by exalting our gift or by putting it down. God has as arranged the body so that the parts that get the least limelight are more necessary than those who get it. That way both parts are equal.
No one practicing medicine stays ignorant about their profession. The same should be true for us who as believers are concerned with spiritual gifts. We can’t stay ignorant. It is our responsibility to find out about our gifts and their proper uses so we can build the body of Christ and glorify our Father.
Practicing Awareness,
Pastor Jason
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