The Gifts Among Us: Part 3

We finished The Gifts Among Us this Sunday, picking up a thread Paul left hanging a year ago. “Earnestly desire the higher gifts.”

One question drove the morning. If every believer has a gift, what kind is it, and how does it come to us? Because they don’t all come the same way.

We landed on two kinds. Functional gifts, the ones we are called to grow. And appointed gifts, the ones we are conferred to go.

Functional gifts come first, in Romans 12. You don’t wait for a gift of mercy to show mercy. You don’t wait for a gift of encouragement to encourage. You grow these, on purpose, over time, until they become second nature. Even Jesus grew (Luke 2:52).

This is the floor we all stand on. Serve, give, encourage, show mercy, welcome, pray. Every one of us. No exceptions.

Appointed gifts are different. In 1 Corinthians 12, God appoints them in the church as he chose. Teaching. Leadership. Administration.

Not earned. Not climbed into. Placed, and confirmed by the body that sees them. You can’t practice your way in. You desire them, and God gives as he wills.

So whatever gift God has placed in the person beside you, the posture is the same. Recognize it. Receive it. Don’t envy it. And don’t fake it.

One thread kept both honest. The office, God appoints to some. But the act, building one another up, he asks of all.

Not everyone is a prophet. But everyone can speak a word that strengthens a brother. That word again from Part 1. Oikodomē.

Then we turned one page, to chapter 13. Speak in the tongues of angels without love, and you’re a noisy gong. Show the smallest mercy in love, and it’s never wasted.

The gift was never the point. Love is. Jesus held every gift there is, and he poured them all out in love.

Something to sit with this week:

Am I waiting to be handed a gift, instead of growing the ones I already carry?