1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Evangelism and nurture are the two basic ministries of the church. I wonder what kind of grade we would get if we scored all our church activities by these criteria. Would we fare any better in thus evaluating our personal activities?
Why bring up evangelism and nurture in the context of spiritual gifts? Because we need to see gifts as given to fulfill these callings. God gave gifts to the church so that we might be equipped to evangelize the world and edify His people wherever they may be!
Alas, gifts also have the potential for misuse, misapplication, and division in the church. Imagine that! What God has given for blessing, equipping and unifying could actually become a curse, a hindrance, and a source of contention. Like this, “I have no need of you” and this, “Since I am not…I am not of the body.” I suggest to you that this superiority and this inferiority both equally reveal an independent spirit.
An independent spirit pulls away from the whole as well as from individual elements of that whole. The sense of superiority draws away toward independence because it esteems itself as self-sufficient and self-contained. The perception of inferiority, on the other hand, chooses independence by being unwilling to contribute even the little it thinks it has been given.
We need to remember that “God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.”
We must not forget that it is God Himself that has “tempered the body together.”
He did it so the whole body might be “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part” (Ephesians 4:16).
Let’s ask God to teach us and enable us to use His gifts to us as He wishes.
(Excerpted from The Church and Spiritual Gifts)
Should I move “there” because I think I will be more appreciated and my gifts more recognized?
Do I appreciate our local “prophets” less than the visiting ones?
Do I reject a local leader just because I know him so well as “one of us”?
Might my “unbelief” in him affect the effectiveness of a leader in my home congregation?
Am I handling personal rejection in a godly manner?
What is a godly way to dealing with such rejection?
Source: Overcoming Rejection
