Rich Christians have been or will be equipped by God Himself to accomplish His will for their lives here on earth.
May the God of peace... equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ... (Hebrews 13:20-21, NIV).
Even before we became believers, God gave us natural talents and abilities that we were either born with or learned within the context of our environment. Perhaps you have a natural ability in the area of music. Or maybe even as a young child, you were gifted in working with your hands and you found that you like to build things.
I believe that God gives us natural talents, abilities developed in our environment, as well as God-given spiritual gifts He wants us to utilize for Kingdom purposes in the scope of His Big Idea for our lives.
If you are uncertain of what God's Big Idea is for your life, I would encourage you to do the following. First, carve out some quiet time for some self-examination. Then, grab a pen and legal pad and start listing all of your passions, natural talents, abilities, and so on. Third, take a spiritual gifts inventory. If you have never taken a spiritual gifts inventory, there are a number of them available online. I just did a quick Google search, and came up with the following short list of possibilities:
- BuildingChurch.net - Gifted 2 Serve
- On-line Spiritual Gifts Test
- Free Spiritual Gifts Analysis
- MinTools.com
- First Baptist Huntsville
Invest the time and energy in uncovering where God has gifted you and then get busy doing the work God has gifted you to do.
So Christian, let me ask the following questions this morning?
- Are you keenly aware of your natural talents?
- Do you know what your natural strengths and abilities are?
- Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts inventory?
- What are your burning passions in life where you could make an impact for the Kingdom?
- Are you passionately pursuing work and/or ministry that fulfills God's Big Idea for your life?
i also read about God's equipping through scars. Through the lessons God teaches during difficult times like conflict , betrayals , compromise , persecution , loneliness ,depressions , trails , death of loved ones. These are called SCAR based ministry while Gifts and talents are STAR based minitries.
ReplyDeleteA unity based on Christian love and humility is so important to acheive. If we could only start by unifying the dates of Easter!
ReplyDeletewww.onedate.org
Doulos - I totally agree with you. It's often through the trials of our lives that we are shaped by God and our lives take on a totally different character.
ReplyDeleteRiti - I never realized that there was so much discrepancy on the Easter date. Interesting site.
Larry