Topic: Your Gifts and Talents Are Not Just for Your Good [RICK WARREN Devotional 9 January 2021]
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Your Gifts and Talents Are Not Just for Your Good
“I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus. Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 1:4, 7 (NLT)When God thought you up, he created you with a number of different gifts, talents, abilities, and skills. There are certain ways you think and things you do that you’re just naturally good at.
Those gifts and abilities are how God shaped you. But God did not shape you uniquely for your benefit. Your gifts are not just for your own good. Your gifts are for the benefit of everybody else. And that means their gifts are for your benefit, too.
One of my gifts is teaching. I’ve put that gift to work for many years now for the benefit of other people. In the same way, your gifts can benefit the people in your life.
You may already know what you’re really good at. Why do you think God made you good at those things? He wants you to use those gifts for others!
How should you use those gifts or talents in the time left before Jesus comes back? Well, you should use them to reach others for Jesus. You should use them to be an ambassador of love in the world. In fact, if you’re not using those unique gifts the way God intended, then you’re really just wasting them.
God didn’t give you gifts just to use them for yourself. James 4:17 says it like this: “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (NLT).
If you know what you’re good at and you know that many people in the world probably need your help, what are you going to do about it? Who are you serving? Who are you going to help between now and when the story ends and eternity begins?
God has given you—like the church the apostle Paul wrote to in 1 Corinthians—everything you need to serve well. “I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus. Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:4, 7 NLT).
Don’t waste your God-given abilities. Use your gifts to serve God by serving others.
- Have you wondered what your purpose is? How do you think your gifts and talents play into your purpose?
- What is one new way you can use your talents and skills to help someone this week?
- If you knew Jesus was going to return in three days, how would you spend those three days? How should that perspective change the way you spend your time every day?