December 22, 2024

I Peter 4.10, 11 (NIV)

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. 

God doesn’t call us to “good enough.” He calls us to “best.”*

I have a friend who was not blessed with superior intelligence, good looks, or outstanding skills, but right out of high school he started working for an agency who rewarded his hard work and plodding faithfulness with promotions and bonuses. He had been in a supervisory position for several years by the time he retired. He did not always get the respect he deserved from his colleagues but he continued to do his best and give his employer what they paid him for.

I think my friend is a shining example of what God expects from us. Not many of us are blessed with the flashy gifts that place us on ministry’s stage. Most of us are behind-the-scenes people without whom God’s work on earth would be relegated to mere entertainment. At times our service to the kingdom seems less like giftedness and more like drudgery. Often, I jokingly say that you have to do something you hate now and then or you can’t go to Heaven. That may not be sound theology but if you are waiting for God to provide you with a glamorous gift, you will miss the opportunities to serve him in the unobtrusive but effective ways that bless others and glorify him.

Follow the life of Jesus. Did he sing on the stage with the spotlights glaring on him while the audience stood with upraised arms? Did he play a musical instrument or preach in a megachurch? Jesus’ ministry consisted of brief moments of glory and weeks of obscurity, misery, and rejection. Still he did his Father’s will.

If you don’t know what your “gift” is, I suggest that you just do what you are called on to do today, asking God to provide you with the strength to do it well so that in all things he will be praised through Jesus Christ.

In opportunity, in privilege, in the endowment of youth, strength, intelligence, or other of life's benefits, every Christian in some specific sense is better than any other.*