Spiritual Gifts

Aug. 1

1 Cor. 12-14

Yes. That is a lot of reading. However, I focused mostly on 12:1-2 but read it all.

What a week. VBS was awesome. You all pitched in and it was fun and exhausting. You all served and gave your time and talents.

So...wow and ouch...This is how I feel after reading and studying today's devo. I wanted to shed light on idolatry so I did a basic verse lookup and came to this one and it touches on idolatry, but that wasn't the message overall. Instead, God showed me an area that I may overlook. Here, we are warned about spiritual gifts.  According to what I read, Paul is saying people were divided over who had the most gifts and who had the best gifts. It was causing strife. If you look at the love chapter and prophesy chapter, it seemed pride was an issue. So in a sense, they lost focus on the main point of spiritual gifts.

When someone does something for you, or you for them, what was the reason? At times I have heard people say "Don't take my blessing away" when they're trying to do something nice for you. Look, it's great to give and great to serve and great to use our spiritual gifts. However, Paul gives us a warning here. He is not saying don't use the gifts God gave you. He is telling us to watch our motives and reasons. He is saying that spiritual gifts exalt the Giver of the gift (Christ) and not the receiver (us). I think Paul is worried about our actions behind the use of our gifts. If we do it to feel good about ourselves or to receive a blessing then we are not recognizing God for the blessings and gifts.

I saw a quote that says "If a religious experience does not honor Christ as Lord, then it is not from the Spirit." So...yeah...I'm guilty.  I love to encourage and serve and lead/teach but I often forget to exalt the One who gives me those gifts. They come from Him and we are to let His spirit flow through us into others. As we learned from VBS, grace is not of ourselves but the gift of God. So let us exalt the Giver and take our selfish reasons out of it.