December 02 2025

Tuesday December 02

“To Each One of Us”

Ephesians 4:7-11

7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men." 9 (Now this, "He ascended"--what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,

Today will continue to look at Ephesians 4:7-11. These verses are about the Spiritual gifts that God gives “to each one of us” for unity in the church. These gifts can either be used to build us up or used to tear us down. God has already given us the Gift of the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. At that time, we were baptized into the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us. This great truth is taught throughout the Epistles in the New Testament.

But along with the Gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, also imparted Spiritual gifts into our life. These gifts are many and you will find them listed in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12-14 and also in Ephesians 4. We need to also understand that these Spiritual gifts are not the natural abilities that we're born with, such as mechanical ability, musical ability, athletic ability, or artistic ability. No, those are natural abilities and different people have different natural abilities.

But these are Spiritual gifts and this gifting is very important for us to understand as believers. I'm convinced, we will not find real fulfillment, satisfaction, and real contentment in our lives unless we're fulfilling the purpose for which God created us. Remember in Ephesians 2:8-10 we learned that God saved us by His grace, not just so we could go to heaven when we died, but because, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” He saves us to do “good works” for Him through the abilities we have from our Spiritual gifts.

God knew exactly what gifts the body needed in that particular local church and He “prepared beforehand” and gifted every believer that became a part of that local church with specific spiritual gifts to build up that body of Jesus Christ which builds up the whole body of Christ around the world. So these are powerful verses to understand and make sure we begin to comprehend and apply to “each” of our lives as we see in verse 7: “But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift”.

Paul said something similar to the church at Rome in Romans 12:4-6: "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another." Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them”. We should make sure we're exercising those spiritual gifts that God has given us.

Then in verses 8-10, we read something very interesting. These are wonderful verses reminding us that Jesus Christ first descended that He might ascend. And He led captivity captive. I believe the meaning of this is that just as we were captive to Satan by sin before salvation, Jesus Christ because He was victorious over death and sin and hell and the grave, He now takes us captive for His glory, and gives the Spiritual gifts that we need to serve Him. “Jesus descended that He might ascend”. He descended in obedience to “death of the cross and for that God has highly exalted Him and given Him the Name that is above every name…” (Philippians 2:8-11).

Jesus “descended to the lower parts of the earth”. I believe that this could mean that Jesus took there those in paradise previous to the cross and He led them up to the third heaven. And Jesus also delivered us from our captivity to sin and Satan and made us His captives to be free to live holy and Godly lives and gave us the Spiritual gifts to serve Him.

Oh my friend, aren't you so thankful that Jesus “though He was rich, He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). We have the riches of Christ, and the Spiritual gifts that He's given “to each one of us”, the wealth of Christ Himself living within “each one of us” today. How awesome is that!!!!!

Do you know your Spiritual gifts? Are you using them for the glory of God and the building up of the body of Jesus Christ?

God bless!