Romans 12:6-8
Exercising Your Primary Gift
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
It is not enough to know what your spiritual gift is, you must also “use” it. “Let them use them…” It is not good be dependent upon other people. It is not good to be co-dependent either. God has made us to be inter-dependent on each other.
We need each other. We cannot make it on our own. I will never forget the words of Bill Gather at the home going celebration of his friend Doug Oldham. Mr. Gather said, “If you see a frog on the top of a fence post, you know one thing, it did not get there by itself.” Gather was giving credit to Doug Oldham for putting him on the top of the fence post.
The passage we are looking at today is teaching us that we need to exercise our spiritual gift. It does others no good if we have resources that could bless and benefit others if we don’t share them. Over and over in the New Testament we are encouraged with the “one another’s”. Love one another, comfort one another, serve one another, pray for one another, exhort one another…. We could go on and on!
But Paul is also saying here that we should focus primarily on the gift that we do have. Do try to do everything for everybody! Find out which one of the primary seven spiritual gifts you have been given and develop it. And then exercise that gift in accordance with the “proportion of faith” that you have at that time in your Christian experience.
The greatest blessing in life is to be a blessing to someone else! Are you blessing others?
God bless!
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