Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~ Albert Einstein
We all have gifts and talents from God, which run the gamut of His creative hand. The question is: how do we combine the use of those gifts with kingdom purpose? These are 4 things I have discovered in my pursuit of finding Godly purpose with my gift.
1. Recognize our gifts and pursue them
There are natural talents that we are blessed with that God desires to use, but I also find there are desires the Lord puts on our hearts along with dreams to pursue, completely contrary to our current circumstances. The first and hardest step to live an uninhibited life fully flourishing in our God given gifts is, to actively pursue these goals, contrary to popular opinion or precedent. Beyond these things lies a miracle. YOU have to take the first step.
2. Surrender the Bread
A recurring topic in messages I have listened to recently is finding power in surrender. Pastor Herbert Cooper, at Peoples Church in Oklahoma spoke about “surrendering the bread”. Like the disciples in Matthew14: 13-21 we underestimate ourselves: “v.s.17 But we have ONLY five loaves of bread and two fish!”… But I have ONLY… So often we discredit ourselves from achieving God’s best. The most important concepts to glean from this story are: God asks so he can perform and, when you surrender your “ONLY” God, He generates OVERFLOW. Liken the bread and fish in this story to our gift, after God blessed and broke them, they not only fed thousands, but at the end there was more than the disciples began with.
3. Overcome Fear
Your fear of not being what God has called you to be should outweigh your fear of failure. This is easier said than done, I struggle with this daily. There are many things God calls us to do and were like-“WHAT!?…*Looks around* You mean me?” Many heroes in the Bible did the very same thing but admitting that immediately frees you, and places the power of performing into hands of God. When you know how big your God is, fear of the challenges set before you become small. To try and fail is greater than, not to try and wonder what you could have been had you taken the risk.
4.Maintain Meekness and Humility
Pastor Herbert also said meekness and humility are the keys to living a blessed life. It’s easily to mistake these two qualities for being weak and self-deprecating, but this is not the case. He defined meekness as “strength surrendered to God’s control” comparing a broken and unbroken horse: neither has greater strength than the other, but rather, the tamed horse has better stewardship of his power, since he is led by his master. Strength under our control turns to pride destructive much like an untamed horse. Meekness generates humility and the realization; you arrived at your destination by of the guidance of the master.
In this day our assignment is to show the love of God to people to those wounded by individuals guided by presumption, mostly- good intentions gone wrong. It’s seen in the fruit that we all are to bear as believers in Galatians 5:22-23. We have the power to speak life into dead situations and draw people to Christ because of the power of the Holy Sprit that rests within us. Who knows what we can do unless we try?
God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.
Written By: Kristina Love
Tweet Me: @klovesda