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Commentary on "Spiritual Gifts for Evangelism and Witnessing"
Day 4: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - Discovering Our Gifts
Overview
Today’s lesson deals with discovering one’s spiritual gifts. It essentially states that spiritual gifts seminars coupled with affirmation of fellow believers and the results of trial periods spent exploring certain areas of ministry are effective ways of discovering one’s giftedness.
Observations
Once again, the entire subject of spiritual gifts only makes sense in the context of a person’s being born again of the Spirit. People who are operating within a false gospel are not likely functioning in biblical spiritual gifts but are more likely simply using their natural talents. Unless one is born of the Spirit, he will not have a spiritual gift from God.
The requirement for receiving a spiritual gift is to submit to the Lord Jesus and repent of our sin and our arrogance of thinking we could obey Him by prayer and self-discipline. We who have Adventist heritage must repent of our enmeshment and identity with a false gospel and surrender ourselves to God’s word and the true gospel, allowing Jesus to reveal Himself to us as He really is.
We will not be born again by sincerely believing our Adventism. We are only born again when we let go of our control and fears and allow Jesus Himself to be all we need.
Once we are born again, God gifts us with His indwelling Spirit and the gifts He decides He wants us to have.
All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ (1 Corinthians 12:11-12).
When we are born again, God brings us the work He wishes for us to do. We don’t set out to decide what we’re going to do for Him; we wait in trust, and He brings us what He wants us to do, and He equips and prepares us for that work. It’s a completely new paradigm; God is sovereign, not us. He Himself reveals His will for us, and we can trust Him with each next step.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in the (Ephesians 2:10).
We have to be willing to surrender to Jesus our control and ownership of our gifts. We have to submit to Jesus for our salvation and identity, and then we must trust Him and His word as He reveals to us His will for our lives.
We are not our own “last word”: God is. And unless we actually know Him, we will never enjoy the certainty of being in His will doing His work with joy.
Summary
- Spiritual gifts have no meaning unless one is born again.
- Those who are not born again are limited to using their natural talents.
- Being born again is not defined by sincerity or persistence.
- God asks us to surrender to Jesus, and then He gives us both the work He prepared in advance for us to do and also the gifts He desires us to have to equip us for that work.
- We are not in control; our sovereign God directs our lives.
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 16, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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