Week 40 Day 2
Pray:
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
1 Pet. 4:10-11 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Reflect:
There are twin errors that are possible to fall into in regard to personal gifting. One error is to believe you are more and better than you actually are. This attitude fails to take into account the fact that gifts are received and not earned. Paul declares this to be true with his rhetorical question: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Clearly, boasting about a gift is wrong, but on the other hand to fall into the opposite error is equally harmful. The second error occurs when someone from a misguided sense of humility, or maybe pride-based shame, downplays their gifting. Paul combines both of these errors in his letter to the church at Galatia. “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else” (Gal. 6:3-4). We must learn to lean into the wind that blows in our lives. Does the wind of pride in your gifting blow strong in your life? If so, then lean hard into it by continually remembering that your gifts are from God, for the good of the others, for the glory of God. If, instead, the wind of insecurity or false humility blows hard, then lean into it by remembering that God has indeed gifted you and he intends for you to use those gifts to serve him by serving others. Do not put up with pride or insecurity, neither have anything at all to do with using gifts. Both pride and insecurity result from making life about us. Close the gap on faith and love by seeing how God has gifted you and by getting busy using that gifting to serve others. If you wish that God had gifted you otherwise, quickly and consistently put those thoughts away. Do not compare your gifting with that of someone else. There is no joy and no benefit in that. Their gift came from God, as did yours. In the end, no one will care a whit about who had what gift, all that will remain is faithfulness. Be found faithful with what God has given you today.
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.