All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others

HOW OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES IMPACT THE CHOICES WE MAKE .....

Why is self-knowledge important to knowing God's will?

When it comes to making decisions about your life and the direction it should take, focus on your strengths, not on your weaknesses.

So far, the biblical principles for decision-making have all focused on godly attitudes:

We are to submit to the sovereign will of God.

We are to submit to the moral will of God.

We are to be motivated by agape love as we seek the best for others.

Now it's time for some personal analysis. In Romans 12:1-2 Paul writes: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

Here Paul calls for a radical reorganization of our approach to life. He begins by encouraging us to be realistic: "For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you. not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3).

Paul's message is urgent: We need to be sober in our judgment of our gifts and talents. We ought to know our strengths. We ought to know our weaknesses. We shouldn't think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We shouldn't put ourselves down.

Then, having understood what our gifts and abilities are, we need to go with our strengths (Romans 12:4-8).

Unfortunately, we don't always do that. Often we have a strange fascination with our weaknesses. Perhaps we pay more attention to our weaknesses because we're insecure about them.
Or maybe our weaknesses are always cropping up in life. Sometimes we focus on our weaknesses by accepting opportunities for which we are not prepared, e.g., playing the church pipe organ when our abilities are limited to the harmonica.

Instead, Paul tells us: "Know yourself. Do what you can to shore up your weaknesses, but go with your strengths!" We see this played out in Acts 6:3-4 in the Jerusalem church. The apostles went with their strengths and trusted the strengths of others. In doing so, they made a wise decision.

If you want to build a house, you don't want a violinist. If you're going to lead an orchestra, you don't want a bricklayer.

No two of us are exactly alike. None of us has every gift and ability. Our responsibility is to exercise the gifts we have, not the ones we wish we had.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

HOW OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES IMPACT THE CHOICES WE MAKE .....

You need to be a member of All About GOD to add comments!

The Good News

Meet Face-to-Face & Collaborate