What’s in your hand(s)?

         For we are God’s workmanship [his masterpiece!] created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared a long time ago for us to do!

And just as Jesus’ parable of the Talents illustrated that ‘the Master will come home one day, and when he does, we will have to give an account as to how we used our talents for him.  (The story is found in Matthew 25 and also Luke 19 – TWICE in Scripture must mean that we are meant to get the import of the teaching!) 

Is your life purpose driven?  That is to say, do you know your life’s purpose and are you living it out?  I believe joy and contentment are both found when we understand our purpose—our unique God-given purpose—and then we walk it out.  Furthermore, the Lord has shaped you and gifted you with all you need to do so—he has entrusted to you ‘talents’, intended to be used for him.  How so?  Let’s discover what is in your hands . . . Three areas-

1-    You have particular strengths of mind, body, heart, (passion and compassion), emotion and character that are unique to you, as the masterpiece of God’s hands. 

2-  You have a life path that is solely your own; it includes your upbringing, education, work experience, AND times of failure, difficulty, heartache and turmoil.   

3- You have been given a spiritual gift by your Redeemer                                                     

When you chose to ask Jesus to be the Leader of your life, the Holy Spirit took up residence within you.  At that time, you were given a spiritual gift or gifts.  What am I talking about?  What kind of gift(s)?                                                              

~Simply, there is the gift of wisdom, of knowledge, of faith, of healing, of miracles, of prophecy, of discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues, of administration, of helps …                                  Paul writes about these gifts and their purposes in 1 Corinthians 12.         

Paul makes it clear—every believer is given a gift (or gifts); it is the Holy Spirit who determines the gift, and no one gift is meant for all to have.

In my 1 Corinthians commentary, I wrote about these gifts, including simple definitions, and why they are so vital!

 http://pastorwoman.com/ReadArchive.aspx?id=409

Would you like to figure out how God has gifted you?  It is pretty darn cool.  You will likely see that your natural bent and your personal strengths dovetail perfectly with your spiritual gift.  Hmmm . . . ‘Interested? You can read more at: http://ebcrochester.org/misc/php/LifeWaySpiritualGiftsSurvey.php  and even do an inventory to discover your gift.   

Recently, I gave you an ‘accounting’ of how I serve God with what he has put in my hands—I say this in humility.  But, all of us are meant to serve God in some way, and even Bob Dylan said you gotta serve somebody … You may be an ambassador to England or France,
you may like to gamble, you might like to dance, you may be the heavyweight champion of the world, 
you may be a socialite with a long string of pearls . . . but you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed,
you’re gonna have to serve somebody. 
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord . . . 
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

So, what’s in your hands?  Who you serving with it?

Christine

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