You Are the Gift: How Self-Preservation Starves the Body
I remember the hesitation I felt the first time I was asked to teach a Sunday School class. It wasn't like a lightning bolt moment where I suddenly knew that this was my calling. Instead, my mind was flooded with doubts: Am I gifted enough for this? Do I know enough? What if I’m not good with children? I don’t think I’m gifted for that. Other people who can do this better. Maybe later… when I’m more ready.
Honestly, I think I was expecting some kind of perfect sign, a perfect match between my perceived abilities and the role I was being asked to fill. We often talk about spiritual gifts as if they are fully defined, clear-cut categories. Teachers teach, encouragers encourage, leaders lead. If you don't immediately see yourself fitting into one of these and other categories, it is easy to think you should just stay on the sidelines until you discover your "real" gift.
So, I said yes, not fully aware of what I was getting myself into. I felt inadequate, lacking, and unsure if anything I said would actually resonate with five and six-year-olds to help them understand the gospel. I underestimated them.
But by the end of that first class, my perspective shifted. It wasn't because I suddenly realised I was a brilliant teacher. Actually, it was very chaotic. But I tasted a kind of joy I was not expecting. A joy that didn’t come from having a full grasp of my abilities, but from obedience.
That experience exposed something deeper in me. My hesitation was not really about teaching or children. It was about waiting. Waiting until I felt clear enough, confident enough, or “gifted” enough before stepping in. We tend to assume that obedience should follow clarity and certainty. That we first discover our gift, and then we serve. When we refuse to step forward until everything feels clear, it is the body of Christ that suffers.
The Graveyards of Spiritual Gifts
Perhaps you look at the vibrant life of your local church from the sidelines, convinced that things seem to be going well without your intervention. They don’t really need you. Our world today is very consumeristic, and we can carry the same into the church, treating it as a place that exists to serve us, where we consume rather than contribute.
Most spiritual gifts die not by outright rejection, but by distraction. These temptations become spiritual cul-de-sacs, comfortable places to live, but leading nowhere. - How to Squander Your Spiritual Gifts
Marshall Segal points out that we often fail to use our gifts not because we don't have them, but because we are preoccupied with ourselves.
First, we fail to use our gifts because of worldliness. The comfort, success, or recognition we crave from the world dulls our appetite for service altogether. Service begins to feel like an interruption rather than a calling. Jesus warns:
“...this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22, NAS95).
The other is self-centeredness. Instead of looking for ways and areas we can serve, we count the cost and shun it altogether? We think our time, energy, and abilities belong primarily to us. If it is not convenient, we tend to shy away from it. The other is Pride. This is a double-edged sword. On one end, we think some duties are too low for us. On the other end, we shrink back in comparison, thinking we have nothing to offer.
"There is no room for arrogance when every gift we have is from Christ." - Sinclair Ferguson
Perhaps no graveyard is more crowded today than that of passivity. We wait for a perfect convincing as we do nothing. We wait for a level of clarity or confirmation that God never promised to give before we obey. Meanwhile, needs go unmet, and the body is deprived of what God intended to supply through us.
Rethinking Spiritual Gifts
What if part of the problem is how we think about spiritual gifts in the first place? Like they are these "special powers" hidden in us. My aim is to give us a different lens. The Apostle Paul writes:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit… But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, NAS95).
First, notice that every Christian possesses the Holy Spirit. Second, notice that the gifts are manifestations of the Spirit. Meaning they are not self-generated. Lastly, notice the aim is for the common good, that is, the body of Christ. Later in the same chapter, Paul describes the church as a body and we as individual members of it (1 Corinthians 12:27)
This means that your role in your local church is not incidental. You didn’t just happen to be added to your local church. God gave that church a person: You, with your unique personality, experiences and abilities. You are a necessary part of how God intends to care for His people. When you serve, it is not just your abilities on display… it is the Spirit of God ministering to others through you. Think of yourself as the specific gift Christ has given to your local church.
"For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another". (Romans 12:4-5, NAS95)
If you do not give your presence and your willingness to help, you are denying the saints a blessing that God intended to deliver through you. There is no other You. No one else can fill the gap you create, because God did not make clones; He made a Body with unique, indispensable parts.
“And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.’ (1 Corinthians 12:21, NAS95)
The question, therefore, is not, ‘What are my gifts?’ but rather, ‘Where is God calling me to give myself?’ I believe this is God’s design. Clarity does not always come before obedience. It often comes in it. Gifts are often discovered in the doing, not in the waiting. As we step into needs, however unsure we feel, we begin to discover how God has actually wired and gifted us.
Because of the Mercies of God
Why should we bother? Why should we give ourselves (time and resources) for the sake of others? Why should I push through the tiredness that might come after a long work week to set up chairs before the service or teach children?
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” (Romans 12:1, NAS95)
The motivation for service is not guilt… neither is it FOMO, but gratitude. Gratitude for the gospel by which we are saved. The reality that while we were still wicked God-hating rebels, Christ died for us. God, in His great love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to live the life we could not live and to die the death we deserved. He took judgment we deserve for our sin in his death on the Cross and gave us His righteousness.
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf (2 Corinthians 5:14-15, NAS95)
To witness the mercy of the cross and then remain passive is a profound form of ingratitude. It is to think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Romans 12:3). When we realise that Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:14), the only reasonable response is to give ourselves to Him in service.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NAS95)
When we give ourselves, that is, our time, our energy, and our presence, we are aligning ourselves with the very purpose for which we were redeemed. We are participating in God’s work among His people.
The Grace Only You Carry
A good illustration I heard of spiritual gifts is this: Imagine an artist standing before a palette filled with colours. Rather than choosing a single shade, the artist begins blending them: a little red, a touch of blue, a shade of yellow, until something entirely new emerges.
Similarly, God blends different graces in each believer with their different personalities in a way that makes each one of them distinct. Which means, there is no other church member exactly like you.
“Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly…” (Romans 12:6, NAS95)
Paul exhorts us to get right on with service. We are Christians, we have the Holy Spirit, grace has been given to us according to the measure of faith, and we are a part of a local church. He concludes that we are to exercise those Spirit-given abilities accordingly.
As we give ourselves to the needs before us, however imperfectly, He is the one who works through us, shaping, strengthening, and revealing how He has uniquely equipped us along the way.
Look around. Where are the needs? Where can you begin? Is it hospitality? Open up your home, however small it may seem. Is it women’s or men’s ministry? Look for someone to walk with in the Word and in prayer. Is it the children’s ministry? Volunteer to teach. Is it caring for the needy in the community? Do it with cheerfulness. Is it evangelising in the neighbourhood? Speak as one speaking the utterances of God. Is it setting up or moving stuff around? Do it with gladness.
"The gospel creates community. Because it points us to the One who died for his enemies, it creates relationships of service rather than selfishness” -Tim Keller
Do not allow pride or passivity or be lured by the deceitfulness of the world to criple your commitment to the Lord. Do not wait for a perfect feeling of "preparedness." Identify needs in the church and give your time, energy and resources to them.
God is not looking for the most talented or the most ‘convinced’. He is looking for thankful hearts who recognise how gracious and merciful the Lord has been to them and are willing to give themselves to serve with the strength He supplies.
You are the Gift
We can treat church life like a theatre performance: we arrive on Sunday, sit, watch the "gifted" few perform, and then slip out. God did not call us out of darkness, forgive us of our sin, and unite us to His dear Son so that we remain non-functional organs in His Body.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, NAS95)
So, how are you serving the saints with what He has given you? How are you giving yourself to the Lord that He may use you? You may never perfectly define your gift. But as you give yourself to the Lord in obedience to His Word and serve his people, the Spirit will shape your life into something uniquely useful.
It is impossible to serve God without serving one another - Alistair Begg
The gap we leave when we remain passive is a gap that no one else can fill quite the way God intended. We are not a spare part. We are a very vital organ. As you look around to serve the saints, don't look for where you can get. Look for where you can give. Remember that it is God who empowers you to do what He commands.
“...whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Chris” (1 Peter 4:11, NAS95)
He is asking us to depend on Him as we pour ourselves into the lives of others. Even if it is unseen, let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary (Galatians 6:8). For whatever we do to one of the least of His brothers, we did it for Him.