The Apostle Paul to the Romans:
“For I am longing to see you so that I may
share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.”
~Romans 1:11 (NRSV)
We are all gifted by the grace of
God to extend God’s grace by the giving of gifts—most of all, ourselves. When
we give of ourselves, we give specially of love.
Our spiritual gifts—those passions
manifest in service—are for God’s consummate delight. And when we give
ourselves in service to another we experience the fundament of blessing. God’s
delight becomes our delight because someone else is delighted. Gifts and
delight are hence synonymous with worship. And when we worship henceforth we
hold high the Object of our worship as worthy. To give our gifts as an act of
ministry is also an act of worship. As we give we give to the Lord.
As we extend our gifts we reach
forth into others’ lives and make differences only we can make. And our gifts
speak of something more important than the gift itself—love.
Gifts and Their Underpinning – Love
Our gifts are compelled forth by
arms and legs, and words and breath, moved by love.
It is for others’ joy and
encouragement that we serve. And as we see the outworking of our service, as it
makes differences in others’ lives, we come to be convinced of our impact for
love and the use God is making of us in his ministry.
Then there is the actual
manifestation of the gifts—of many different kinds—of more varieties than can
be named, pigeonholed, or categorised. Because there are so many needs and so
many ways of discerning and serving those needs, there are many more gifts than
we can find clever names and categories for.
But one thing underpins each gift
and each flavour of giving—love.
For Paul, his heart overflowed in
thankfulness at the joy he received from God at the thought of building up his
fellow Romans. And his joy was redoubled, in fact, at the thought that their
faith might prove to be a blessing to him, personally, through the expression
of their gifts to him (see Romans 1:12).
Paul knew that it is more blessed
to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
Paul knew that to truly be
Christian we need to experience the giving of love.
So we are to outdo each other in
our giving, but not by proud means, where we might refuse to receive another’s
gifts of love. We are to receive, with genuine thankfulness, and then look for
ways of loving other people with the love we have received. We pass it forward by
modes of love that come natural to us—through our spiritual gifts.
***
By our spiritual gifts we give to
others by the grace of God to induce joy in them. And others, by their gifts,
love us likewise to the amounting of thankfulness within our hearts. And so the
Christian world revolves; each building the other up from everlasting to
everlasting—until our King returns.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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