Will using our gifts take effort?

Watch the complete sermon here: https://www.bridges.church/messages/gifts-and-their-purpose-1-corinthians-12-4-11-14-1-5/

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. As last week we talked about how God gives all of us who are Christians spiritual gifts. We each have a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, and Paul relates that to parts of the body that eyes see, ears hear, noses smell, so forth.

So one of the things that we said in the message was a way to discern your giftedness is what can you do that you don’t understand why other people can’t do it. You know, ears, if they could think, wouldn’t understand why eyes, nose, feet, etc.

Why those different parts of the body weren’t able to hear, because the ear would think, isn’t hearing just what existence is? How can you not do this? So whatever that is for you that you don’t understand why other people can’t do it, that is one way to discern at least some of your gifts. So the question comes in this week asking, since giftedness is something that comes natural to us, does that mean that we don’t have to put in effort?

If something seems strenuous, does that mean then that is not our giftedness?

Will we have to put in work, even though it is our giftedness? And yes, you will have to put in work. You know, if your gift is organization, just because you see that things need to be organized in your mind, you can kind of see where each different piece of the puzzle is going to need to go. You still need to go over there and maybe lift things.

Or if it’s like organization across, you know, your company, you’re going to have to talk to different departments about what their roles are, what they’re going to need to do.

Like there will be effort involved, but you will be the one to see where everything needs to go. That part of it probably won’t be a lot of effort, but the actual doing of it will be effortless. I can say for me, and speaking in front of a group of people, there is something about that that has always felt natural to me.

I remember at one point learning that I think it’s in the top three fears of people, that their fear is being in front of a group of people. I never had that fear. There’s something that felt right about being in front of a group of people to me, but that doesn’t mean that it’s that it’s effortless.

There’s a lot of work that goes into putting together a message, and that will be the same with any other giftedness.

I follow a lot of football and I hear the stars that you see in maybe the NFL. They make it look effortless because it’s their gift. But following those stories and hearing reports of them is they put in a lot of work on planning and exercise and stretching and developing their skills. But for them, there’s something that feels very natural about being out on the field.

So, yes, it will absolutely take work.

Whatever your giftedness is, it will still take work. But there’s parts of it that just feel like, isn’t this what life is? Isn’t this what life should be? It makes sense to you in a way that it doesn’t make sense to other people, and you may not really be able to understand why it doesn’t make sense to other people.

So we hope that helps.

We, again, want everybody to get involved in the life of the church. And yes, it’ll take some hours, and yes, it might take some physical muscle, or yes, it take some brain power, but we want everybody in the role in which they are gifted. So thanks for the question, and we’ll see you next time.