• Blog
  • Media
  • Prepare/Enrich
  • Bio
  • Links
Michael Mercer: teacher. writer. father. husband. follower.

Service Due

7/23/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
As I write this post I am at a car dealership waiting for my car to have its routine service.  It's not that bad.  They have free wifi and I have set up an office of sorts to work on writing and studying.  Every so often all of our vehicles need a service or a tune-up.  When I turned 16 and got my first car the leader of our youth group was a mechanic and gave me some solid advice.  "Change the oil every 3000 miles and take care of your car and you should have it for a long time."  The advice was great and that car lasted longer than I thought it could.  

Well cars aren't the only thing that need routine service.  We do too!  We need to take ourselves.  I mean this in the physical, social, and spiritual sense.  Talking about how this plays out in the physical is for a different time and a different blog.  Today I'm thinking on the spiritual side of life.  I know, I know all of this should be one thing, not compartmentalized.  However, I want to take our spiritual lives out for a second examine it and then we can have everything join together again.

When people talk about taking care of our spiritual lives we mostly will talk about quiet time, solitude, sabbath, reading our Bible, prayer, meditation, listening to God, and serving others.  And all of these help build and maintain our spiritual existence.  All of these are important.  So if this is what it is, what is there left to talk about?

How about our gifts?  This past Sunday I spoke about being useful for the Kingdom (What's The Use?) and discovering our spiritual gifts and using them for the Kingdom.  The response and discussions have been amazing.  You have to admit, it feels good to find out what God has given you and being affirmed in His kingdom work.  I know I felt good to know how God could use me and from what people have shared with me, it made them feel good too. 

Not only that but there was another revelation by some after that sermon and discussing the idea of spiritual gifts. What do we do with those gifts that are in us, but aren't the strongest?

There are at least two schools of thought.  1) Focusing on the things that you are not good at are a waste of time and energy and take away from the power of what you are good at doing.  2)  Understanding where you have weaknesses, allows you to continue in your strengths while opening yourself up to God to strengthen your weaknesses at the same time.  In other words only focus on what you know works or split your focus between the two (not necessarily 50/50).

Focusing on your top spiritual gifts and not wasting time on those you struggle with has its merit.  This way you are able to streamline your life and take a direct, specific path that will lead you into the things of life that will immediately bless you and others.  When taking this path you will really need to surround yourselves with people that have strength in the gifts that are weakest for you.  This is actually a good strategy and works for productivity and efficiency.  Not to mention it hits at a sweet spot for us internally as we feel like we are accomplishing more and useful.  My caution with this approach is that in light of working towards your best and doing what you do best, you don't lose sight of self introspection or squelch the Spirit's work in our lives through our weakness.

The second option is to split your focus on your strong gifts and your weaker gifts.  The rationale may be, after all this is God giving you these gifts and he can make them stronger and weaker if He pleases.  Another thought may be that you are in situations where your strongest gifts cannot always be used exclusively and you are need to express gifts that are weaker.  It is still crucial that you surround yourselves with people that are gifted differently than you to make up for what you might lack, but also so you can learn from them and them from you.  This option is good for introspection, humility, and reliance on God's power.  The caution for this approach is that some will tread water in the depth of their weakness and miss their opportunity to swim laps with their strong gifts.

My caution to all of it is that we don't simply stand on the idea of where are gifts lie so we can simply ignore what we are weak in or so we can make excuses for not doing some things God would have us to do.  My other caution and encouragement is that we believe in a God that wants all of his people to be a part of the body of Christ.  This means we don't have to do everything, but rather everyone is doing their thing.  What would be absolutely dangerous and crazy is if everyone took a spiritual gifts inventory test and then we modeled everything we do based on everyone's gifts.  It's a dream, but I would be absolutely fascinated to see how that kind of system worked.  

Nevertheless, we are a dangerous people because we live with gifts from our Father and we journey with a Savior who is not bound by this world and its deficiencies.  I pray we are people who aren't simply living in a fog, but have a purpose and use our gifts for God's glory.  And on those days when we take time for a tuneup or service our spiritual selves we see God's power and might that can pour through us
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Michael Mercer

    I like to explore different things about theology and the life of the church.  You might also find things here about me and my family.

    Prayer Requests: 

    mercerprays@gmail.com

    God Is... by Michael Mercer

    Available in Paperback and ebook!

    Picture


    God Is... -God is... is a book that takes a look at Genesis and portrays six true images of God.  There are many ways we think about God that are unhealthy and even destructive.  These six images help turn our attention to who God really is and how we might follow him more closely.  Click the Lulu button below to download your copy!

    Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Ash Wednesday
    Baptism
    Book Of John
    Christmas
    Church
    C'Mon Man
    Cross
    Culture
    Current Events
    Discipleship
    Easter
    Elevate
    End Times
    Escape
    Evil
    Expectations
    Faith
    Faithfulness
    Fall Of Man
    Family
    Following
    Freedom
    Funny
    God
    Gospel
    Grace
    Grief
    Halloween
    Happiness
    Hell
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Week
    Hospitality
    Humility
    Hypocrite
    Imitation
    Impartation
    Implantation
    Incarnation
    Jesus
    Jonah
    Journey
    Joy
    Justice
    Kingdom
    Lent
    Life
    Loss
    Love
    Marriage
    Mary
    Memaw
    Mlk
    Monday Car Ride
    New Beginning
    New Beginnings
    New Year
    Nice
    Palm Sunday
    Parables
    Patriotic
    Pharisees
    Praise
    Preaching
    Promise
    Prophecy
    Prophet
    Reckless
    Redemption
    Regeneration
    Rejoice
    Relationships
    Renewal
    Repentance
    Resolution
    Resurrection
    Sabbath
    Sacrifice
    Santa
    Scripture
    Senior Sunday
    Series
    Spiritual Renewal
    Sports
    Story
    Suffering
    Summer
    Technology
    Temptation
    Thankfulness
    Theology
    Transition
    Tuning Our Voice
    Ucc
    Urgency
    Veterans Day
    Visions
    Whining
    Wordle
    Worship

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2020
    April 2020
    August 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.