Live Free with Josh Howerton - Spiritual Gifts from God | Ep. 324 | Thursday, May 2, 2024

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Do you know the unique shape God has given you? Join us today as we talk through the acronym S.H.A.P.E. to learn how we can contribute to God’s kingdom. Every person who accepts grace and believes in Jesus has been given special spiritual gifts from God. We may all be shaped differently, but we all have the same high calling. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. You might be out for a walk, a jog, or a run, or you might be driving to work or to school. You could be sitting on the back patio, or you might be waiting your turn at the dentist office.

Sorry about that one. I just think it's amazing that wherever we might be and whatever time of day it is, through technology, we can all tune in and connect with what God might want to say to us. So thanks for making the effort to consistently do this. My name is Mike, by the way. We've been talking this spring about how God uses different things. to grow us up. And yesterday we started a discussion about how he longs to get us engaged and passionate ministry, to use the gifts that he has given us to make a difference in our world gifts that not only serve other people, gifts that not only throw a floodlight on his

goodness, but also cause you and me to feel fully alive. We left off yesterday, introduced a little acrostic of the word shape. Now, I got this from Rick Warren decades ago, and it's been a helpful way for me to explain how God pulls all this off. The S in the word shape stands for spiritual gift. Now, without delving into the centuries of church history, somewhere along the line, the church decided to hire a few, quote-unquote, professional Christians, and then passively watch them carry out their pastoral duties. Everybody else would sit on the sidelines, sit on their hands, sit on their gifts,

and they would critique the priestly performance and say, why are you asking me to get involved? You're the gifted ones. You're the clergy. We're just lay people. And tragically, this is still reality for far too many churches. As a result, people are hugely unfulfilled, and the church limps along powerless, frustrated, and ineffective in its mission.

And guess what? There is not one ounce of biblical support for this type of structure. That's not what God had in mind for his church. You've got to believe that God is much smarter than to set it up like that. And he is. First Peter 4.10 says, God has given gifts to each of you. from his great variety of spiritual gifts.

Manage them well so that God's generosity can flow through you. He's given spiritual gifts to each one of us, and when we use our gifts and allow God's generosity to flow through us, we stand back and say, man, I was made for this, and the church flourishes, and the world takes notice of the goodness and the greatness of God. And Peter, he wasn't speaking at a pastor's conference when he wrote that. He was riding to everyday ordinary people like you and me. There's absolutely no distinction between a few elite spiritual superstars and the rest of us.

All of us are chosen. All of us are called. All of us are saved, redeemed, recycled, equipped, and uniquely gifted to make the wonderful light of God known in this dark world. I've told you before I really like to play golf, and sometimes people ask me, what kind of golf are you? I say, oh, I usually play somewhere in the 70s. If it gets much colder than that, I usually don't like to play. I'm sorry. But if the weather is threatening to rain us out,

someone will inevitably turn to me the pastor of the group and say, hey, come on, man, do something. You got connections. And my standard response is, hey, I'm just in sales, not management. Now, I have no special connection. I mean, just being connected to God in spite of my sin is special enough for me. Now, being a pastor, I have been given the task of teaching, leading and equipping people for ministry.

That's just the way God has called me to use my gifts. in this world. You may have very different gifts and a very different passion, but we are both gifted by the same God, and we have the same high calling. You may have the gift of hospitality, like my wife. You may have the gift of helps like my brother-in-laws. You might love being behind the scenes, just making things work, or you may have the gift of craftsmanship, or encouragement, or the gift of administration, or mercy, or faith, or the gift of teaching, or the gift of leadership. It says this in 1st Corinthians, Chapter 12. God's various gifts. gifts are handed out everywhere, but they all originate in God's spirit. God's various ministries

are carried out everywhere, but they all originate in God's spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere, but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is. Let me read that again. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is. Everyone gets in on it. Everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the spirit to all kinds of people, and the variety is wonderful. Isn't that cool? Only God, to you and to you, and to you, and to you, to every Christ's follower. A grace gift of the Holy Spirit has been given for the common good. Everyone gets in on it, and everyone benefits. You benefit because you start to be fulfilled by being used in your unique way, and the church benefits because it starts playing

as a team, and the world benefits because the church now is functioning as an agent of God's truth and love and compassion and generosity as it was always intended to. We all get to be a part of the wonderful variety. This gift is given to every person who invites Christ into their life to forgive their sin and lead their life. The Bible says that once a person is in Christ, he or she is empowered to use this gift alongside everybody else to advance the kingdom of God together. And that gift develops as the person grows in maturity and starts using it with greater irregularity. Now, you and I are responsible for identifying, developing, and using that gift, but it's a gift. Just like that story that Jesus told about the talents, it comes from the master.

1st Corinthiansthius 12, verse 11 says again, it is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. You see, God is the one who determines which gifts that we receive. He didn't give us an online catalog and say, pick out a few and rank them in order of preference. I'll do my best to give you your top two choices. No, you I had no more to do with determining which spiritual gifts we received than we didn't determine who our appearance would be or the color of our skin or the shape of our nose. God distributes the gifts of his spirit just as he determines. And, gang, he knows what he's doing. He knows us better than we know ourselves. That's why it's usually a gift that meshes with and completes

the unique package of who God created us to be, our shape. I mean, you take that spiritual gift that he gives us and add it to the age which stands for heartbeat, those things that flip your switch, you said, man, that's what my heart beat strong for. That's what I love. That's a cause I believe in. That's a passion that runs deep in me. Well, you take that heartbeat and you add it to the A in the word shape abilities, those things you've developed throughout the years. I mean, some people just have an ability to look at a picture on the box and put all the nuts and bolts in the right places without ever looking at the directions. Now, most dads think they have this ability, but they don't. But as these people grow up, they really become good at problem solving. So maybe you

take that an eight talent or you go to school to learn or or maybe you hone that skill in a job and you get really, really proficient at it. Well, when you add that ability to the spiritual gift that God has given you and to the way your heart beats strong for something, can you see how powerful that combination can be? So the S stands for spiritual gift, the H for heartbeat, the A for abilities, and the P stands for personality. Let me ask you, what do you like? How has God wired you up? How many extroverts we get out there? How many introverts? How many of you tend to leave with your heart or emotions, or do you process and think everything through? Are you a hugger, or do you turn into a sheet of plywood when hugger's approach? Are you the last to leave

the party? Are you the first to say good night? Do you love the crowds and rides of a theme park, or do you prefer a secluded cabin on a quiet lake? It's good to honestly acknowledge. What kind of personality you really have, not the kind you wish ahead, but how God uniquely wired you. When you settle that and embrace that reality, you can see now how the gifts that God has given you, might just flow out of who you uniquely are, and then add all of that to the letter E experiences. All those things you've been through on the journey called life. All those accomplishments, the failures, the tragedies, the pivotal circumstances you've been through, all add to the uniqueness you bring.

I mean, who better to sit down with someone who's going through a divorce, that's someone who's been there. Who better to help another parent who's struggling with a prodigal child, that someone who's had one too? Who better to walk with someone on the road to recovery from a day? and somebody who has traveled the same road. So here's what you do. You figure out what you're really passionate about,

what really flips your switch. That usually doesn't take too long. Then you start putting together all the parts that make you uniquely you. Look at the journey that God has brought you through. How could he recycle your life experiences? Then take your abilities, your talents, the ones that you know that God has given you,

the ones that you have worked at and sharpened throughout the years, honestly embrace the way he has wired your personality and then let the supernatural gift of God flow through that unique creature called you. He is entrusted to you everything you need to fulfill the purpose for which you were created. And at the end of the day, God will not ask you and me why we didn't lead somebody else's life. God will not ask you why you did not use somebody else's gifts. He will say, what did you do with what I gave you? And I want to hear him say like the master in Jesus story.

Well done. Good and faithful servant. Let me ask you, are you using the talent that God has given you for his glory? Are you realizing your full potential with the gifts that has been given to you? Are you throwing yourself into passionate ministry? There's nothing quite like rolling up your sleeves and serving God. When you begin to discover what gifts he's given you, when you begin to see the world the way God sees it,

when you begin to feel that passion burning deep in you that just has to get out, when you actually let it out and the love of God starts surging through your veins and into your hands and your feet and your wallet, that's when you know, man, I am fully alive. And I pray that you would feel that way today. See you back tomorrow. Have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today.

For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive.