The Gift of God, part 2

Every one of us has the ability to serve God. We each have a gift from God that we are to use for Him.



How do we kindle the gift?

Our opening verse said to “kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you.” So how do we do that? First of all, what do you feel your gift is? What do you feel most comfortable doing? Are you a server? Are you a giver? Are you a comforter? What are you? What do you like to do? What is the easiest way for you to minister to others? Maybe it’s hospitality. Maybe it’s intercession. Do you like to pray? Maybe for some of you men it’s helping widows or senior citizens of the church.

Regardless of how we serve God, this verse is challenging us to stir up that gift. But how? 1 Timothy 4:15 gives us a little insight as to how to do that. And right after verse 14 tells us to not neglect the gift that is in us, verse 15 says, “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them.” 

My friend’s church has a staff evangelist who just spent some time on an evangelistically focused mission trip. Listen to how my friend describes the staff evangelist and his recent ministry. 

You should have seen Dean that week. He was fired up. Dean had just returned from five weeks of ministry in Africa and he was so excited about the things that God had done there that you could just see it in him. 

He told us about an incident that took place as he was preaching in an African prison. After he had preached he took some time to allow the local pastors to pray with the men, while he found a place under a shade tree to rest a little. He said it was like 105 degrees every day cooling off to 100 at night.

As he was resting, someone asked him if he would come over to the fence of the prison yard. When he did, he found the local leader of a Muslim mosque there. The prison fences there are not strong; you can reach right through them. This Muslim leader handed him a piece of paper. Dean asked the interpreter to read it. 

It was an official document from a doctor stating that this man was completely deaf. He said he had heard some of the other Muslims there had said that you Christians have the truth and that they wanted Dean to pray for their leader. After explaining that he was going to pray in the name of Jesus, Dean stuck his fingers in the man’s ears and yelled, “Be healed in Jesus’ Name!” Pulling his fingers from the man’s ears, Dean asked, “Can you hear me?” The man’s eyes opened wide and he screamed. He turned back to his congregation and when they asked him a question, he heard them and answered them. Right there, that man dropped to his knees and accepted Christ as his Savior. Half of his congregation knelt with him while the other half ran away. 
 

Dean later discovered that this Muslim leader had brought his congregation to Dean so he could disprove the Gospel message by asking God to do a miracle – BUT GOD DID IT!  When the formerly Muslim leader said that other Muslims had told him that Christians had the truth, he had said it mockingly in front of his congregation, planning to show them the fallacy of Christianity. But once they realized that they did indeed have the truth and he himself was healed, many of the Muslim people were saved and are now a part of a new church the team planted there.” 
 

I share this with you as a backdrop of why my friend’s staff evangelist was so fired-up. He couldn’t have emphasized our need to press into the things of God more. The Bible instructs us to take pains to make sure we don’t neglect the gift of God that is within us, to be absorbed in them. 

Ephesians 4 tells us that God gave gifts to men and women, and those gifts are the primary way we serve Him. 

Continued tomorrow