Bible Passage: “…and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.” (Exodus 31:3 NIV)
Scripture Reading: Exodus 31:1-6
I help lead a men’s “Rule of Life” group at our church.
The typical meetings involve discussing what it means to “go as far as we can with as many as we can into a life of being loved by God, loving God, and loving others” (our vision statement).
Everyone engages in our meetings, but certain men in our group often do a bit more of the leading and talking.
One night, we spent our meeting landscaping one guy’s yard. Twelve men descended upon the property with sod, shovels, axes, and wheelbarrows.
Several guys with years of landscaping experience naturally took the lead, and the result was a beautifully redesigned front yard in a mere 90 minutes. I loved working with the guys and seeing the result.
I usually lead our group, but that night, a different group of men led us and used the gifts God had given them. The result was a beautiful yard and a very happy couple.
The first spiritual gifts ever referred to in the Bible are blue-collar gifts. The first spiritual gifts in Scripture are not pastoring, leadership, or prophecy, but craftsmanship and construction.
Pastors like me often unconsciously teach spiritual gifts in a way that makes men imagine them as primarily “pastor-like” and for Sundays. People end up believing that the most gifted Christians look like a pastor, wax eloquent about the Bible, and/or sit on church elder teams.
Each Christian denomination often unconsciously holds up certain gifts as most essential to the church.
But please don’t miss these three things:
- God gives a wide variety of spiritual gifts.[1]
- Everyone has spiritual gifts (more on this later this week)
- We need you to use them!
Generations of worship happened in Israel because men whom God gifted in construction and artistry used their spiritual gifts to glorify God and serve others.
Is this the day you realize that your gifts in construction, engineering, management, counseling, technology, art, or entrepreneurship are God-given and for God’s glory?
Imagine that your “gift of the gab” or skill at cracking a joke is essential to what God wants to do in the world through His people.
God’s Kingdom coming looks as much like men with landscaping skills blessing a family as it looks like a pastor like me preaching the Scriptures with a teaching gift—both sets of gifts equally valuable and equally essential to God’s will being done.
Prayer: God, help me know and use my gifts. Give me imagination for how You want Your people to thrive and the role You have for me to play in that. Give me greater clarity on what my gifts are and where they fit in Your work. Help me name and encourage the gifts of others. Protect me from temptation, insecurity, imposter syndrome, fear, arrogance, and lack of imagination that so often cripple or taint the use of my gifts. Build Your Church and glorify Your Name. Amen.
Reflection: Do you relate to the comment above that the Church tends to unconsciously hold up certain gifts as essential while not acknowledging the gifts that are used more outside formal church programs? Take a few minutes to think about the gifts that God has given you, like skills in landscaping, craftsmanship, etc. What do you love and have a skill in? Where might those gifts be best used to glorify God and help others thrive?
[1] One of the debates around spiritual gifts is whether the spiritual gift lists in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4 are exhaustive or suggestive. In other words, are those all of the gifts, or are there more? My opinion is that they are suggestive; there are many kinds of spiritual gifts.
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