Keep Waiting...

So, what are you doing with the gifts that God has given you? Are you using them? Romans 12:6-8 taught me a lesson a while ago. It teaches that God has given us gifts that we are supposed to be using for His purposes... I didn't have a problem with that. I knew that... But, what stuck out to me was that we are supposed to wait on those things - not other things.

If God has given you the gift of "ministry" (maybe somebody could define that for me some day), then you ought to be waiting on your ministering, not on exhorting. If God has given you the gift of teaching, you ought to be waiting on teaching and not on ruling... I like to put my efforts into the things that I like to do, or that I would like to do, but God says that we should wait on the things that He has given to us.

Now, God has given more than one gift to people, so it's not to say that you only can exhort and not give, or that you only can give and not teach, etc., but let's make sure that we first of all are using the gifts that God has given us, and that we aren't wasting our efforts on our own wishes.

(Romans 12:6) Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
(Romans 12:7) Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
(Romans 12:8) Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.

Just a thought...

Andy Hinds