Our Spiritual Identity
The Way We Operate is Our
Ministry Identity
14 I
myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of
goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to
remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16
to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty
of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering
acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ
has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have
said and done— 19 by the power of signs and wonders,
through the power of the Spirit of God. So from
"Those who were not told about him
will see,
and those who have not heard will
understand."
22 This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
Take your first two fingers and place them on the inside of
your wrist. Do you feel your heart beating? If your heart is still beating you have a
calling from God that’s not yet finished.
What I’ve learned is that there’s no retirement program with God. There may be changes in your job description
but until God calls you home, you’re valuable to the cause. So saddle up, we’ve
got work to do.
We
need drivers to pick up our shut ins on Sunday mornings. “But my
car is unreliable”. Ok we need
Sunday school teachers for our children.
“But I’m too old, what if I trip
over them?” We need someone to help
elder Joe Cetinske with a stewardship program.
“But I’m so much better at
spending money than raising money, it would be a shame to waste my talent”.
Get
those fingers on that pulse. You have a
calling and whatever that calling is God equips you with what you need to
fulfill it. That’s the purpose of this
series. You are called and you are
equipped. The next series will cover ways
that God sends us into the world.
The
way to find God’s calling is to check what you’re passionate about. We’re created with passion at birth, from the
first screams out of the womb and if we’re lacking passion something is not
right. You may be suffering from
depression. It’s no respecter of persons
or ages. I (Larry) know what depression
feels like. If your depression is
situational like experiencing the death of a loved one or losing a job then
your sorrow is but for a season and it will pass when you’re done grieving your
loss. See a counselor and get some help
working through it.
If
your depression is clinical, that is you could win the lottery tomorrow and
still be depressed you might need medication to balance the chemicals in your
body. Please see your doctor. It should be manageable. Aging also has an affect on passion but it
shouldn’t diminish it altogether.
Don’t
let your depression become your identity.
You may never be rid of the depression completely in this lifetime but
when we come to Christ, God gives us a new identity, a new passion to help
others know him. You get to have that
passion all the way to your grave at which time you’ll get to see the faces of
all those people you helped to know Christ.
It will be worth all the pain that this world has caused you.
Finding
God’s calling starts with a passion to know Jesus Christ. Do you get up in the morning excited to know
more of the Christ? Are you passionate
about setting time aside everyday to listen for him in his word? That’s the place to start. Check your spiritual passion for Christ. Is it more alive now than it was when you
first came to Christ or have you lost your love?
Stephen
Covey in his landmark book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
tells the story of speaking at a seminar about being pro active in life and
taking charge instead of just reacting and allowing anything good or bad to run
your life. There was a man there who had
lost his love for his wife and came up to talk with Covey. He said “Stephen, I like what you’re
saying. But every situation is so
different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same
feelings for each other we used to have.
I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?”
“The
feeling isn’t there anymore?” Covey
asked. “That’s right,” he
reaffirmed. “And we have three children
we’re really concerned about. What do
you suggest?” “Love her,” Covey
replied. “I told you, the feeling
just isn’t there anymore.” “Love
her.” “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good
reason to love her.” “But how do you love
when you don’t love?” “My friend, love
is a verb. Love-the-feeling-is a fruit
of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her.
Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize.
Appreciate. Affirm her.” Covey goes on to say that in the “great
literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb.” What he calls “reactive people” or people who
only react to things make love only a feeling, you either have it or you don’t.[1]
If
you want to love someone in a way that will result in the feeling of love, you have to go out and do loving things to that
person. When was the last time you
looked into the eyes of someone and said “I love you so much?” Just saying those words has a powerful affect
on how we feel.
If
you want to love Jesus Christ in a way that you feel that love you have to go
out and do loving things like specifically tell him loving things. When was the last time you said “Jesus, I’m
so in love with you?” Would that even
sound normal to you? I (Larry) am a big
fan of classical music and listen to it day and night. That’s partly why we have good, classical
music here. Classical music helps quiet
my soul and allows me to hear God better.
But I also like what’s called praise music or what we call “worship
music” at the
To
find your calling starts with rekindling your passion for Jesus Christ. Say words that will cause you to fall in love
with him. Your calling in life will then
grow out of that love for Jesus. It’s
kind of like the day when I first got engaged to Martha. All I wanted to do was call everybody I knew
and tell them how I convinced such a fine woman to marry me.
When
you have a passion for someone you want to share at least part of them with
others. That passion reveals and
actually shapes our calling. Once we can
learn someone’s passion we can find their calling. Since God always gifts followers so they can
do that calling, finding a person’s passion is the key that unlocks the door to
finding what that spiritual gift is.
Let’s
use the Apostle Paul’s life in the Bible as an example of how passions revealed
his calling and how then God specifically equipped him for that calling. Listen to what he wrote in his letter to the
church at
“But whatever
were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider
them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in
him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the
basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know
the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming
like him in his death…”
That’s passion. What did Paul want more than anything in the
whole world? To know Christ and the
power of his resurrection. In Romans 15,
verse 15 Paul reveals his calling: “…because of the
grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles.”
A Gentile is anyone not a Jew. We now know that Paul’s primary passion was
to know Christ and to help others know Christ.
His secondary passion was to help Gentiles know Christ. That’s his calling.
Let’s
summarize. Our primary calling in life
is to know Christ and to make Christ known to others. That’s what we’re here for. That’s what gives us purpose in life. Out of that calling comes a passion or
burning desire to make Christ known to others.
Who we personally make Christ known to and how is our specific
calling. For Paul his calling was to
reach Gentiles throughout
God
gives us specific gifts or abilities for our specific calling. Paul describes his first spiritual gift in
Romans 15:16 when he says of God “He gave me the
priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might
become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” That’s a lot of Jewish terms
for an apparent Jewish Christian audience in
That
was his first gift. Paul alludes to his second gift in v.20 “It has
always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so
that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.” “Not building on someone’s foundation” is reference
to a specific spiritual gift called “apostle”.
The word “apostle” means “sent one” or “one on a mission”. The men who were picked by Jesus were called
the Apostles. They had to have been with
Jesus or seen him. They were all sent
out to be missionaries to start churches where there wasn’t a church. The
spiritual gift of apostle is a gift that equips someone to go out on a mission
planting churches, training leadership and then moving on with follow up visits
and letters. That gift is fortunately being
given to people today. Ralph Moore, a
pastor who got started planting his first church in
The
gift of evangelism and the gift of apostle are just two of many spiritual gifts
that the church needs. I’m praying that
God will equip some of you and some new people with the gift of evangelism and
the gift of apostle. Every church needs
people who can open doors for Jesus into lives that have thus far been very
closed. We need people who can say I want
to help start a new church or a new style of worship service for a different
audience. But there are lots of
different gifts besides these two all with the purpose of leading people to
make Christ known in our lifetime.
The
way to find your spiritual gift is you start with your pulse. It’s a reminder that your heart never loses
its calling. It’s passionate about
pumping your blood. But when it gets
blocked or it no longer can fulfill its calling it dies. It was never designed to be a decoration in
the human body. Neither were you
designed to be a decoration in the body of Christ.
So
start with your pulse. If you have one,
you still have a calling, a purpose in life.
Next identify your passions. If
you don’t have any see a counselor or a doctor, you may be suffering from
depression. Otherwise list your passions. They will tell you a lot. If knowing Christ
is not your primary passion then you’ll never find your spiritual gift and your
purpose in life. Go back to Jesus and
tell him over and over how much you appreciate what he’s done for you. Fall in love all over again with Jesus. You are called by God and uniquely equipped
for God’s service.
First steps to Finding Your
spiritual gifts
How
did you come to know and appreciate Jesus Christ? Write
a short summary.
One
a scale of one to ten with ten being the strongest, what is your passion for knowing
and being with Jesus Christ right now?
When was it higher? Why?
List
the things that you are most passionate about.
(Examples: my children or grandchildren, golf, travel, health, music). Tip: Passion is what occupies your
thoughts.
In
what ways do your passions help others become passionate about Jesus
Christ?
Daily Bible
Wednesday Philippians
3 (entire chapter)
Describe
Paul’s passion
Why
does Paul describe his passion at this point in his letter to his church?
Thursday I Corinthians 12:7-11
Identify the gifts Paul
lists in this passage
What pattern in the kind
of gifts or the order of their listing do you see?
Friday I Corinthians 13
Why do you think Paul placed this chapter right in
the middle between two chapters about spiritual gifts?
What does “faith”, “hope” and “love” have to do with
spiritual gifts?
Saturday Psalm 42
How
does your soul compare with the Psalmist in verses 2-3?
Describe
the emotion of this Psalmist and how the Psalm ends. How can you take its advice in v. 11?