Spiritual Gifts - Why Does God Give Them to Us?

When a person becomes a Christian God's Word teaches He gives "gifts" to them! So, why does He give gifts, what are these gifts, how do we use them and what difference does it make? How does knowing these answers relate to recruiting? These are great questions to consider and we will be looking at these questions and answers all week - particularly in relation to how they apply to recruiting!

Today we will look at why God gives spiritual gifts. When I was 19 years old I memorized Ephesians 4 and this passage is one of the places in the Bible where you will find out about spiritual gifts. Verses 12 - 16 tells us Jesus gave us gifts; "So His people would learn to serve and his body would grow strong. ¹³ This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like him. ¹⁴ We must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings, which are like winds that toss us around from place to place. ¹⁵ Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head ¹⁶ of the body. Christ holds it together and makes all of its parts work perfectly, as it grows and becomes strong because of love."

Ephesians 4 tells us Jesus gave us gifts so . . . 

• We will learn to serve!
• The body - the church - will grow strong!
• We will be united by our faith and understanding of Jesus!
• We will grow up and be like Jesus!
• We will not be like children who can be tricked by false teachings.
• All parts of the body - the church - will work perfectly together as it grows and becomes strong because of love!

Looks to me like these gifts have some wonderful purposes! We are given gifts so we can learn to serve and the church will grow strong! Gifts unite us and help us grow up so we can be like Jesus and not be deceived as we all work together! Obviously this all connects with recruiting as we help people get involved, learn to serve and grow the church! Tomorrow we will look at what these gifts are!