⁹ Don’t just pre­tend to love oth­ers. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. ¹⁰ Love each other with gen­uine affection, and take delight in hon­or­ing each other. ¹¹ Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthu­si­as­ti­cally. ¹² Rejoice in our con­fi­dent hope. Be patient in trou­ble, and keep on pray­ing. ¹³ When God’s peo­ple are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to prac­tice hospitality.

Be Real

I could almost do a sep­a­rate Oil Change for each of the sen­tences in this pas­sage. I mean, wow, Paul is throw­ing out all kinds of quick com­ments. I can’t help but won­der how incred­i­ble life would be if I’d only do just what is listed in this pas­sage. If I went all out with each of these things. Imagine.

I guess the words that come to mind as I read Paul’s words is the be real. Let your love be gen­uine and your dis­dain for sin be hon­est. Do every­thing with a heart that is pure before God. I know that I have a long way to go before I get to that point, but I know my heart truly wants to live this way.

Per­haps this is one of the best exam­ples of what Jesus said when he told us that he came to give us life to the fullest. Per­haps the great­est adven­ture we could expe­ri­ence is to sim­ply live life where we love fully, hate sin com­pletely, hold only to that which is good, etc. What if each night as you placed your head on your pil­low, you were able to feel com­pletely con­tent with every­thing that you accom­plished that day.

My prayer: Lord, thank you that you give me the oppor­tu­nity to live life to the fullest. In fact, it’s what you desire from me. And thank you that I can live life to the fullest even as I go about my daily rou­tine. How? By sim­ply being real in every­thing. There is incred­i­ble truth behind this pas­sage and I ask for your strength to live it out. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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⁶ In his grace, God has given us dif­fer­ent gifts for doing cer­tain things well. So if God has given you the abil­ity to proph­esy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. ⁷ If your gift is serv­ing oth­ers, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. ⁸ If your gift is to encour­age oth­ers, be encour­ag­ing. If it is giv­ing, give gen­er­ously. If God has given you lead­er­ship abil­ity, take the respon­si­bil­ity seri­ously. And if you have a gift for show­ing kind­ness to oth­ers, do it gladly.

All Out

I believe the Bible is very clear that we all have a call­ing. A role to play within the greater Church. It is a role that takes into account our tal­ents, pas­sions, expe­ri­ences, and cul­ture. It is a role that is unique to each of us. And not only do I believe it, it’s clear to me that Paul believed it. It’s why we find Paul talk about spir­i­tual gift­ing in a num­ber of his letters.

I think many peo­ple miss the key to what Paul is say­ing in this pas­sage, how­ever. It’s too bad, too, because it’s the part of this pas­sage that I love the most. You see, many focus in on the spe­cific gifts that Paul men­tions and won­der if they have those gifts. And so, peo­ple high­light the words prophecy, serv­ings, teacher, encour­age, giv­ing, lead­er­ship, show­ing kind­ness. We then focus on whether or not we have those spe­cific gifts.

I just don’t think that was Paul’s inten­tion in this pas­sage. There are so many diverse gifts within the King­dom of God, that it would be ridicu­lous to try and fit them all into a spe­cific list and then expect peo­ple to fit into a cer­tain gift. Instead of try­ing to make peo­ple fit a cat­e­gory of gifts, why not allow each per­son to sim­ply dis­cover their unique gift and express it in what­ever way will fit their situation?

You see I don’t think Paul wants us focus­ing on the name of the gifts in this pas­sage. Instead, I believe he’s empha­siz­ing how we approach our area of gift­ing. Actu­ally, he’s focus­ing on how we approach every aspect of life. And he’s encour­ag­ing us to do what­ever we are called to do — what­ever our pur­pose is — with every part of our being. Do go all out. Do do these things with pas­sion, energy, and enthusiasm.

I meet a lot of peo­ple who serve in an area of min­istry and yet do so half-heartedly. They see their min­istry as a bur­den rather than as a joy. What if each of us approached what­ever God called us to do with a total aban­don­ment. I can’t help but think it would change everything.

My prayer: Lord, may I never take lightly the things you’ve called me to do. What­ever it may be at that moment, may I do it with all my heart, soul, and pas­sion. I want to live in a place of total aban­don­ment. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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³ Because of the priv­i­lege and author­ity God has given me, I give each of you this warn­ing: Don’t think you are bet­ter than you really are. Be hon­est in your eval­u­a­tion of your­selves, mea­sur­ing your­selves by the faith God has given us. ⁴ Just as our bod­ies have many parts and each part has a spe­cial func­tion, ⁵ so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

Humil­ity

Do a search in your local book­store and you will find an entire sec­tion that deals with self-worth. Hun­dreds of books are avail­able that try and tell you that you are okay. You’re a great per­son. The power is within you to achieve great­ness! I guess it shouldn’t sur­prise us. When we live life as if we are god, and believe that we con­trol our own des­tiny, then it makes sense that we need to be encour­aged about our own importance.

What alarms me is when you visit a local Chris­t­ian book­store and you dis­cover how many sim­i­larly themed books are avail­able from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. As Christ fol­low­ers, it seems that we need a lot of rein­force­ment about how won­der­ful we are and how impor­tant we are to God.

That’s why Paul’s words seem to jump off the page today. “Stop wor­ry­ing about how impor­tant you are.” “Stop see­ing your­self as the cen­tre of it all.” Yes, you are val­ued by God. Yes, he con­sid­ered you impor­tant enough to sac­ri­fice his own Son so that you might be in rela­tion­ship with him. Yes, it’s all true. But take the “self-worth” thing down a notch or two.

I believe one of the great­est things we can do for our­selves is rec­og­nize that we are all sim­ply one part in a larger body of believ­ers. Yes, God used me, along with a few oth­ers, to launch a Bik­ers’ Church just under eight years ago. Yes, that’s won­der­ful. But, that doesn’t make me more spe­cial or more impor­tant than any­one else who is a part of Bik­ers’ Church today. I may be a vis­i­ble part of the church, and may be called to lead the con­gre­ga­tion, but I’m no more impor­tant that the per­son who serves faith­fully each week behind the bar, or in the sound room, or with the chil­dren. And, our church is not bet­ter than the one down the road that serves its com­mu­nity faith­fully each week. We are all part of one body, doing our part.

It’s some­thing we should all be reminded about from time to time.

My prayer: Lord, thank you for using me. Thank you for allow­ing me to be part of a greater body of Christ fol­low­ers who are also being used by you to touch the lives of oth­ers. As one body, we each have a role to play. But our role does not deter­mine our sig­nif­i­cance. Our gift­ing and tal­ent is not what makes us more valu­able than oth­ers. No, each of us is vital. Each of us impor­tant. But only together. It is only when we shine as ONE body that we truly make a dif­fer­ence. May I never for­get that. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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