Gifts

And the King (Jesus) will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40

At Wonderful Wednesday Worship we are studying Journey to your Spiritual Gift. This was our first week with the new guides and we are to work through a lesson each week, filling in the blanks and answering the questions. Last night Jordan and I sat down to start our workbooks and Anne joined us. As we were working through we came to areas where we had to find answers in the bible; each of us with a different version, we shared the verses out loud to find the solutions. It was a great time of sharing and collaborative learning. Journey defines a spiritual gift as: a divine ability given by grace through the Holy Spirit to make each believer and the church more like Jesus. So far we have learned that each Christian has a spiritual gift, how we can improve and use our gift, and that exercising our spiritual gift brings immense joy. The book is really great, breaking down the 19 spiritual gifts given in the New Testament into three groups: Serving gifts (i.e. helps, giving, hospitality, faith…), Speaking gifts (knowledge, wisdom, prophecy, teacher…), and Sign gifts (miracles, healing, tongues…). All the gifts can be found in Romans 12:6-8, 1Corinthians 12:8-10,28, Ephesians 4:11, and 1Peter 4:9-10. The next ten lessons will describe the each of the gifts. Jordan and I recently read another book called Experiencing the Spirit which detailed the nine gifts mentioned in 1Corinthians so we are excited to do some comparing.

This is going to be really neat for us because I think it is easy to find plateaus in our relationship with the Lord. Thinking, “I am doing everything right, I am reading the bible and praying, etc.” but God always wants us to be challenged, growing, discovering new gifts, and bringing others into His family. And the reward is great. The above verse was brought up in talking about serving gifts. At that point Jesus is explaining his return and how he will split the people into two groups (sheep and goats). Turning to one He invites them into His kingdom; adding, when He was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison they cared for Him. They said “When did we do that?” And He replied, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” One day Jesus is going to invite us into His kingdom! So powerful, also powerful is the idea that each time we help someone we are helping Jesus. The homes we are working on are not “perfect” and no matter what we do they never will be, all we can do is try our best and never say, “it’s good enough for this place”; when we replace the homeowner’s names with Jesus only our best is good enough. Even when that means Jordan is going to take off all the door trim (which I JUST calked) because the door is a little crooked.

No PSA today just a challenge (I mean, it is Lent) :

Remember Jesus’ words and treat everyone as if they are Jesus.

Peace and Love,

Jess and Jordan

The pictures are a before and after of when we raised the ceiling in one of the houses. We have also added a list (and preview) of other blogs which we enjoy reading on the bottom of the column to your right.