gifts are for giving

When I was young Kodak used the slogan "Give the gift that keeps on giving" to promote its cameras during the Christmas shopping season.  That's a smart concept.  A camera is one gift that continues to give memorable pictures of family and record important life activities to share with others and to preserve memories.  Recently, it has occurred to me that all gifts that the Lord has blessed us with personally are meant to bless others, as well.  Of course there are basic gifts of our daily food, clothing and shelter (not to mention jobs, safe travel, and innumerable answers to prayer) that meet specific needs of ours, and can encourage others who may see our lives held in the Lord's hand.  But what I'm really thinking about are the gifts of personality, mental abilities, physical strengths (and weaknesses), and spiritual gifts that our heavenly Father has built into our frames that make each of us unique.  I now realize that all of these gifts are not meant to have a dead end as they've been poured into your life and mine.  It's not enough to be thankful for God's help or to only realize personal gain from strengths He's given us.  The real joy comes from using the gifts we've been given by giving to others.  God reaches through our lives to do much of His work.  In so doing, He builds faith, in us and through us.  This is a smarter concept than even Kodak had.

 

1 Corinthians 12:  12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? 18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. 19 And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

 

blessings,

 

Rob Smith