I am not worthy, and you are not worthy…..
That is where our story starts, but it doesn’t end there. We are unworthy of any spiritual gifts and quite frankly we are so far away from worthy of a relationship with Jesus Christ. However, since God loves us so much He made a plan to make us worthy. In that plan to make us worthy He also created each person with a plan to build His kingdom. Since He had a plan to not only make us worthy but to give us talents to build His kingdom we can throw away all the ideas that:
- Who we are isn’t enough
- Our gifts are not good enough
- Our gifts aren’t as important as someone else’s
- The personality we have isn’t as usable or good as someone else’s
- We aren’t needed
To help this concept sink in a bit, let’s day dream together.
Imagine you are a teenager and you live in a very poor neighborhood. You go to school in old hand me downs that are a far cry from the latest name brand clothes. You don’t even have clean clothes half the time. You pass the popular crowd, the ones that have it all together…and they call you names. They say you will never amount to anything, you are stupid, you have nothing to offer…you are dirty. What could you possibly bring to the table? You wont ever be as pretty as them, as smart as them, as in-style as them. You wont ever have enough money to go the places they go to help the people they help on the fancy mission trips with their church. You wont ever do anything that good right? Then one day when you are out roaming the streets when you meet a handsome stranger. You talk and talk and for the first time in your life you feel seen. He asks if he can see you again, you hesitantly agree…but you wonder, why would he want to see me, dirty, stupid, unworthy me again? After awhile you realize he is a prince (we are dreaming right!) and he asks you to be his wife. Out of all the people in the world He could have had, he chose you. You go from a state of poverty to a state of not only great wealth, but a state of stewardship of a kingdom. In societies eyes, however, you were not worthy of it at all.
The thing is, this isn’t a fairy tale, this is what Christ did for you. He saw you and chose you. He chose you to be His when he left heaven and died for you. We all have the choice accept the gift to be made clean through His blood, or reject it.
When we start looking at our spiritual gifts with the view that we were not worthy, but we were made worthy of the gifts, through Christ’s sacrifice not of ourselves, we can step into our role with confidence. Because of this we know that Christ not only died for us, but he choose us and made a plan for our lives as well. We don’t need to look around and worry our gifts aren’t as good any someone else’s because it doesn’t matter! God made us each UNIQUE and has a different plan for each of us. Christ alone made us worthy of that plan.
Let’s review-
- We are unworthy made worthy of our gifts through Christ.
- It isn’t our plan it is God’s.
- God is in control and knows what is best for each of us.
- We don’t have to worry that our gifts aren’t good enough because they are all needed to build God’s kingdom.
- God has a plan, we don’t need to worry it wont work out.
With this mindset we can see why it is so important to use our gifts! We can’t hide behind the veil of, “my gifts aren’t good enough or needed”, anymore because they aren’t ours anyway! We are simply stewards of them for God’s glory.
This week we read about parable of the talents. It shows us that some of us are given more or less talents but that doesn’t make it any less in God’s eyes. He knows our personalities, our life stage, and our abilities. He created us! He knows what is best for us so He will give us the talents and resources that are best for each of our unique personalties. He doesn’t give us the amount someone else has because WE AREN’T SOMEONE ELSE!
I can imagine what the servant who had less talents thought. He probably made the excuse that since He had less talents He just shouldn’t use them. He wasn’t good enough. Yikes, how often do I think that?! “I am not good enough so I will just hide”. What did the master say to the servant who hid his talents? “You wicked and lazy servant!” (Matthew 25:25-26). He then proceeded to give that servant’s talents to someone who was going to use them.
Sisters, this is important! God WIILL accomplish His goal. He will build His kingdom and He will use whoever is willing to be used. If we aren’t willing to use our talents He will find someone who is. Do you want to be the faithful servant who uses her gifts even though she is scared or feels unworthy? Or do you want to be the wicked servant who bulks in fear and refuses to believe her talents are good enough? God will take them and give them to someone else.
We can step out in our talents and gifts because:
- Even though we feel unworthy HE makes us worthy
- Even though we feel like we don’t matter or our gifts are not good enough God has a plan
Step out in faith my sweet friend. You are unworthy and incapable on your own. But with Jesus guiding you you can BODLY step into your gifts and talents knowing you are a steward of a great gift. In that stewardship you can rest in the fact that your unique personality and spiritual gifts will build God’s kingdom no matter how big or small they seem to the world. Every talent is needed in this kingdom work.
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