Ephesians 4:7-11 - "To Each One of Us"

Todaywill continue to look at Ephesians 4:7-11. These verses are about the Spiritualgifts that God gives “to each one of us” for unity in the church.These gifts can either be used to build us up or used to tear us down. God hasalready given us the Gift of the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. Atthat time, we were baptized into the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit cameto dwell within us. This great truth is taught throughout the Epistles in theNew Testament.  Butalong with the Gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit,also imparted Spiritual gifts into our life. These gifts are many and you willfind them listed in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12-14 and also in Ephesians 4. Weneed to also understand that these Spiritual gifts are not the naturalabilities that we're born with, such as mechanical ability, musical ability,athletic ability, or artistic ability. No, those are natural abilities anddifferent people have different natural abilities.  Butthese are Spiritual gifts and this gifting is very important for us tounderstand as believers. I'm convinced, we will not find real fulfillment,satisfaction, and real contentment in our lives unless we're fulfilling thepurpose for which God created us. Remember in Ephesians 2:8-10 we learned that Godsaved us by His grace, not just so we could go to heaven when we died, butbecause, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, whichGod prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” He saves us to do “goodworks” for Him through the abilities we have from our Spiritual gifts.  Godknew exactly what gifts the body needed in that particular local church and He “preparedbeforehand” and gifted every believer that became a part of that localchurch with specific spiritual gifts to build up that body of Jesus Christwhich builds up the whole body of Christ around the world. So these arepowerful verses to understand and make sure we begin to comprehend and apply to“each” of our lives as we see in verse 7: “But to each one of us,grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift”.  Paulsaid something similar in Romans 12:4-6: "For aswe have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the samefunction. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members ofone another." Having then gifts differing according to the grace that isgiven to us, let us use them”. We should make sure we're exercising thosespiritual gifts that God has given us. Thenin verses 8-10, we read something very interesting. These are wonderful versesreminding us that Jesus Christ first descended that He might ascend. And He ledcaptivity captive. I believe the meaning of this is that just as we werecaptive to Satan by sin before salvation, Jesus Christ because He wasvictorious over death and sin and hell and the grave, He now takes us captivefor His glory, and gives the Spiritual gifts that we need to serve Him. “Jesusdescended that He might ascend”. He descended in obedience to “death of thecross and for that God has highly exalted Him and given Him the Name that isabove every name…” (Philippians 2:8-11).  Jesus“descended to the lower parts of the earth”. I believe that this couldmean that Jesus took there those in paradise previous to the cross and He ledthem up to the third heaven. And Jesus also delivered us from our captivity tosin and Satan and made us His captives to be free to live holy and Godly livesand gave us the Spiritual gifts to serve Him.  Ohmy friend, aren't you so thankful that Jesus “though He was rich, He becamepoor that we through His poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Wehave the riches of Christ, and the Spiritual gifts that He's given “toeach one of us”, the wealth of Christ Himself living within “eachone of us” today.  Doyou know your Spiritual gifts? Are you using them for the glory of God and thebuilding up of the body of Jesus Christ?