One Body, Many Gifts

Romans 12:3-8Gifts of Grace3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.Have you ever met someone with an inflated ego? Don’t they just rub you the wrong way? I think many of us find ourselves becoming annoyed with people who have inflated egos because, if we are really honest, we often see something in them that we don’t like about ourselves. We all have one thing in common: we often think we are the most important person in the world. Whether you agree with me or not, I have been around long enough to know that we are a self-absorbed people. Now, I don’t mean to sound like I am berating you; I am simply acknowledging a reality.Paul goes into depth about the importance of not thinking too highly of ourselves, but instead having sober judgment. He then lists a series of different gifts that we find within the body of Christ. His main point in doing this is to show that each of us has a role to play in building up God’s kingdom, but we should never think that our role makes us more important than someone else.This Sunday, I pray that we would continue to be equipped to build up the body of Christ. I pray that we would walk away viewing ourselves with greater humility and sober judgment, while also recognizing the gifts God has graciously given each of us. And ultimately, I pray that we would look to the example Christ set for us in how we should live and conduct ourselves.In Christ,Blake