Thursday, August 15, 2024

What Are You Enabled To Do?

"And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry,
1 Timothy 1:12 (NKJV)

Once, while I was out running in the USA, I saw that someone had placed an upright piano out at the end of their driveway, so that anyone who wanted it could pick it up and take it with them.  When I saw that, I thought to myself, "who is going to be driving down the road and just stop to pick up a piano?"  As soon as I had that thought, I had another thought, "if someone who owned a truck drove past, they could easily pick up that piano."  The piano was available, and although not everyone was able to take the piano away, some people would be able to.

God has a plan for each and every person.  In 1 Peter 4:10, it says that each of us has received a gift from God that we can use to glorify Him.  But, while each person has a gift, we do not all have the same gift.  As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:12, the Body of Christ has many members and we are not all the same.  Just like there are many different parts in the human body, there are many different parts in the Body of Christ.  God places us in the Body of Christ as He sees best (1 Corinthians 12:18), and He has gifted each of us in some way to do something for Him.

In 1 Timothy 1:12, Paul said that God enabled (empowered) him and placed him into the ministry.  God had a specific plan for Paul's life, just like He has a specific plan for each of us, and God equipped Paul for what Paul needed to do.  In the same way, God equips each of us to do what He has planned for us to do.  Not everyone can, or should, do the same thing, because we are all equipped and gifted differently.  We do not pick our gift and decide what we want to do, we need to discover the gift God has given us, learn how He has equipped us, and put that gift to use.

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