God Pause for Wednesday, 8/20/2014
/Luther Seminary God Pause
Wednesday, 8/20/2014 Reading: Romans 12:1-8
There is a cartoon in which a man and a woman are sitting at a restaurant table after church. The woman says, "I was just fine until you got up and testified that golf was your spiritual gift."
Unfortunately, golf did not make Paul's list of gifts here in Romans. Paul runs through his list of gifts in this text, but before he does that he says two things: (1) We are members of the body of Christ; and (2) we are also members of one another. This faith we are living is not only a "God-and-me" matter. This faith that we live out daily also includes how we function in unity with others. Do we value the gifts of the other? Do we encourage and foster those gifts? Is there someone in your world today that needs to hear you name and lift up their gifts?
God of gifts and grace, we are grateful that you have made each of us special and unique. Guide us to use our gifts for your good will. And help us to recognize and uplift your gifts as we see them in others. Amen.
Sarah Raymond Pastor, Calvary Lutheran Church, Grand Forks, N.D. Master of Divinity, 2013
Romans 12:1-8 (NRSV)
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you 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 not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
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