January 14, 2022

Surrender Your Gifting

Lord’s Prayer Focus: Surrender to the Father’s Kingdom

When we talk to God, we must remember who we’re talking to. We’re talking to the King! God’s kingdom is an awesome kingdom and our desires should be the same as the desires of our King! Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). As we continue to use the Lord’s Prayer as our guide through these 40 days, let’s focus now on what it means to pray for God’s kingdom and what it means to surrender to His will.

Romans 12:3-8 (CSB) “For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Right after Paul calls for us to present ourselves as living sacrifices, he discusses individual giftings. The clear implication is that surrendering our lives means also surrendering our giftings. God has made each of us unique and has blessed us with gifts. Each person has different gifts and different amounts of those gifts.

We often spend our energy and thoughts comparing ourselves, and our giftings, to others. With social media, it has never been easier to see and to covet. When we fall into the sin of comparison we can fall into two different traps. We either look down on others who don’t have our giftings or we covet the blessings given to another person. Both of those perspectives miss out on two fundamental truths. First, that God is the giver of all good gifts. And second, that our gifts are not our own. They aren’t to be used to make ourselves famous or popular or rich. Our gifts were given specifically by God to make Him known and to build others up. Whatever gift we have been given, we should surrender it back to God for Him to use as He sees fit.

Consider: 
  • What are your giftings?
  • In what ways can you use your giftings to build up other believers and reach out to the lost?

Prayer Points:
Surrender your giftings to God. Pray that he would use them to make His name known on earth.