Appreciate the gift

Some notes from yesterday's sermon:

1 Corinthians 12:7-11

7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. 12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.
God’s order

Once we are filled with the Holy Spirit and are operating in His gifts, the streams of living water flow naturally.

We’ve got diversity of Gifts here
High-visibility gifts and low visibility gifts

The high visibility gifts are not more important than the low visibility gifts
These are simply different manifestations of the character of Christ and the church needs them all, functioning in harmony, humming along like a well tuned race engine.

When Jesus was with us He served, He helped, He comforted, He encouraged, He gave of himself. We need those qualities of the Lord among us.

Through the gifts of the Spirit, God comes along side of us to do in His power, what you and I could never do on our own.

Gifts were never given for you to enjoy some privileged relationship with God.
They do not lift you to some higher spiritual plateau.

When we try to use spiritual gifts for that reason, we are on the wrong path. Because that is not the reason they were given.

We need to appreciate our gifts.