Rev.Dr.Jeffry David Camm

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Romans chapter 12 verse 6 states (NLT) “God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So, if God has given you the ability to prophesy, ~~ then prophesy whenever you can ~~ as often as your faith is strong enough to receive a message from God.”

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So in today’s language, God has given each of us a “talent”, or “a gift” to do something very well – in fact better that others.

 

This talent God refers to as “ability”, but unfortunately many people do not know what their gift is, and so they are not available to use that gift for His glory. So there are two parts to this picture.

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The first part is to identify what the special “ability” is that God has given to each of us, and the second part is the “availability” to use it for his glory. So there is “ability” and there is “availability”, and both have to come into play so that God can be glorified.

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Throughout the Bible, there are many examples of God choosing people to perform specific tasks and we need to learn from them.

 

1.    Abraham: Was called by God to come out of his country of ungodly people, with his wife and all of his belongings, and be prepared to go to a land that God was going to show them. He did not tell them the name of this land, nor what type of people lived there; God just said it was “the Promised Land”, and if Abraham was obedient and followed God’s instructions then his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. God chose a man who had that “special ability” to trust God in all situations.

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2.    Moses: A man raised up in the Pharaoh’s palace, with all of the education and benefits of a Prince of Egypt, but who fled into the desert to rule over scorpions and lizards, while God re-molded Moses into the leader that God wanted him to be; a leader to go and tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and then to lead them in the wilderness for 40 years. These people were rebellious, they did not follow God’s laws or his ways and God was getting fed up with them. In fact, at one stage God told Moses He was going to destroy them all and start again. But Moses was a wise man; he argued with God and said that all of the surrounding nations knew that you brought the Israelites out of Egypt and that God was going to lead them to the Promised Land that was promised to Abraham. If God destroyed the Israelites, they could claim that God was not able to do what he promised, and therefore He was not really God at all. Because of this argument, God withheld his hand of destruction against the Israelites, and Moses continued to rule and lead the nation for 40 years, until he was old and then he transferred the leadership to God’s appointed leader - Joshua.

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3.    Joshua: A born leader, who slept in the tabernacle from the time of its construction, and who heard the voice of God. He was charged with leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, and warring against all of the tribes and nations who were living in this land. He was charged with “taking possession of this land” and removing all of the evil tribes who dwelt there. So to fulfil this role successfully, Joshua had to be especially gifted as a “Warrior Leader”, a person who could listen to the voice of God and then implement the strategies that God had downloaded to him to defeat the enemy.

 

To fulfil this type of leadership, neither of the previous leaders mentioned above would have been successful performing this task. They would have been “square pegs in round holes” and they would have been working in the flesh – not working with their God-given talents.

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4.    David:  David was chosen as a Warrior King, to war against evil and to prepare the hearts of the people to build the Davidic Temple for God. He was a “man after God’s own heart”, but unfortunately not perfect, so he was not permitted to build the Temple.

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5.    Solomon: On the other hand, Solomon realized that it was a great responsibility to rule the nation of Israel and so He asked God for wisdom to rule the nation wisely, so that the whole nation walked in obedience before their God. God granted his request and he was granted a double portion of wisdom. That was his special talent – his wisdom and He led the nation in peace for 40 years – but like his father he was not perfect and there were consequences for his sins.

As a result of Solomon’s sins, in the reign of David’s Grandson, the kingdom of Israel was torn apart by civil war, resulting in the kingdom being split into two distinct parts.
The first part was the Levites (priests) and the Tribe of Judah, which remained loyal to the laws of God and remained with Jerusalem, as their capital city.

The second group of the “10 rebellious tribes” set up their capital in Samaria and they were to become a problem for Israel right up until this century, as they try to claim back their inheritance; the land promised to the descendants of Abraham.

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6.       In the first century missionaries went out from Israel to spread the word of God to the nations with Apostles travelling to places like India to spread the gospel. These were people that God called, who were no different from us. They were created in the image of God (just like us) and they were given special talents (just like us). The only difference is that they identified what their gifts were and used them. As a result, Christianity has spread across the known world, until now we have more than 2 billion people who proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

 

7.       But some of you reading this post will say; “They were “special people” and God called them to do this task.”

 

8.       The only thing that is “different” about them is that they “heard the call” and they “obeyed the call”.

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The challenge for all of us is that we need to identify what special gift God has given to each of us. Whatever that gift is, big or small, we have to be prepared to be available to use it whenever we get the chance, because whenever we use our “special gifts” we are being the hands and feet of Jesus on this earth, sharing His love to a lost world.