“No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven.” John 3:27
I was sitting in church the other day when the pastor read this verse from John. Naturally, I respected his sermon by immediately tuning him out and writing my own notes. As most of you know, there are usually two sermons we hear on Sunday—the one the pastor preaches, and the one we preach to ourselves on the way home. For my own rude reasons, I didn’t even wait to get into the car before I was preaching to myself.
For me, the dilemma isn’t that I don’t know my assignment, but how to say no to those things I know are close to my assignment. For example, I know my God-given gift is to teach Scripture, but that’s a very broad canvas, so I’ll focus it. My gift is to teach Scripture to believers. That’s better, but let’s focus it further. My gift is to teach Scripture to adult believers. Ahh, that’s even better. But let’s go a step further. My gift is to teach Scripture to adult believers who have a passion to become sold-out disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.
Because I understand my gifts, I don’t have to say “Yes” to teaching children’s church or the invitation to be a youth minister. I’m not interested in going to China as a missionary, starting an inner-city work, or teaching social studies in the local middle school. Those are all close, but not close enough. Knowing my assignment means I can say “No” to those things that are not my heavenly gifts. Continue Reading