Pastor’s Ponderings…

7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another he gives the gift of special knowledge. 9 The Spirit gives special faith to another, and to someone else he gives the power to heal the sick. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and to another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to know whether it is really the Spirit of God or another spirit that is speaking. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, and another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11

A farmer from Bulgaria, Mihail Janko, is convinced that his goat has a very special talent: it can discern a person's character. Janko claims that he can put pictures of people in front of the goat and the goat will show, by his behavior, whether the person in the picture is of good or bad character. Evidently, the goat head-butts pictures of unpleasant people, but eats the pictures of pleasant people. Janko has even relied on the goat's special talent to help him choose boyfriends for his four daughters. Now that is a gift of discernment. LOL

God bestows on each one of us spiritual gifts. And in that gifting, God gives to each congregation the right gifts to help that congregation be everything God calls them to be. I am excited to know that we have all the right stuff to fulfill the call of God in our congregation here at Creekside. Together with our talents and skills, also gifts from God, our spiritual gifts encourage, teach, counsel, help, organize, lead, proclaim, and so much more. All of these are used to glorify God and build the body of Christ. How we do it is based on our uniqueness in the church.

In all of our gifting, the one thing we should remember is that it is all from God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. The more we are tapped into the God’s generous gift of the Spirit, the more our gifts are enriched and are evident in our lives.

Would you like to know more about the Gifts of the Spirit? Why not join us for our Life Keys event on Friday, October 15 and Saturday, October 16? What are your spiritual gifts – how can you use your skills and talents to glorify God and make disciples? Join us for Life Keys and find out. You won’t regret it.

In the Lord’s love and joy,

Pastor Janet

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