It’s that time of year again. You can almost smell the tailgating grills. Soon there will be a crispness in the air and we will be cheering for our favorite team. As believers in “the Way” (a first century description of the church), and followers of Christ, we are on a team as well. We are on God’s team. Unfortunately, there has been some confusion over the last 2,000 years. We are not supposed to be spectators. We are on the team!
When we accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, just like the equipment manager handing out gear, we were given Spiritual gifts. Maybe it was just one gift, but it is supposed to be put to use to honor the God Who saved us from our sins. Oh, we all love Eph. 2:8-9, which describes the salvific gift of God’s grace through faith and how it is not of ourselves or our works so we can’t even boast about it. But for some reason we hit the brakes and often turn a blind eye to verse 10—“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (NASB).
Think of it this way. If I applied to work for a company that had awesome benefits (like eternal life insurance) and got the job, and I was trained with a specific skill set the company needed, would the boss allow me to just show up, clock in and then yuk it up in the break room all day drinking coffee and eating donuts? Of course not! Then why do we think we can get away with it in the Body of Christ?
If God gave us the ability to kick 60-yard field goals (metaphorically), then why would we want to sit in the stands and watch the game? We should be on the field making the coach proud. My observation of folks in church who tend to be miserable, complain more often than not and are rarely satisfied, is they are not serving and utilizing their spiritual gift(s).
Get in the game! God will bless you for it and you will be so happy… it was what you were made to do.