"Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." - 1 Peter 4:10
Explanation
No, I am not talking about responsibility in terms of doing your chores or going to bed on time, I want to focus on our responsibilities as followers of Jesus. I was talking to a good friend a bit ago about our responsibility as Christians and I came across a quote from my church pastor saying that it can be summed up by one simple saying, "Glorify God always and love people while you do it." I love the verse above because it tells us that God gave us gifts and that we should be using them not for ourselves, but for others (when God blesses you, it's important to understand that those blessings still belongs to God, so we should constantly be giving back to Him). In saying all this, our responsibility is to glorify God and to love others in the process, no matter what that looks like.
What does that look like? (Loving others)
This can appear in many different forms but it all winds down to taking care of each other. What does that specifically look like? It can be anything from literally taking care of someone when they are sick or injured to simply holding the door open for them, it does not matter as long as we are loving others and looking after them. Taking care of others and loving them isn't always the easiest thing to do though. We live in a world where, as sad as it is, many people don't know our loving God and refuse to worship Him. The most loving thing we can do is tell people about Jesus because the harsh reality is that their eternity depends on it. They may not agree and they might tell you things like, "Stop trying to shove it down my throat" or "There is no such thing as God". It is a very difficult thing to hear, but what you may not see is the seed you planted in them. You loved them by telling them about Jesus and maybe that is all you can do, but now you just have to have faith that the Lord takes it where he needs.
Glorifying God
You may be saying, "You talked about the loving others part, but what about the glorifying God part?". Well, biblically, loving people is one of the best ways to glorify God. After all, that is what he calls us to do so when we love people, we love him. Other ways may include tithing or giving your money to Christian organizations so that God can use it, living generously overall, praying, worshipping, listening to those who need an ear, the list goes on! A big one that may not seem like it that I find myself struggling with personally is trusting God with everything. As human beings, we like to be in control and when we're not, we tend to freak out. So the idea of giving God complete control can be a frightening one (yet a freeing one!) but when you do, when you decide to give God back everything He gave you and trust him with it, your life is undoubtedly going to be used for the glory of God and it will be amazing!
Put into action
How do we put this into action? Well, if we go back to the verse, we see that we just simply use our gifts and talents to love people for the kingdom of Christ! You may not know what your gifts or talents are yet, but take a step back and look at your life and pick out the parts in which you see the most fruit and you see the most change in the right direction. When you recognize where the Holy Spirit is most active in your life, you will be able to tell where you spiritual gifts lie and how you can use them to lift up others and to serve Christ!!
By; Tyler Dixon
