Gift Manager

When the manager of a sports team is looking for players that will help the team to win, they aren’t just wanting anyone to fill each role. Even the most gifted athlete is not suited for every position. While the quarterback on a football team usually gets most of the attention, he would probably be almost useless as a center or guard on the line. The guard in basketball may be able to sink anything beyond the arc, but if asked to fight it out under the basket against the towering centers, there would be very little expectation of success. Some players are more naturally given to prevent the other team from scoring, while others can penetrate the other team’s defenses and effectively add points to the board. There is an overall vision of triumphing over a foe, but it takes strategically placed competitors that are gifted in their roles in order to realize that vision. The team gains the victory, but it is due to the manager’s success in the placing of players and coaches to ensure that each position is well-placed and developed.

Victory, for the heart of the Father, is whenever a heart is returned to its purpose in union and fellowship with Him. The fall of Adam was a great defeat for this purpose, and in Jesus there was provision made for overwhelming triumph again and again. However, for this to be accomplished, there is a need, like that of a sports team, for roles to be filled, not just by anyone, but by those who have been gifted to be effective in particular areas of service. For the good news of Jesus to be discovered and received in the hearts of those separated from the Father, each person reborn into Him has been given a specific gift or gifts that will make this possible. While these gifts are already placed for purpose, there is need for help. Not only is there a need for awareness, but there is also a need for them to be utilized for their intended purpose, the sharing of God’s love. This is where the great Manager, the Holy Spirit, most powerfully brings this to pass. He, as the gift to the whole body (team) of Christ, is the unifying Spirit that causes each God-given gift to be focused on a single purpose of knowing the love of God. It is in Christ that these gifts have been given, and it is by the ministry of the Spirit that they are made to grow and develop to a victorious end in reconciled lives.

Notes

Gift – a specific ability to serve in a position to accomplish a purpose.

Needs discovery, development, placement, and maintained direction – management.

Why gifts? Necessary for victory over opposition.

Manager – to help gifts accomplish their purpose.

God’s heart – to win back all that were lost in Adam’s fall. We are His plan.

2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (NIV) 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

For this purpose we’ve been called and gifted, with or without our response.

Romans 11:29 (NLT) 29 For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.

With the Holy Spirit – activated gifts for God’s purpose.

Acts 1:8 (NIV) 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The Gift of the Spirit – for the whole body. When filled, equipped with a gifts manager.

John 14:16-17 (NIV) 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

For each one.

Acts 2:38-39 (NIV) 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

To help us in discovering, developing, placement and direction – our Gift manager

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (NLT) 4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. 7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

God’s heart imparted through our gifts – in need of the Spirit’s management.

1 Peter 4:10-11 (NLT) 10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

Gifts in need of purpose – love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NIV) 1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Gifts are temporal, will pass, while their purpose never will.

1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV) 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Gifts empowered by the Spirit will defeat the greatest of mountains.

Zechariah 4:6 (NIV) 6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.