Thursday, January 19, 2012

A New Life - Part D

What2Say2Day? Good day! Let's take a quick review about where we are in our look at Romans 12. Live your life for others and don't worry about keeping up with the Jones. Quick enough for you?

Today let's look at a longer passage from Romans 12; verses 3-8. "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."

Here Paul is asking everyone to remember they are a single community. Not one of us is greater than the other, and we shouldn't think we are. Rather we should understand that each of us is different and our differences are given to us by God. Some of us are better at one thing, but suck at another while others are good at those things and suck at the things we're good at. (Then again some of us suck at everything, and that's a good thing.)

None of that matters, according to Paul, because we're all in it together. We're one big community, unable to be successful at what we do without the gifts of others. All we need to do is respect our differences and allow everyone to give what they can towards the success of all. (Does that sound as confusing as Paul.)

See a pattern emerging yet? So, to recap - Live for others, don't worry about being like everyone else, and respect the differences of one another. I wonder what Paul will have to say tomorrow.

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