POINT TO PONDER: God deserves my best.
VERSE TO REMEMBER: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” 2 TIMOTHY 2:15 (NIV)
QUESTION TO CONSIDER: How can I make the best use of what God has given me?
HIGHLIGHTS FROM BOOK:
Discover Your Shape
*Examine your experiences and extract the lessons you have learned. Review your life and think about how it has shaped you.
*Moses told the Israelites, “Remember today what you have learned about the LORD through your experiences with him.” Forgotten experiences are worthless; that’s a good reason to keep a spiritual journal. Paul worried that the believers in Galatia would waste the pain they had been through. He said, “Were all your experiences wasted? I hope not!”
*We rarely see God’s good purpose in pain or failure or embarrassment while it is happening. When Jesus washed Peter’s feet, he said, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”6 Only in hindsight do we understand how God intended a problem for good.
*Extracting the lessons from your experiences takes time. I recommend that you take an entire weekend for a life review retreat, where you pause to see how God has worked in the various defining moments of your life and consider how he wants to use those lessons to help others. There are resources that can help you do this.
Accept and Enjoy Your Shape
*Since God knows what’s best for you, you should gratefully accept the way he has fashioned you. The Bible says, “What right have you, a human being, to cross-examine God? The pot has no right to say to the potter: ‘Why did you make me this shape?’ Surely a potter can do what he likes with the clay!”
*Your shape was sovereignly determined by God for his purpose, so you shouldn’t resent it or reject it. Instead of trying to reshape yourself to be like someone else, you should celebrate the shape God has given only to you. “Christ has given each of us special abilities — whatever he wants us to have out of his rich storehouse of gifts.”
*Part of accepting your shape is recognizing your limitations. Nobody is good at everything, and no one is called to be everything. We all have defined roles.
*Paul understood that his calling was not to accomplish everything or please everyone but to focus only on the particular ministry God had shaped him for. He said, “Our goal is to stay within the boundaries of God’s plan for us.”
*Your shape determines your specialty. When we try to overextend our ministry reach beyond what God shaped us for, we experience stress.
*Just as each runner in a race is given a different lane to run in, we must individually “run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.” Don’t be envious of the runner in the lane next to you; just focus on finishing your race.
*God wants you to enjoy using the shape he has given you. The Bible says, “Be sure to do what you should, for then you will enjoy the personal satisfaction of having done your work well, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.”
*Satan will try to steal the joy of service from you in a couple of ways: by tempting you to compare your ministry with others, and by tempting you to conform your ministry to the expectations of others. *Both are deadly traps that will distract you from serving in the ways God intended.
*Whenever you lose your joy in ministry, start by considering if either one of these temptations is the cause.
*The Bible warns us never to compare ourselves with others: “Do your own work well, and then you will have something to be proud of. But don’t compare yourself with others.”
*There are two reasons why you should never compare your shape, ministry, or the results of your ministry with anyone else.
*First, you will always be able to find someone who seems to be doing a better job than you and you will become discouraged. Or you will always be able to find someone who doesn’t seem as effective as you and you will get full of pride. Either attitude will take you out of service and rob you of your joy.
*You will find that people who do not understand your shape for ministry will criticize you and try to get you to conform to what they think you should be doing. Ignore them.
*Avoid comparisons, resist exaggerations, and seek only God’s commendation.
*One of the reasons Paul was used so greatly by God was that he refused to be distracted by criticism or by comparing his ministry with others or by being drawn into fruitless debates about his ministry.
*As John Bunyan said, “If my life is fruitless, it doesn’t matter who praises me, and if my life is fruitful, it doesn’t matter who criticizes me.”
Keep Developing your Shape
*Jesus’ parable of the talents illustrates that God expects us to make the most of what he gives us. We are to cultivate our gifts and abilities, keep our hearts aflame, grow our character and personality, and broaden our experiences so we will be increasingly more effective in our service.
*Paul told the Philippians to “keep on growing in your knowledge and understanding,” and he reminded Timothy, “Kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you.
*If you don’t exercise your muscles, they weaken and atrophy. In the same way, if you don’t utilize the abilities and skills God has given you, you will lose them.
*Jesus taught the parable of the talents to emphasize this truth. Referring to the servant who failed to use his one talent, the master said, “Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents.” Fail to use what you’ve been given and you’ll lose it. Use the ability you’ve got and God will increase it. Paul told Timothy, “Be sure to use the abilities God has given you…. Put these abilities to work.”
*Whatever gifts you have been given can be enlarged and developed through practice.
*Don’t settle for a half-developed gift. Stretch yourself and learn all you can.
*Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won’t be ashamed of.
*Take advantage of every training opportunity to develop your shape and sharpen your serving skills.
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