The Spiritual Gift of Faith

"These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:7)
 

 Good Morning Oddballers,

Today is on the Spiritual Gift of faith, which to me, is one of my favorite gifts to possess. It involves a sort of confidence and trust in God that many people struggle with on a daily basis. In reality, if a challenge is faced in a person's life, one of the major things that becomes something to work on involves Faith. It is ultimately one of the most rewarding Gifts to have because of the fact that through faith so many other gifts feed off of it. Similar to Love in a way. Love is the foundation of many spiritual gifts, and so is faith. Think about it....what if Love and Faith was used in spiritual gifts???? We could seriously change the world.

So I chose this Bible verse today because I wanted to stress how important faith is to God, it says, "which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor." We need to be aware of how important Faith can be, even it is broken in a way because of the sinful world we live in. We need to have faith there at all times, regardless of our circumstances.

Let me put it to you straight forward. I'm a blogger, I'm a young woman, and I am going through some of the toughest things in life involving my family. I feel torn and pulled in mulitiple directions, but I have faith that through Christ he can help me calm myself down, and by wise in the situations that face me in my future. I have confidence and trust that nomatter what happens it is all a part of God's plan. I am extremely broken, I cry most of the time when no one is looking. I spend mos of my time being strong for my friends and letting them know how ultimately loved they really are. I spend a lot of my time sending off positive vibes to the people around me so that they know that regardless of my circumstances I have a reason to smile.

I have Faith in that. I have Faith in God. He died on the cross for me even though I don't deserve it, and I thank him for a million other little things and the millions of things that will come in the future. I know that through thick or thin, or any challenge that faces me, I have trust and confidence in the Lord. You Should Too. Faith is ultimately one of the most important things a Christ Follower can have.

So here this, I need you all to be Strong for me. Have faith in the Lord through your trials and tribulations. Be Strong for Jesus. He needs your strength so he can mold you into the man/woman God would be proud of.

Have a wonderful Holy Spirit Led Day,

Oddball

The Spiritual Gift of Teaching

"Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:19)

Good Morning Oddballers,

Today's Spiritual Gift is on Teaching..and I don't want to focus on school-ish teaching, because I feel like it only covers half of the role of Spiritual teaching. To me, teaching is not only about a Christ Follower teaching others by their actions, but also being open to letting others teach them.

Let me put it to you this way. I know a lot of people that have this spiritual gift that just have a knack at knowing what to say to others to get them to learn something about life and spirituality. They find the perfect way to slip a little life lesson into everything they say, and they always seem to know the right thing to say before they say it. However, they also have the gift of knowing when to stop teaching and just let God teach them something that they can use in their life as well.

In my opinion, I think it is important as Christians to know when we first meet someone to be aware if we have something to teach them, or they have something to teach us. Learning is something that never stops. We are constantly learning new things, broadening our minds, and expiriencing more and more the longer we stay on the Earth that we live in. As people, we need to make sure that however we present ourselves to society, it needs to be something that others can learn off of in a positive way. We need to be able to know when we face challenges how to accept the fact that we don't know everything and we still have much learning to do.

The reason why I picked this Bible verse today is because it really captures some of the things that I wanted to say. Basically, it supports a very common phrase "practice what you preach." If you are willing to teach someone an aspect of Christianity, be aware that the audience you  are speaking too will assume that you practice this regularily and you are teaching it because you do it. For example, if you do a whole presentation on swearing, and then when you stub your toe on the table and swear, then you are undermining every little ounce of credibility on that topic becaues you failed to practice what you were preaching.

Same concept people, we need to be aware of what we are teaching, and whether or not we need to be taught something from others.

Have a thought provoking day :)

Oddball

The Spiritual Gift of Service

 

"If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." (John 12:26)

 

Dear Oddballers,

 

I hope you all are doing fantastic. I know it's been awhile since I wrote my las blog post or even have done a video blog, but I'm working on it. Things have gotten a little bit crazy the past few days and it's taking everything to stay up to date on all my assignments due for my classes. But don't worry, it's all managable. I just have to chang a few things about my schedule of my day to see what I do when.

 

Nomatter, Today's spiritual gift is on Service. I"m sure you all know what service is, but I want to talk about the importance of Acts of Service to those that have Acts of Service as their Giving and Recieving Love Languages.

 

If you do not know what Love Languages are, there are some fabulous books you can read to elaborate, but for now, they basically are 5 categories that people give and recieve affection (acts of service, touch, words, quality time, and gifts). If you really badly want to know what mine are. I am the best at giving gifts, and saying words of affirmation. I'm the best at recieving quality time and words of affirmation. There ya go, moving on.

 

Service in my opinion is absolutely one of the main foundations to following Jesus Christ, just like the Bible verse of choice is saying this morning, we all need to be servants of Christ. But what exactly does that look like for a person? Well, I think in order to understand the basic foundation of service we need to understand why it is important to those who give and recieve acts of service. People that give acts of service tend to be the kind of people that ususally serve others without thinking and/or find themselves doing too many things for other people instead of themselves. Service to them is a way to show how much they truely care about the people they are around and it helps them as people humble themselves and take the time to think about others before themselves.

 

The people that tend to recieve Acts of Service the best find it absolutely essential that actions speak louder than words. They want to see how much you care about them by what you do for them. Not in a selfish way, but more or less just affirmation that they have a special place in your heart.

 

We should be thinking about God when we question whether to serve someone or not. We should always have "serve Jesus" in the back of our minds every single day. As Christ followers, it is our job to represent Christ by the way we treat other people, and there isn't a whole lot of better examples than doing acts of service for other people. So GO out There..and SERVE the people around you. JUST DO IT. ;)

 

Have a great Serving of Christ Day,

 

Oddball

 

The Spiritual Gift of Mercy

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5)

Good Morning Oddballers,

Today I want to touch on the spiritual gift of mercy because It is a spiritual gift that I need to cover for mt spiritual gift series. I realize that I have recently done a post on mercy, but I want to try and take a different approach on mercy and see how as disciples we can demonstrate mercy to the people around us.

"Mercy" in Latin, means "price paid" and is a broad term that refers to benevolence, forgiveness, and kindness in a "variety of ethical, relgious, social, and legal contexts" according to the dictionary. It's interesting how mercy can be connected to price paid on a Christian standpoint since Christ paid for our sins on the cross and gave us "mercy". Maybe in a way, Jesus dying on the cross was a form of mercy, because we as sinners were forgiven for our sin at that very moment. Jesus paying the price was mercy, and we should see it as that. I try not to connect mercy and forgiveness together when I talk with people, but now that I have been reading a bit on mercy, I feel like they are roughly one and the same and should be talked about as such. We should forgive people and pay the price for forgiveness. That is the basic foundation of Christianity.

Am I saying that mercy involves sacrifice? Absolutely, we need to sacrifice our bitterness, anger, and our earthly desires to forgive and give "mercy" to those who are sometimes undeserving. We need to sacrifice how we feel about another person sometimes just to do what is right and in God's image. Mercy isn't something that comes easy. If it is easy for you, then maybe you aren't working hard enough. It takes recognition and discipline to truely deny yourself, take up your cross, and sacrifice yourself for others regardless of their position, status, or burdens.

We as Christians need to step up to the plate and take a stand with Mercy and show Mercy to the people around us. I think it would be absolutely amazing to watch how the world will change to be an amazing place if all the lukewarm Christians fully committed themselves and Biblical Christians together stepping up to the plate and showing some genuine Mercy. Because Like the musician Duffy says, "I'm only begging you for mercy, so why won't you release me?"

Come On people, show some mercy, sacrifice for others. Pay the price.

How much are you willing to pay for your faith??

God Bless,

Oddball

The Spiritual Gift of Leadership

"When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, But when a wicked man rules, people groan." (Proverbs 29:2)
 

Good Morning Oddballers,

Today Is the next day of Spiritual Gifts, and today I want to touch on Leadership. There are so many things that go into leadership, so it will be difficult for me to really take the term and get into huge detail on what a leader is and isn't. I spent a lot of time on this word throughout my teen retreat years as a small group leader, and what I learned in my opinion may describe leadership well. So here I Got

One thing that I learned about Leadership is that it is not necessarily who is the most outgoing or who takes control of the group or situation the quickest, it is about adaptability. How we handle change and problem solve. For example, in a small group setting, one thing I noticed is the best leaders were the one's that evaluated the situation and made the choice on whether to talk or sit back and let the group share ideas. It is a hard skill for many of us to hold our tounges and let other's speak, but that is what I found to be good leadership. Another thing is the ability to portray Christ through the decision making, thought processing, and speaking of the person. How the person demonstrates faith is absolutely essential to leadership, and people who have the gift of leadership have a very important gift in humanity. We as people need to be adaptable and portray Christ in a postive manner.

I do realize that many people could define leadership in other ways, but to me, that is how I define  and seperate leaders in my life. As we all go about our days, I guess we should be thinking about how we show leadership or view leadership in our lives. Do we look for people who are Christ centered, or do we look for people who can just take control of the situation? Do we see ourselves as people who tend to speak up on a regular basis, or people that tend to not say much in a group? How can I as a person become a Leader and a follower in society?? These are all questions we should be asking ourselves daily.

I hope you all have a good day :)

Oddball

The Spiritual Gift of Giving

"…the righteous gives and does not hold back." (Proverbs 21:26)

Good Morning Oddballers,

It's finally the end of Spring Break for me, which means it is the start of my series on spiritual gifts. Today we will start our journey off with Giving, because I feel that giving back is something that many people should be doing, and as a spiritual gift, it can be quite fullfilling and rewarding.

So today, I chose a really simple Bible verse because one, I'm tired after a very busy Spring Break having almost no free time to myself, and two, it gets to the point. I feel like there isn't really a logical explanation for putting down a Bible verse that is two paragraphs long if normal readers interpret the scripture differently. Just Saying.

Now unto business, I think giving is something that all of us can try to do. For example, we can give to others by sharing our wisdom, giving gifts, writing a note, serving the community, helping the poor and hungry, and just by being in their presense. Giving first is one of the best principles that we as Christians can have. The ability to give to others and not expect anything in return. It sounds easier than it is to actually practice. Because when we put God first in our hearts, then we tend to naturally give first because we are driven by the holy spirit to do so.

Another thing I find important about giving is to give wholeheartedly and secretly. Just because you give back to the community, doesn't mean you can brag about it on a social networking site. Now, I know that I was updating others on the recent happenings of the ministry I was volunteering at during Spring Break, but honestly, I didn't share any of the things that I was doing necessarily because sometimes it just isn't worth sharing. There are a few fantastic moments with God that happened that week that I will treasure in my heart, I don't need to share that with many other people. That's is why sometimes when we give, we don't have to tell people, sometimes it is just better to enjoy the gift of giving back to yourself.

Lastly, I think it is important to give only what you have and to give freely. Don't go to the nearest gas station, steal something, and then give it to someone. I know there was a previous woman that used to work at the ministry I was volunteering for and the woman would take donations that were given, hide them, put them in her truck, and give them to her family. Yes, the giving part was noble, but how she got the gifts were not. ONLY give what you have, and freely give it. Don't put conditions on service. Just serve and not expect anything in return.

Have a wondeful Day Everyone

Oddball