Serving in the Way You're Made

What does it look like to love others as yourself? Paul tells the Galatian church to serve one another through love, and Peter writes something similar— love one another deeply, serve one another. We love one another through serving one another. But we often have a narrow view of what service is, limiting it to a particular kind of “task”. Peter says use your gifts to serve. That means the way each of us serves will be very different depending on the gifts we have been given. Peter also says that God has given us each gifts that demonstrate “God’s grace in its various forms.” None of us will be an all-encompassing example of God’s grace—only Jesus can be that—but when you use your individual gifts to serve, you are testifying to the grace that you have received through Christ. And when we take a step back and see the various ways we all serve as individuals, we get a bigger picture of the vastness of God’s love and grace, which covers a multitude of sins. Grace, love, and gifts are all wrapped up together in a bit of a cycle. We receive all three, and we are called to exhibit all three, and doing so is an act of faithful praise for the one who gave us all three.

Do you recognize your gift to be a result of God’s grace in your life? How can you use your gift to lovingly serve others as a way of testifying to and passing on the grace that has been given to you?