Who are we?

   My son stopped by my house over the weekend. I had invited him over because there was some work I needed to get done around the house. There was nothing to do that I couldn't have done myself, but I wanted to teach him how to do these things so he might use these newfound skills in his own life. After all, as a father, one of my jobs is to pass what I know on to my children.
   First, I wanted him to paint my bathroom. Before he had arrived, I gathered all of the tools he might need to accomplish this task and placed them in the center of the garage.
   He got out of his car, said hello to me, then walked right past the pile of tools as if they weren't even there and headed for the bathroom.
   "This is where you want me to paint?" He asked.
   "Yes, son. This is it." I replied.
   With that, he opened the can of paint, then stepped out of the room. A few seconds later, he returned with an oscillating fan, plugged it in, and placed it in the center of the room.
   "Son, don't you think you might want to......." I began to say before I was interrupted
   "I got this, Dad. Don't worry." He said confidently
   He then grabbed the can of paint and poured it directly into the turning fan, spraying paint all over the room.
   "Ok, the bathroom is painted!" He said with a smile. "What's next?"
   Sounds like a crazy story, doesn't it? But isn't that exactly what we sometimes do in relation to the tasks that God places before us? We feel as though we want to accompish something for God. We want to help out our church. We want to help others. We want to do good works. We want to feel as though we're involved somehow. But sadly, we either move ahead without any knowledge of the tools we have available to us, or we sit it out because we don't know how we would ever accomplish anything since we don't have the tools that others appear to have. Sometimes we even try to use the wrong tools for the task at hand. They may be very good tools, but they're not the right tools for our job.
   Here's the good news: Every single one of us already has within us every tool we will ever need to accomplish whatever it is that God has asked of us. In connection with the topic that Len spoke on last Sunday, take a look at the following:

^"7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift^[a] through the generosity of Christ. ⁸ That is why the Scriptures say,
   “When he ascended to the heights,
      he led a crowd of captives
      and gave gifts to his people.”^[b]
 9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world.^{[c] 10} And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.
 ¹¹ Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. ¹² Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. ¹³ This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ." Ephesians 4:7-13
  
   Notice that this says "He has given." That's very important for all of us to see. We have all been given spiritual gifts, or tools, to be used in doing God's work, and in building up the church. It doesn't matter what your specific gifts are. None are more important or effective than others, because they are all needed if we are to be "One body." They all work together, but they work together best when they're all being used by each of us in accordance with His will for our lives and for our church.
   I'm going to challenge all of you to discover the spiritual gifts you've been given. Dedicate yourself to praying over this. Ask God to reveal these things to you. Just as I, being the father in the story above, wanted my son to use the tools he'd been given, God wants every one of us to discover and use the tools He's given each of us. I promise you that if you do so, and begin to search out ways to use those gifts within the church, it will never feel like work, because you will begin to witness firsthand the incredible blessing of seeing God take those efforts and use them is ways you never dreamed possible.