Humility and Gifts (part II)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only -04 May, 2007)

In order to be prosperous in our gifts, we have to be humble. But why do we sometimes think that we are better than others? What's the reason for that? What have we given to God in order to consider ourselves higher than others? Is it really my right to think that I'm higher than everybody else?

When God created people, he created them according to his knowledge and His will. You can find some people who are extremely clever and other people are stupid. You can see some people are really beautiful and others are ugly and you can find people who are really sharp in every activity and others are slow. People who have that grace to have what other’s don’t, they are very often the first ones to blame others. E.g. “I don't know why Benedict doesn't find a job, jobs are everywhere. She is lazy, she needs to work, she needs to do such and such and such”. Because you have a job and you are in a good position, you think everybody else should find it easy. But maybe God opened the door for you, and allowed you to find something that others cannot find. You don't have to compare yourself to other people, you don't have to say because I have this and others cannot reach that level, it means they are useless.

Sometimes people, who intellectual, they will push their children to study hard to learn in order to become something and they believe if you don't work hard you will just be useless. But there are people who have been working hard since they were young until the age of 60s and 70s, and they have nothing and other people who didn't really work hard in comparison are really blessed.

There are people who have to study hard for hours every day in order to remember and be prepared for tests at school and some even resort to taking drugs to help them to memorize while there are other people, who God created, whenever they read something they will keep it for the rest of their lives. I knew a friend who could read a novel, and he could tell you line after line. Imagine a novel he could tell you from the first line to the last one. And you could follow the novel as though he is reading it but he’s only read it once. And when he finished his studies he never had less than 95%. While other people struggle just to get 50%. But no one employed him. He couldn’t find a job, which means that God is the one who decides who will be blessed, who will find employment, etc.

Usually when we have something that other’s don’t have, we criticize the person instead of helping them or praying for them. For example, if someone doesn’t know the Bible as well as me, I will judge them and talk behind their back, instead of praying for them and praising God for the knowledge that He has blessed me with.

When we are blessed and we criticize those that are not, God is unhappy and against it and will start to turn down the light and power of the Holy Spirit in you. The Holy Spirit will start to leave you and once He is gone, He will not act in you anymore. You will feel that you don't have that joy anymore. You will feel that you don’t have His presence and whenever it's time to pray, you will groan because every three-minute prayer will feel like three hours long and you will think it's too boring to go to meetings because you won’t understand the message. And when it’s time for you to give a message it will be even more boring because you will say it like a speech, just reading it, without the power of the Spirit.

When we want to use our gifts we have to understand that it is God who gave them to us and we must be humble to accept that without the Holy Spirit the gift will not work. Therefore, we must pray before doing anything and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to use the gift. For example if I have the gift of preaching I must tell God that He is the one who gave me that gift and ask Him to use the power of the Holy Spirit to speak to His people. We must trust in God and have faith.

Romans 12:4, you can see now that they start to talk about gifts, and if you continue to read, whoever has the gift of prophecy, then prophesy. If you have the gift of teaching, you have to teach, use your gifts. It's not something that you have to keep in your drawers, it’s not something that you have to just keep inside of you. You must practice it and the more you practice, the more you will shape it. If you don't know how to practice your gift, this is the time, this is your time to tell God, "I don't know what to do. I don't know how it works, help me".

SUMMARY

- Don't judge other's who are not as blessed or gifted as you but praise God and pray for them
- Ask God to help you to use your gift
- Put your gift into practise and shape it

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