Exercising Our Spiritual Muscles (Gifts)


What happens to our body when we don’t stay active? When we don’t eat or sleep right? When we make unwise choices? It starts to break down and become un-useful. The same is true of our faith and spiritual gifts. When we stay close to God and build up our relationship with Him, our spiritual “muscles” get stronger and grow too!

Romans 12:1-8 (NLT) 1And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. 3 Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. 4 Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. 6 In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

Verse 6 jumped out at me “ In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.”

We are given the gifts from God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to “do” them – but, we are to DO them “with as much faith as God has given you” – we are given a tiny seed, and we much strengthen, water, grow that gift just as our faith grows! Like a muscle in our body that needs to be used and exercised in order to be built up and useful – so too our spiritual gifts and faith must be “exercised” to grow and strengthen. Wow!

Ok, so how do we “build up our spiritual muscles” and increase our strength and abilities? By getting close to God via Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we spend time with Jesus in His word. By praying/talking with Him constantly all throughout our day. When we realize we have made an unwise decision and done something our own way in our own strength, going against what God directed us to do… we confess that to Him right away and turn away from it. This is called abiding in Christ Jesus. Basically, living life with Him by your side and you KNOW it and ACKNOWLEDGE it!

The thing about verse 6 is that, God meets us where we are. Even in our growth. He is ready and willing to help our faith grow, which in turn helps our gift to grow. Our belief and faith in the power that He has given us… by knowing that the very power of God Himself IS IN US via the Holy Spirit – and He is the one that gives us the ability to do the supernatural things God is eager to have us do! Goodness! What a privilege we get!

In each gift that God has blessed us with, we are to be confident, bold, speak out, generous, and take these gifts seriously. We are to gladly share the gifts He has given to us with others. That is the whole purpose – to draw others to God via our gifts and talents that He gave us at our 2nd birth! Pretty amazing!

Like a good teacher or coach, the Lord will not give us a gift and then expect us to be an Olympic gold medalist right out of the gate! No, just like a good trainer, He will guide, direct, sculpt, strengthen, fine tune our gifts as well as our faith. When we have fears and doubts, in both ourselves and really in that He really will do what He promises (due to lack of ‘people’ following through) to do, He is building up our faith even in those moments.

Today – I pray that you “train well” and get closer to Jesus. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you in the spiritual gift God has bestowed upon you. I pray you are well and safe today. I believe that you WILL be blessed today in many unexpected ways! Enjoy the gifts He gives you today!!




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