June 1, 2009

Use Me God: Finding Your Spiritual Gifts

The class that I am teaching on Sunday mornings has just started an 8 week series I've entitled "Use Me God: Finding Your Spiritual Gifts" (I have adapted most of this from Gifts: the joy of serving God) which is going to focus on spiritual gifts: what they are, how to find yours and how to put them to use. I will be posting thoughts, readings and questions over the next couple weeks here on my blog and invite you to follow along.

This past Sunday (5/31) we spent some time discussing a couple of these questions (feel free to share your thoughts as well):

1. Do you consider yourself a spiritual person? If yes, what does that mean or look like? If no, why not?
Some thoughts that were shared in response:
-depends on the environment
-Do you think community is needed for spirituality?
-"No" because of distractions
-"Yes" when it involves reaching out to people, relationships but doesn't have to be tied to evangelism

2. Do you think being spiritual is hard or takes a lot of work?
Some thoughts that were shared in response:
-it takes dedication and discipline

3. Do you have a clear picture of the kind of life you'd live if you were to be more spiritual?
Some thoughts that were shared in response:
-be more disciplined
-more of what God wants and less of what we want
-live more by faith

Spend some time with Romans 12:1-2 throughout this week and think about these questions...
1. Why is it so critical for you to know and trust the goodness of God in order to fearlessly offer up a "use me" prayer?
2. Paul urges us to "present" or "offer" our bodies, what do you think about this?
3. What does it mean for you to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind"?
4. What struck you as you read the words "living sacrifice"?
5. In what ways do you tend to disconnect your "spiritual life" from your "real life"?
6. What is keeping you from being fully used by God?

1 comments:

Unknown said...

"Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection, its is about connection." -Mike yaconelli

When someone responded "no, because of my distractions", it made me question where their definition of spirituality comes from. In my opinion Christians often compare there spiritualaity against others and because of that think they aren't spiritual. Stop looking to compare spirituality and focus on Christ and you will be spiritual. It's not the outward appearance that makes one spiritual, but rather the inward struggle to be like Christ.