Opened your Christmas gift yet?

I have to tell you that I got the coolest gift for Christmas this year!

I was thinking of asking Santa for one of the new color e-readers from one of the two major booksellers in our country. After doing some research, I discovered that the two top contenders were really just small tablet computers running the Android operating system. So I opted for asking Santa for a tablet computer and he brought me a Vizio Vtab 8-inch tablet. I know, some of you are still wondering what that is and why anybody would want one.

Well let me tell you what it can do!

By downloading the reading applications (apps) from both of the two booksellers, I now have the equivalent of both a Nook and a Kindle in one device. I have the Bible, Matthew Henry’s Commentary, A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God and many more titles.

But it’s more than a library! I can send and receive email, video chat by Skype with people all around the world, organize and edit my photographs, check my calendar, record and send a voice message, play Solitaire, update my Facebook status (meh, who cares?), surf the internet and….well, there seems to be no end to what I can do with this device.

Now why in the world would I want to write all of this about a Christmas gift? To make you jealous or wish you had one? To sell tablet computers? No, none of the above. I hope you have followed me up until now so that you catch my very important point.

What if I had not opened that particular Christmas present and begun to use it? What if I had allowed it to continue to lie beneath the Christmas tree unwrapped? What difference would it have made? It would have been of no value to me whatsoever. It would have been a major waste of money and resources had I not picked it up and begun to use the device.

And yet each one of you reading this article has received something of much greater value that you could be in danger of leaving unwrapped beneath your spiritual Christmas tree.  I am talking about the spiritual gifts that God has given you.

You see, each Christian is given a special gift or gifts by God.

Jesus hints at the giving of gifts in the parable of the talents, with three laborers each receiving a different quantity of talents. Paul delves further into the issue of gifts in three separate passages in his writings.

In 1 Cor. 12, the Holy Spirit leads Paul to observe that there are different kinds of gifts, all given by the same Spirit.  In 1 Cor. 12:11, Paul writes that God “distributes them to each one, just as he determines.” Every believer, then, is given one or more gifts, just as God determines.

“God has given you a unique combination of spiritual gifts to accomplish a unique purpose that will lead to unique results, but you must be willing to use your gifts to glorify God,” writes Elmer Towns in his little book What Every Sunday School Teacher Should Know. Towns lists the following gifts:

Evangelism (see Eph. 4:11)

Prophecy (see Rom 12:6)

Teaching (see Rom. 12:7)

Exhortation (see Rom. 12:8)

Shepherding (see Eph. 4:11)

Mercy (see Rom. 12:8)

Ministry (see Rom. 12:7, 1 Cor. 12:28)

Giving (see Rom. 12:8)

Administration (see Rom 12:8, 1 Cor. 12:28)

“God’s goal in giving us gifts is not just to help us develop labels for ministry but also to help us find ways to be effective in ministry,” writes Towns. “When you know your gift, begin thinking about how you can use that gift as a Sunday School teacher.”

Towns says that in order to be an effective teacher, you must discover and identify your unique spiritual gifts.

I would take that a step forward and say that to be an effective teacher, you must also help your learners discover their unique spiritual gifts. After all, a Sunday School class is not simply a group of people grouped together to study and learn more about the Bible. We are also the church, grouped together into small ministry teams, equipped to do the work that God is calling us to do. And what is that work? To reach the lost, to disciple them and minister to their needs.

As we are able to help our learners discover and use their individual gifts, they are able to function as individual parts of the body and allow the entire church to do its job effectively and efficiently.

If I had never opened and begun to use my Christmas gift, the tremendous potential of that device would have gone to waste. The same can be said for any teacher or learner who fails to “open” their spiritual gift and begin to learn how to use it.

I hope you will remind yourself of the importance of spiritual gifts and lead your class to do the same. What a difference it would make if each of us knew our spiritual gifts and understood the importance of using them.