May 9, 2019
Middle School:
The middle school group has started a new 3-week series in which they’ll be exploring the topic of Spiritual Gifts – what they are, why God gives them, and how we know which gifting God has given us. In starting off, the students looked at Romans 12:3-8, in which Paul tells us that every Christ follower is gifted with unique spiritual gifts. The text outlines a couple of those gifts as: service, teaching, exhortation and generosity. The group talked about the fact that we have many God-given talents as well, but that those talents are different from the unique individual gifting that God gives each and every one of His followers. The biggest difference between spiritual gifts, and talents, are that our spiritual gifts are meant for serving others and bringing glory to God! Our unique gifting as Christians is not for ourselves, but for the benefit of those around us, and to the praise of God! Here are some questions to help you follow up with your student:
- Why do you think God decided to give us unique spiritual gifts and not just give us all the same gifts?
- If you think you know what spiritual gifts God has given you, how have you developed them?
- If you have no idea what gifts God has given you, what can you do to discover them?
- How can I help you to discover what your spiritual giftings might be?
High School:
The high school students spent their portion of study in 1 Peter 4:7-11. As we always do, we started by praying that God would show us more of Himself through the text, then we read the text together, and spent some time making observations and noting questions that we had in the text. The focus of Peter’s writing in this section was on loving one another by showing hospitality without grumbling, using our God given gifts to serve each other, and being awake and aware of each other’s situations (so we know how to best pray). We talked about how the original audience of the letter was facing persecution, and Peter was encouraging them to be a family that loved one another in such a way that their love covered over their small grievances and sins against one another (1 Peter 4:8). When we love each other earnestly, we are quick to forgive each other instead of retaliate over the small (or even big) things! All in all, the call to love one another is a huge one, and the purpose of it is that “in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). The goal of our love for each other is that God would be made to look great. Love is not selfish… it’s selfless in that it cares about the other person, and it cares about God!