We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.    Romans 8:28 HCSB

When we are facing difficult times, we like to refer to this Scripture. This tells us God will work all things, even the bad things in our lives out for our good if we love Him and are called according to His purpose. So, before you get all gippy thinking this Scripture applies to you, you need to first ask yourself do you love Him and are you called according to His purpose?

It’s easy to say we love the Lord. But if we truly love the Lord, we will do what He calls us to do. Just the other day we spoke about how if we truly love the Lord, we will follow His commands. But we will also do what He has called us to do if we truly love Him.

You may be shocked to hear this, but God did not put you on this earth to beautify it no matter how beautiful you are. He did not put you on this earth to fill in space on a church pew. He did not put you on this earth to sit around and put down on others. He put you here for a purpose. Each and every one of us have a purpose. We have a reason to be here. There is something God intends for us to do.

He gives us all different talents. Some can sing, some can comfort others, some can encourage others, some can preach, some can teach. We all have different gifts like the body has different parts. The church is comprised of people with different spiritual gifts all working together, just as the body is comprised of different parts with different jobs all working together.

We all want God to work things out for our good while we go about our lives, but often times we don’t want to do the work He wants us to do. We want Him to do all the heavy lifting, but this is not how it works.

If you are truly saved, then you want to work for Christ. You want to be busy doing His work. You want to be living a life of being called according to His purpose. So, I ask you today, are you called according to His purpose for your life? Do you have any idea what God wants you to do? You can actually go to southernbaptistchurch.org and take a spiritual gifts test to see what spiritual gift God has blessed you with.

As we grow deeper in our love for Christ, we want to work for Him, and He places things out there in front of us for us to do. It’s up to us to do them. If you don’t know what your spiritual gift is, turn to God. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you (James 4:8). Go online and take a spiritual gifts test. I promise you this is something you won’t regret.

The best times that I can recall in my career and in my life in general was when I was doing what God had called me to do. Times when I failed to do that, I can recall being self-centered and not having things work out so well for me. I don’t ever want to live that way again. For as long as I am here on this earth, I pray I will be able to do the things God has called me to do. This brings peace and joy into my life.

If you are soaking up all that God has offer and giving nothing in return, that won’t work for very long. We all need to be fed at times, but Jesus specifically told Peter in John 21:17, “Feed my sheep.” Peter was upset because three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” and three times he told him to feed His sheep.

God gifts us spiritual gifts so that we can serve Him through helping others. He wants us to draw others near to Him. He expects us to use the gifts He has given. Stop a minute and look at your life. Are you serving the Lord by living a life called according to His purpose or do you constantly sit and wait to be served? If you can’t think of the last time you used your talent to serve your Lord or the last time you actually fed His sheep, turn to Him today. He will guide you. He’s a good shepherd.

Have a great day!