Deliver Your Gifts

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about spiritual gifts and how they relate to being a songwriter. While I know the Bible doesn’t talk specifically about music being a spiritual gift, I believe it is definitely a form of delivering one. 

I Corinthians 12:6-10 in The Message says this, “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.”     

So many times we wish we could be more like somebody else, having the gifts or writing the songs that they do. Sometimes there is pressure from someone else to be the Christian version of whatever the latest secular success is. But, what is so beautiful about this passage is the reminder that everyone gets in on this!  The variety is wonderful! Not to mention, it is a GIFT–nothing you can work to attain, and a lot of times you haven’t even asked for it. You just simply are.     

Let’s just say that one of your gifts is wise counsel. How amazing would it be for you to deliver the heart of that gift through song to a younger, hungry generation, for the kingdom of God? Or, what if your gift was healing the sick, and you delivered your songs to hospitals spreading the news of hope? Or maybe your gift is proclamation, and you deliver an amazing anthem that the church sings for the next 1,000 years!

Pastor Larry Randolph put it this way:

“We are born as individuals, yet many will die as a copy. We are a voice, not an echo. We must be who God created each individual to be. We are each a piece of God’s DNA. When Jesus gives us the new wine, it is NEW and different, so it may not always be recognizable by others.”

This means that if we aren’t completely who God created us to be, with our specific gifts and with our unique delivery, we are depriving the world of learning something about the character of God! Like it says in Corinthians, each person is given something to do that shows who God is. 

So, as you write, do the world a favor. Give us a chance to learn more about the character of God—-deliver YOUR gifts!