Those who experience the true wonder of Christian life have learned to thrive in their unique kingdom role(s) and specific mission(s). How about you?
What the Scriptures Say
What is Scripture saying as it exhorts us to fan into flames God’s gifts within us? It is clearly calling us to live in the fullness of His gifts so that His body, the Church, receives all He intends through our specific roles. It is also revealing that this is the only way for us to fully experience the unique and incredible lives He designed. Much is sacrificed if we choose to walk at any lesser level. Where are we living compared with this exhortation? How will our lives be different when, every moment, we intentionally invite the Spirit to fan God’s gifts into the fullness of His purpose and power, for His glory? How will God’s impact through us change, not only within our family and the church we attend, but also within His Kingdom and this world?
Fan Into Flame God’s Gift
Paul empowers us through 2 Timothy 1: 6, 7 as he exhorts, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you … for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Doubts can raise their heads when things do not go as we have hoped. Situations may tempt us to shift priorities away from our kingdom missions in order to wrestle with temporal challenges and opportunities. Successes tempt us to slip into operating in our natural skills. God is encouraging and exhorting us to choose His empowered life through inviting His Spirit to fan into flame the uniqueness of His gifts within us and focus them on our kingdom missions. God also draws us to this life through 2 Timothy 4: 1 – 5 where He exhorts, “I charge you … be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort, with complete patience and teaching … be sober-minded, endure sufferings, do the work of an evangelist (insert your kingdom mission), fulfill your ministry.” Our Father provides what He commands, that we may “fulfill our ministry” through His Spirit’s work within.
Paul is in prison, yet he reaches out to uplift Timothy. Paul has faced resentment, rejection, threats, and the heartbreak of believers shifting to follow false teachers. These things had to affect him as they do us. Yet he learned he can trust God and it is He who accomplishes His will in and through us. Paul also experienced the success and power of God working miracles, transforming lives, and bringing His gospel to nations. Yet, he continued to serve God and mankind in humility and under the work of the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2: 4, he shares, “and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom (persuasive words of human wisdom – NKJ), but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”
What Are Your Struggles?
I have been struggling with understanding whether God has changed my missions, or withdrawn His hand, because of “something.” As I searched Scripture, I was guided again into three specific truths. First, God is not a capricious Father who withholds His kingdom purpose and power from His trusting children, even when we falter. Jesus demonstrates this incredibly through His mentoring of the disciples. God will modify missions or methods. However, He will do so lovingly and clearly.
Second, Satan is a master at sowing lies and doubts in his attempts at distorting God’s truths and leading mankind into double-mindedness. As part of God’s answer to me, He lovingly led me back to James 1: 6-8 which teaches, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind … he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” I am (we are) to stay on mission, in faith and confidence in Him, until He leads me into other areas through methods of His choosing. Our walks are empowered by His faith, not through experiencing our desired results or receiving validation from anyone other than Him.
Finally, God directed me to 2 Timothy 1: 6 and proceeded to fan into flames His calling and His gifts, thus bringing me back into the light and life only His Spirit brings. He also reminded me of 1 Timothy 4: 14 where we are inspired, “Do not neglect the gift you have …” These are freely given through His Spirit. We are to place them under His Spirit’s control as He utilizes them in and through us.
What are your struggles? Do they include doubts, feelings of defeat, or relying on self? Through them, how is God drawing you back to Him and fanning your gifts into flames?
Fanning Gifts Into Flame Is Not About Us
We thank our Heavenly Father that our kingdom lives are not about us and what we can do for Him but about His Spirit and what He is doing in and through us (Galatians2:20). When our focus shifts from Christ to self, we immediately begin to operate in the flesh, instead of in His Spirit as Galatians 5:25 commands. God’s Spirit instantaneously reveals this. If we listen, we then must again choose between His Spirit and our flesh. All of this occurs in a moment which may go unnoticed to observers.
We are to anchor our lives in the truths of Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Galatians 5: 17, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other,” and John 15: 5b, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Godly Living Is About Masterpiece Living Through God’s Spirit
The Scriptures set us free as we obey their instruction and continuously learn to live under the control of God’s Spirit. In John 16: 7 Jesus shares, “It is to your advantage that I go away … if I go, I will send him (the Helper) to you.” In Acts 1: 4-8, He instructs the apostles, “… wait for the promise of the Father … you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit … you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you …” His Spirit is the source of His gifts and power in and through us. We are commanded in Ephesians 5: 18 to “be filled with the Spirit” and in Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the Spirit let us also keep in step with (walk by – NKJ) the Spirit.”
1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 brings additional light to the reality of the Spirit’s role in and through us as it instructs, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service … varieties of activities … To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good … all these are empowered by one and the same Spirit.” As the Spirit reveals the truths of Scripture, and we permit Him to fan God’s gifts into flame, we cannot but help being brought alive to the wonders of walking by Him in place of our flesh.
Godly Living Is About Faith
Scripture assures us that faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Hebrews 11: 6a shares that “without faith it is impossible to please him.” It also reveals that everything of value to God has its source in the faith He provides, not our flesh or flesh-generated faith. His faith releases us from the tyranny of expecting earthly measures of success to validate the effectiveness of our kingdom missions. Hebrews 11:13 helps with this freedom as it shares, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar (were assured of them -NKJ) …”
Guarding What is Committed to Us
Through 1 Timothy 6:20, we are exhorted to “ … guard the deposit entrusted to you …” Serving as God’s steward of all He places within us, requires faith, discipline, obedience to His Spirit, and intentionality. His life is to be our first priority, lived through the presence and power of God’s Spirit, therefore bearing fruit that brings glory to God (John 15:8.) Walking this life by His Spirit is the only way for His gifts to be fanned into flame, His missions to be accomplished, and us to thrive in the fullness of the masterpiece lives He designed. What changes is God revealing that you and He are to embrace together?
Author’s Bio: Curt Martin is an author, speaker, seminar leader, and organization consultant. God has filled him with the passion to see every individual and organization become the unique and incredible masterpiece God designed. Little touches Him more than helping awaken all God placed within you, so you thrive in His freedom, purpose, and power as you learn to walk in God’s Spirit. Only those who commit to this journey experience the fullness of living God’s victorious life. Articles include excerpts from his award winning book, “Whose Life Are You Living.”
Here is some related reading for you: How to Recognize Your Spiritual Gifts
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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