How to use my gifts for God’s glory

Have you ever considered what it means to give God your all: your desires, your finances, gift, skills, resources and everything you have?

Do you often ask yourself what would be the best way to manage every aspect of your life?

Perhaps you have asked yourself these questions or heard others ask.

One thing is certain though, God created each of us for a purpose and he would want us to achieve all that he has planned for us.

Genesis 1:26(AMPC) gives an idea of God’s plan for mankind, it says:

“God said, Let Us [Father, Son and the Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and overall the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.”

We lost this because of Adam and Eve’s sin but were brought back into God’s master plan through the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

This invariably means that the way we live our lives matter.

The things we do and how we do them also matter. We were redeemed for a purpose and will be required to give an account.

To show that we lived a life where we effectively managed all we have been given – stewardship.

Stewardship is defined as the conducting, supervising or managing of something especially the careful and responsible management of something entrusted in one’s care. (Merriam Webster)

I never fully understood the import of stewardship until a few years ago. It all started with me stumbling onto Luke 9:23, a verse I had come across in the past but which took on a whole new meaning. Perhaps, you have had a similar experience where a verse of scripture affects you in a way that it had never affected you before.

Luke 9:23(AMPC) says :

“And he said to all, if any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself, and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [ leave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and if need be, in dying also].”

For me, this scripture taught me that every aspect of my life, absolutely everything must be subject to Christ including my family, my work and my finances.

 

Understanding Stewardship: Giving God our all

When we gave our lives to Christ, we handed over our bodies and our lives as a living sacrifice so that we no longer live by ourselves or for ourselves, but live for Christ, allowing him to dwell in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul said:

“My old self has been crucified with Christ so it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20

 

If Christ truly lives in us then the way we do things has to be Christ-like not man-like. We have to embody and exemplify Christ in all we do. Here’s what this means for us.

 

How to be a good steward

There are four major areas of stewardship, these are our:

1. Time
2. Body
3. Resources (finances)
4. Gifts and talents

Let’s break this down:

God has made us stewards of our lives and expects us to take care of our:

1. Our Time

I have learned that time is the most expensive currency on earth. It is the one thing we can never get back. Which means it is something we need to use wisely.

So, how do you use your time? What are your current preoccupations or distractions, as the case maybe? Do you find that you are often always busy doing one thing or the other with little to no result?

There is often this sense of urgency that has us running around but achieving little.

There are all these tips and hacks on how to maximize our time but the most important hack has to be knowing and understanding what God wants for you in each season of your life.

It’s easy to follow the time management experts and productivity gurus but they cannot give us the seed but only tell us how to grow the seed. We need to understand this difference.

Jesus is the only one who can tell us the right things to focus on per time. He is the true vine and we must remain connected to him to grow the right fruit.

“…those who remain in me and I in them will bear much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5(NLT)

For many of us singles, our desire for marriage may have taken up so much of our time and effort. While our desire for marriage is not wrong, the way we pursue it can be, especially if this desire for a husband becomes an idol. Check out this post for 10 signs of an unhealthy relationship.

In Ephesians 5:15-16(AMP), the Apostle Paul admonishes that we

“Therefore, see that you walk carefully [living with honor, purpose, and courage; shunning those who tolerate and enable evil], not as unwise, but as wise [sensible, intelligent, discerning people], making the most of your time [on earth, recognizing and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are [filled with], evil.”

Check out this post for 25 productive things you can start today.

2. Our Body

We are to take care of our bodies. This means eating right, being in good shape, not defiling ourselves or bringing any harm to our bodies. Here is a beautiful scripture that illustrates this:

“Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually part of Christ? Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does…Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God?…You must honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

Different aspects of our bodies:

Our health

There’s a lot out there about eating right, exercising and doing periodic checkups. This is all well and good but how much of this advice do we take? Are you doing enough to keep this beautiful temple God has given you?

For me, I often slip into bad eating habits, eating the wrong things and not caring about the consequences. But recently, I felt the Holy Spirit remind me that eating right is part of my stewardship to God. This is an area that the Church doesn’t always talk about. There’s so much about sexual immorality, drinking, smoking but not enough about gluttony and unhealthy food habits. I share more about this here.

Our sexuality

Sexual temptation is one of the most obvious temptations for Christians, even as single women. There are those moments of longing for love, sex and romance and if we are not careful we may easily succumb to the many temptations around us in the form of masturbation, pornography and sexual intercourse. And all of these has a debilitating effect on our bodies. Here’s how Apostle Paul puts it:

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against you won body.”

1 Corinthians 6:18(NLT)

Basically, we are hurting ourselves when we have sex outside of marriage. God was protecting us when we made sex part of the marriage covenant. It may not seem that way when you see others indulging but as someone who has had sex, I can honestly tell you that it took me years to heal. Sleeping with my then boyfriend was a terrible mistake and confirmed that nothing is worth disobeying God. It is because of God’s love for us that he wants us to flee sexual immorality.

Please don’t do it!

Are you struggling with sexual desires or in sexual sin? Please ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He helped me all those years ago and I know he is ever willing to help us.

Our soul

An important part of our bodies is our mind. Our mind is the storehouse of our soul. It is said that the battle is won and lost in the mind. It all starts with the thoughts that run through our minds, the thoughts we dwell on and act on. Which means if we think about the wrong things we are likely to act on them.

The Bible speaks to this inner battle in 2 Corinthians 10:5:

“We demolish arguments and ever pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Thank God we were not called to fight this battle in our strength but by the divine power of our lord and savior. We can fight this battle of the mind when we:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Romans 12:2

 

3. Our Resources

This speaks to how we use our personal belongings. Money is usually a touchy subject for many, even as single women. While we may believe that being single means we are independent (as we don’t have to check in with others before we make decisions unlike our married counterparts)we must remember that our decisions and use of our resources remain subject to God’s will.

There are several Biblical references to financial stewardship. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus told the people that “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

This means that money is merely a tool, something we can use and control not something that controls us. And it all starts with what matters more to us: God or money?

Before you answer, take an inventory of your life:

• How do you often feel when your bank account is dwindling
• What are you often thinking about: how to make money, things to buy and spend money?
• How do you treat your possessions, would you let go of them if you had to? The Bible says ‘where your treasure is, is where your heart is’. Do you have any items that mean so much to you that the thought of giving them away or losing them gives you heart palpitations and sleepless nights?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may find that your money and possessions have more power than you thought. In the story of the young rich man, Jesus told the man to sell everything and follow him but the rich man couldn’t do it. The young rich man had so much and couldn’t bear to let it all go. See Matthew 19:16-21

A good financial steward must first of all realize that God is the ultimate owner of everything we have and we cannot withhold anything from God. This means we should be willing to help others with what we have, we should save where we can, invest wisely and use our money right. I shared three tips to help us here.

 

4. Gifts and talents

We all have gifts and skills that God has given to us.

Some of these gifts are described in Romans 12:6

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.”

We all have different gifts and abilities. There are often things that come easy for us or things we are able to do well. Don’t take it for granted even if it’s a skill you’re not fond of.

There are times when we belittle our own gifts and focus on those of others. Times when we had rather be the one who is a leader than the one who has to serve or clean, or take care of others. We want to be the one who is rich rather than the one who barely getting by but is able to show kindness to everyone we meet.

But God is calling us to harness the gifts and talents he has given us. He wants us to look inward, to develop all he has deposited in us rather than allow the winds of comparison and competition blow us away.

Good stewardship will mean making effective use of all we have been given.

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.”

Luke 16:10

 

 

Having said all of the above, I pray you make the most of your present. Being a good steward of all that we have means living our lives with purpose and intention. It means not holding off on life because you are waiting for marriage, children and all the other things we desire. I say these from experience. I know how easy it is to spend my time worrying about the things I don’t have while forgetting the things that I do.

May God help you as you use all he has given you for his glory.