The Christian’s Lifestyle: Our Gifts

“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”  Ephesians 4:7

The grace that is given (Greek: charis) is a distribution by the Holy Spirit of gifts to every believer (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Seventeen different gifts are listed in three New Testament passages (Rom. 12:3-8; 1 Cor. 12:4-10; Eph. 4:11), all of them intended by the Holy Spirit to minister to the church and to enhance her unity (Rom. 12:3; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:12).

Three reasons are cited for these gifts (Eph. 4:12). “The equipping of the saints” is a process that describes making something useful or suitable that is not yet adequate. James and John mended their nets (Matt. 4:21). Paul prayed that he might supply that which was “lacking” (1 Thess. 3:10). So, the gifts of the Holy Spirit mend that which is lacking in the saints. The work of the ministry is a joint effort of service (2 Cor. 6:1) that recognized the public visibility of that service (2 Cor. 4:1-2) and steadfastly displays those gifts so that the “ministry will not be discredited” (2 Cor. 6:3). The edifying of the body of Christ focuses the use of the gifts on the enrichment and edification of the local assembly of believers (1 Cor. 14:5, 12, 26).
   
The goal is to bring all (the saints) to a state of doctrinal unity (the faith) so that our maturity can be compared to the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:12), eliminating susceptibility to “every wind of doctrine,” growing up into Him in all things, and building the “whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love”
(Eph. 4:14-16).