Find God's Plan for Your Life

Today, I’m going to explain to you the fifth and final step in this process of finding God’s plan for you. It is to be suitably equipped to fulfill the function in the body for which God has appointed you.

I’m going to go back once more to Romans chapter 12. I’m going to read the three verses that I read yesterday, and then I’m going to go on beyond them and show you the next step in Paul’s thinking. Beginning then in Romans 12 verses 3 through 5:

“For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think ‘more highly’ of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

I pointed out yesterday the renewed mind, like the radar of the airplane, directs us to our appointed place as a member in a corporate body. Now, what follows? Paul begins to speak about equipment. The word he uses here is gifts.

So I’m going to read now Romans chapter 12 verses 6 through 8, the three verses that follow on after those I’ve just read.

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

We see, therefore, that these gifts of God are our equipment, and they follow logically from our function. We need to get the order right. First, function, then equipment. Some people are all stirred up and excited about spiritual gifts, but their excitement is often rather out of order because they don’t know what member they ought to be, and therefore they don’t know what gifts they need to function as that member.

Let me give you a simple example: the foot and the hand in the human body. What is the responsibility of the foot? Very simply, it is to bear weight and to maintain balance. What’s the responsibility of the hand? To lift weight and to grasp. And we find that each of these members is ideally suited to its particular function.

But how silly it would be for them to try to trade functions with one another. How silly it is when the hand seeks to bear weight and maintain balance. We know how difficult that is; it takes a gymnast to do it. And how foolish it is when the foot seeks to lift weight and to grasp. You almost have to be a monkey to do that.

And yet there are, I’m afraid, a number of believers who are just like that. God ordained them to be a foot, and they’re trying to be a hand, and they’re all out of order. They don’t have the needed faith, ‘cause the proportion of faith God gave them was for the function they were to fulfill, and they don’t have the needed gifts, ‘cause the gifts were also related to the function.

Notice how various the gifts can be. Paul here gives us some examples, and I think they’re just examples, not a complete list. He lists seven different kinds of equipment: first, prophesying; second, serving; third, teaching; fourth, encouraging; fifth, contributing—bear in mind that’s a gift; sixth, leadership; and seventh, showing mercy.

A lot of people get all excited about prophesying. It sounds so dramatic, and in a certain sense it is. But you might be all worked up about prophesying, and God might be speaking to you about a ministry of showing mercy: visiting the sick and the shut-ins, doing something that’s rather quiet and unseen to the public eye. And yet that’s your particular place and function in the body.

See how important it is that you don’t try to be something different from what God has appointed you to be, that you find your right place, you fulfill your right function, you accept the right equipment from God, and you operate in the proportion of faith which God has given you, because that proportion of faith is directly related to your function.

In 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul says,

“But eagerly desire the greater gifts.”

But it’s very significant he doesn’t tell us which the greater gifts are. I’ve looked many times through the Bible. I don’t find any list that states exactly which are the greatest and which are the least gifts. And I’ve come to this conclusion: for me, the greater gifts are those which enable me to function to the optimum in the particular place in the body in which God has set me. Therefore, what might be a greater gift for me might not be so great a gift for you. Never divorce gifts, which are equipment, from function, which is what God wants you to be and to do in the body of Christ.