The Hope QuotientSample

I have something really important to tell you. You are gifted by God. 

In a Sunday service, I said, “Raise your hand if you’re really gifted.” A few hands went up. Then I taught a series on “Discovering and Developing Your God-Given Gifts.” My goal was to ask the question at the end and see every hand in the air. Why? Because the Bible is crystal clear: every person matters, every gift God gives you matters, and each person’s gift is equally important.

I once heard author Robert Fulghum say, “Find any group of children and ask them how many can sing, and what happens? Every hand goes up. Ask, ‘What can you sing?’ and they answer, ‘Everything!’ Find any group of kids, and ask, ‘How many of you can draw?’ and everybody’s hand goes up.”

But what happens when you ask that group of kids the same questions twenty-five years later? How many can sing? Almost none of them. How many can draw? No hands go up. 

What stamps out the God-given spark of passion that God placed in every single kid? Why does the fire go out? There’s just not enough people using their God-given gifts. They don’t understand that every gift matters.

Two fourteen-year-old boys walked up to a tent revival, looked in, heard music, and quickly turned around. They started to leave when an usher approached. “Young men, you might like this. We have some seats over there.” They sat where he led them. A little-known man named Mordecai Ham spoke. At the end, he gave an invitation for people to give their lives to Christ. Both of those boys became Christians. 

Their names were Billy Graham and Grady Wilson. The pair later launched the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, through which Billy spoke to more people about Jesus Christ than anybody in modern history. This happened because a gifted usher encouraged two disinterested teens to attend a church service. 

God had gifted you. Use your gifts and you can change history, too.

When you get a grip on the fact that you are called and gifted by God, it changes how you view yourself and frees you from insecurity and inferiority.

Think Up:

Insecurity and inferiority vanish when you find out what you’re good at and start doing using your gifts.

Are you gifted by God? Can you use your gifts to change history? Raise your hand. (Read on).