What is your "calling" or "gifting" ??

While recently reading some books on what the church should look like from a scriptural perspective, the ideas of a persons "calling" has captured my attention. Paul states in Ephesians 4:7-8 the following-

"But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ appointed it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." "

Then on to verse 11 -

"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

When Christ ascended to heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to His believers. Part of this gift is the enablement for us to carry out the work for the Kingdom that He has set aside for us to do. On our own, we don't have the tools necessary to carry out the tasks we have been assigned. That is the wonderful thing about the grace of God, we don't have or deserve the necessary skills on our own - but the Holy Spirit makes it all possible for us! Remember that Paul, Peter and the other first century apostles - they were laughingly not even close to being able to carry out the Good News of Christ prior to the gifts they were given by God.

But what is our individual calling or gifting from God? Has God spoken it out loud directly to you? God has never spoken out loud directly to me, but maybe he has to you. I think God usually speaks to us in this Church Age by the inner convictions we may have, especially during meditated prayer with Him. So do we act strictly on our inner convictions that we may truly believe are directly from God? I think we must first test those convictions against the Word of God. He has given us 66 books of scripture that those inner convictions cannot contradict.

"All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work"
2 Timothy 3:16-17

Also, he has given us the Body of Christ - our trustworthy brothers in Christ - what do they have to say about our inner convictions or "calling"?

With the gifts that each one of us has, we cannot function as the Body of Christ without working with each other. By joining together as the Body of Christ we can accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God - exponentially more that we can on our own! Paul states in 1 Corinthians 12:14-19 -

"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be."

And continuing in verse 26 -

"If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."

To conclude, what is your calling and gifting for God? Seek it out, pray for the inner conviction of your gifting. Check out your inner conviction with Word of God and with your christian brothers - then put your gifting to work with others in the Body of Christ. We all will be held accountable for the use of whatever gifts God has given us!