Come out--By using the gifts God gave you:

Here we go...

We think that an ideal life would be one lived in comfort and safety, without fear, and without doing anything that makes us nervous of self-conscious.

However, we have now grown up and departed from Neverland, and have to live in the Real World.

In every one of us God has placed amazing gifts and talents, ways to glorify Him and guide others. Once we discover these gifts, we practice and refine and test them, until we become confident. However, some of us can practice and refine and test for a long time without thinking we are good enough.

We sit and think,

“Well, I can use my gift to glorify God…by myself…no one else has to know about it.”

We think this because at first, showing our gifts to the world can be very humbling, and sometimes we even feel embarrassed, two things we usually want to avoid. But, when we humble ourselves before God for the world to see, it’s twice the glorification to Him. Because it’s easy to be humble before Him when you’re alone. But it takes boldness to have the world see you humbled before Him, and to not care of what anyone but He thinks of you.

Or sometimes we think,

“Well, I don’t have to do this; other people have the same gift, somebody else can do the same thing.”

But what if there wasn’t somebody to take your place? Because that’s the truth. Nobody can do what you do exactly the way you can. Did you catch that? God has an empty spot in the Kingdom that only you can fill. He has a purpose for you that only you can do.

And then there’s that thought of,

“Well, I’ll just wait until someone discovers my gift and asks me to use it. I don’t want to seem show-offy.”

But what it really is, is God’s gift that He gave you. And someone has discovered that gift--You! And someone’s asking for you to use it--God! And since it’s His gift given to you, it’s His desire and His plan to show it off because it glorifies Him!

God gave us boldness. We may be afraid to publicly use our gifts because we may be judged or we might mess up or someone might not like it. And all of those things could, and are almost likely to happen. But what we have to realize is that the world’s opinion doesn’t matter. Your not using your gift for them, you’re not performing, you’re glorifying God for how wonderful He is.

So we have to stand up and use our gifts regardless and in spite of what the world may think or say. We need to stop making excuses! We need to stop being nervous or embarrassed! God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and love and sound mind! (2 Timothy 1:7)

Our purpose here is to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. And to do that we’re going to have to get out of our comfort zone and be bold and use the gifts God gave us!

Starting…NOW. :)