For the rest of 2024, here’s the headline over your daily pursuits: It’s all about the gifts. Come January 2025, let me prophesy the honest appraisal of the year-end, for most: the gift effort will have underperformed its potential. Will you be among the losers?
The Crush is on. Until the 24th, there will be a buying frenzy. A one-day time-out on the 25th, then the chaos will resume with “after Christmas sales” promising deals aplenty as people return the less-wanted from the tree and replace them with the more-wanted alternatives, live and on-line.
There’s another set of gifts that are not just a Christmas phenom but have defining importance every day of the year. Paul weighed-in on the gifts with the potential to have eternal value:
“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously” — Romans 12
Here’s the history-making headline that most followers of Jesus will die without discovering: since your personal conversion to faith, the most important agenda in your life is to use your spiritual gifts to advance God’s Kingdom agendas.
Forty years ago, I was at a career crossroads. My marketplace life had been producing great success, but my sense of fulfillment was waning. Chuck Swindoll gave me a day of his life to look-in on my enigma and help shine some light on my way forward.
An amazing day, summarized in a few words: I thought my best role – for the rest of my life – would be to grow my business, earn lots of money and become a Kingdom donor-extraordinaire. Chuck saw a different path: recognize that my more defining spiritual gift was teaching, not giving. Based on that, my agenda: learn lots of biblical truth and become a Kingdom teacher-extraordinaire (still working on that!). To my surprise: over the course of four decades, I’ve been able to do both.
Here’s the Blinding Flash of the Obvious: “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today” (Deuteronomy 8). Are you a “wealth producer?” You are, and you’re not a self-made success. A breakthrough truth: God gives the gift of getting to people who have the gift of giving.
You’re exercising the gift of getting, evidenced by your achievements in your professional work and personal advancement. Here’s my challenge as we get ready to wrap-up another year, on the way to Heaven and eternity: are you using your giftedness only to “get?” Or, are you following-up with perfecting your giving gifts to match the biblical directive: “If it is giving, give generously.”
Cheri and I are all-in on gifts as we wade into the last two weeks of 2024. Gifts under the tree, for our family? Of course. But, with even greater intentionality, we’re putting gifts in envelopes – or making distributions from our Donor Advised Fund – to help underwrite Kingdom Initiatives that are creating returns that will be reported – and rewarded – to us at the end-of-life assessment that awaits.
My challenge to you, today, with just a few days left in this year: God gave you gifts to use for His glory. Your abundance is evidence of your assignment. As you give, would you consider including The Master’s Program among your high-leverage eternal investments? For Cheri and me, it’s one of the top-performing assets in our Eternal Portfolio. TMP’s ministry to you and your Kingdom-leadership peers is dependent – every year – on year-end contributions from partners like you.
Amazon gives you a “Buy Now” action step. I’m offering you a “Give Now” link that will create eternal dividends. Click here to see how you can get in on this opportunity, before it’s too late.
Bob Shank
Discover the locations of our new cohort launches! CLICK HERE
