"Pastor, I have no gift."

Sister Lisette said it with a little laugh, but her eyes did not laugh. She was sixty-four. She sat in the same back pew of a small Haitian church in Brooklyn every Sabbath, close to the door, her purse on her knees.

The pastor had just preached on spiritual gifts. People were talking on the way out. "I think I'm a teacher." "My gift is music." Lisette shook her head. "I cannot sing. I read slowly. When I stand up in front of people, my hands shake. God gave gifts to everybody else, Pastor. Me, I just come."

The pastor did not argue. He only said, "Sister Lisette, let's see."

Two weeks later, Lisette flew to Montreal to help her daughter with a new baby. She was gone for six weeks. And in those six weeks, something happened at that little church that nobody expected. What was it? Hold on to that question. First, let's open the Book.

Every single one

Peter wrote a letter to ordinary believers — fishermen, servants, mothers, workers. Listen to what he told them:

Look at the first words: "As every man hath received the gift." Not "every pastor." Not "every singer." Every one. If you belong to Jesus, you have received a gift. That is not a maybe. It is a promise.

And notice what the gift is for: "minister the same one to another." A gift from God is not a trophy to put on a shelf. It is a tool to put in someone's hand.

Different gifts, the same Spirit

Where do these gifts come from? Paul answers:

Do you see it? The same Spirit. The same Lord Jesus. The same God the Father. The whole God is behind your gift. (We met the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in our last study, "One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.")

And who chooses which gift you get? Not you. Not the pastor. "That one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will" (1 Corinthians 12:11). Your gift was hand-picked for you by the Holy Spirit Himself.

You did not choose your gift, so you cannot be proud of it. And you did not choose your gift, so you never need to be ashamed of it. It came from God's hand — that is enough.

One body, many parts

Then Paul paints a picture we can all understand. Look at your own body:

Imagine a body that is only one giant eye. It could see everything — but how would it hear? How would it walk to the market? Paul asks the same funny question: "If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?" (1 Corinthians 12:17).

Your eye cannot say to your hand, "I don't need you." Your head cannot say to your feet, "Go away" (1 Corinthians 12:21). And here is the part that surprised the Corinthians: "those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary" (1 Corinthians 12:22).

The quiet parts. The hidden parts. The ones nobody claps for. Necessary. That is God's word, not ours.

And because we are one body, "whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). In God's family, nobody hurts alone and nobody celebrates alone.

Gifts you may not have noticed

When we hear "spiritual gifts," many of us think only of preaching or singing. But read Paul's list in Romans:

And then he names them (Romans 12:6-8): prophecy… ministry — that is, serving… teaching… exhorting — that is, encouraging… giving, "with simplicity"… leading, "with diligence"… and showing mercy, "with cheerfulness."

Serving. Encouraging. Giving. Showing mercy with a smile. These are spiritual gifts too — right there in the Bible, side by side with teaching and leading. Maybe you have been carrying a gift for years and calling it "nothing."

Why God gives gifts

God never gives gifts just for show. Paul explains the purpose:

Read it slowly. Pastors and teachers are given "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry." In other words, the pastor's job is to help you do the ministry. The work belongs to the whole church.

And the goal? Unity. Growing up. Becoming more and more like Jesus — "the fulness of Christ." Gifts are not given so that one person can shine. They are given so that the whole family can grow.

That is why Paul warns us not to think of ourselves "more highly than he ought to think" (Romans 12:3), and why, right after his teaching on gifts, he writes the great love chapter: even with the greatest gifts, "and have not charity, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2). A gift without love is just noise.

Jesus, the Servant

If you want to know what a gift looks like when it is used well, look at Jesus. The King of heaven knelt down and washed dirty feet (John 13:5). He said:

Every spiritual gift is a small piece of Jesus' own heart, placed in us by His Spirit, so that He can keep serving people — through our hands, our words, our kitchens, our phone calls. When you use your gift, people get to see a little bit of Jesus.

Don't bury it

Jesus told a story about a master who gave money — "talents" — to his servants. One servant was afraid. He said, "I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth" (Matthew 25:25). Fear made him bury what he had been given.

But to the servants who used what they had, the master said:

Notice: "faithful over a few things." God is not asking you to be famous. He is asking you to be faithful. A small gift, used with love, brings joy to the heart of God.

What happened while Lisette was gone

So what happened at that little church in Brooklyn?

The first Sabbath, nobody noticed. The second Sabbath, a young couple visited for the first time — and nobody greeted them at the door by name, because Lisette was the one who always did that. They did not come back.

The third week, old Brother Jérôme, who lived alone, missed church. Nobody called. Lisette used to call him every Friday evening. By the fourth week, the deacons discovered that the white baptism robes had not been washed and pressed — Lisette always did it quietly, at home, with her own soap. A baptism had to wait.

When Lisette came home, the pastor asked her to stand at the front. Her hands shook. Then he held up one of the white baptism robes, ironed by her hands so many times, and read: "those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary."

It made the older members think of Dorcas in the book of Acts, a woman "full of good works," whose friends wept as they showed "the coats and garments which Dorcas made" (Acts 9:36, 39). Her gift was a needle and a kind heart. Heaven wrote it down.

Lisette had the gift of serving, the gift of encouraging, the gift of showing mercy with cheerfulness. She had them all along. She just had never called them gifts.

In the body of Christ, there is no such thing as a member with nothing to give.

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