Are You Squandering God’s Greatest Gift?

“However, He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:7 NLT)

When Jesus died on the Cross, He sacrificed His sinless life for each one He knew would one day come to Him. Please think about that for a minute. While He certainly loves the whole world, His blood wasn’t spilled for the sins of the whole world. His precious blood drained from His holy body for YOU, and for me! I’m convinced, by the authority of God’s Word and the heart of the God I’ve grown to know and love, that when He died, the face of every person who would one day yield their life and allegiance to Him, passed before Him.

He didn’t sacrifice for untold millions with blank faces and empty lives, He died for people with personalities, needs, fears, frustrations, friends, relatives, and needs that He saw clearly before we were ever born, but most importantly, He died for each one who one day would recognize their overwhelming need for . . . HIM! And in anticipation of that day, He hand-picked gifts – grace gifts designed and given – specifically for each of us who now know Him personally.

What kinds of gifts did He give us? Every believer, without exception, is given at least one spiritual gift. You can get ideas of some of them from Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12-14, and Ephesians 4, but these are not exhaustive lists. But aside from spiritual gifts, the greatest gift given to every believer is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

In the context of prayer, Jesus said this in Luke 11:13: “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” Couple that with Ephesians 1:13 where Paul writes: “And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, He identified you as His own…” How did God do that? “by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom He promised long ago.”

Every believer in Christ is filled with the Holy Spirit when they are saved. So, why in Luke 11 did Jesus encourage His listeners to ask the Father for the Spirit? And I understand this is pre-Pentecost where the Holy Spirit came in power, but I also believe we squander God’s greatest gift by assuming because He resides in us, we don’t have to “ask” for Him to work powerfully and uniquely in our lives.

Years ago, I read a story of a young woman who upon leaving her workplace to walk home, asked the Spirit to be with her, to protect her. As she typically did, she took a shortcut down an alley that shortened her walk significantly. She was startled to see, about halfway down the alley, a man standing, staring at her, but he made no attempt to move in her direction.

The next day she heard that a young woman had been attacked in that same alley the night before. She heard that the man was in custody, so she went to the police station in her small town and asked what had happened. She told the officer that she’d walked down that same alley and she’d seen a man, so she asked if she might be able to identify him as the same man she saw.

Upon seeing him and recognizing that it was the same man she’d seen, she asked the officer if she could ask him why he hadn’t attacked her, to which he responded: “I wasn’t about to try to attack you with those two huge men who were walking with you!”

This is simply one of millions of scenarios where the Holy Spirit can assist us in ways, we might not even realize what He’s done. Please don’t squander the privilege of inviting the Holy Spirit to walk with you every step of your life.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊