Celebrating “Diversity”

“Celebrating Diversity” is unfortunately used to describe the acceptance of a wide array of lifestyles. I find that unfortunate because one of the places that diversity is most celebrated is in scripture. God’s Word reminds us that each one is made different and unique. We were reminded yesterday that each of us have been apportioned a different amount of resources that we are responsible to “invest” throughout our lifetime. Today, I want to focus on specific differences in the giftedness that God has given us.

From Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he writes:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
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.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
I Corinthians 12:12-13, 14-15, 27

Scripture names some of the different gifts: teaching, serving, apostles, giving, healing, administration, encouraging, etc. Paul made it clear that all of the gifts are designed to move us in the same direction; toward knowing Christ and making Christ known to others.

As we serve with the gift that God has given us, rejoice and celebrate in the differences that God has made each of us with. Do not try to do something that you were not gifted to do. Do not try to be someone that you are not. Instead, offer up all that you are and all that you have, to be used in the work of God’s Kingdom. CELEBRATE DIVERSITY!

Prayer: Thanks for making me uniquely different than anybody else. I will daily strive to honor you and those around me by serving in the ways that you have gifted me with. Amen.