Gifts out of love

Spiritual gifts are wonderful things. They are the tools we are given in order to more effectively reflect our Creator's love to those around us. The gifts range from seemingly small, common, everyday, easy-as-breathing all the way to seemingly impossible, outrageous, hard-to-believe. The bible describes a handful of them here:

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.  The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 NLT

We are not to think of any gift more highly than another. Each gift is significant in its own way, serves it's own purpose. The rest of the chapter continues on comparing these gifts to one's body. Each part has it's role, one is not greater than the other, and each works in tandem with the others. So it is supposed to be with our giftings.





Chapter 13 boils it right down to the heart. At least once in each of the first three verses we are told that any gift, when not done out of love, is pointless. Love drives everything in a life devoted to Christ and His work. Love is the only choice that matters.