Romans 12:3-5
3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
"not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment"
We are not necessarily to look down on ourselves, but to recognize where our true worth, identity, and purpose comes from. Not from ourselves, but through our new lives and individual gifts given to us by the grace of Christ, through the gift of faith given to us by God to fulfill His purposes.
"we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function"
Just as the body has many parts, so do we as the Church make up the body of Christ. Unfortunately, all too often do we spend our time simply trying to identify what part of the body we make up, simply for the sake of finding our "identity."
However, if the physical hand of the natural body knows its a hand, but never serves its purpose, it's so called identity is vain. Likewise, knowing your function in the body of Christ, and yet never using it to advance the body of Christ in the direction it was designed to go, is also vain. It also hinders the function of the other members of the body, and therefore causes the overall function of the body to work insufficently.
Sadly, I too often find myself in the midst of an "identity crisis". I so badly want to find what God put me here to do, and then forget why He put me here to do it. Or using those gifts to better glorify myself instead of Him. If my gift was to encourage people, and yet all I ever did was use it to encourage those who I only cared about or even only those I thought could in some way beneffit me, I would be perverting the gift God had given me, and as a result giving a false represention of His qualities which as I claim to represent if I am indeed His follower.
I can't help but think of this verse from a current study we are doing in 2Samuel...
2Samuel 5:12
12 And David realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.
This is the kind of attitude I wish I could always remember to have. To have the realization that it is only because of God's establishment, and for God's purposes that God places in us the qualities and gifts He desires us to have, and then put them into practice,
Forever His,
-Sara
