Different By Design
You are different by design. In fact, these differences qualify you to be a part of the body. God has designed his body to not function unless the various parts play their unique roles. God made you incredibly valuable, necessary, and irreplaceable preciously by making you “not like the others.”
Paul reminds us that “there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1 Corinthians 12:4–6). When you look around you will see variety--the absence of sameness. You will not see monotony and uniformity but different gifts exercised by uniquely designed people. When you feel “they are not like me,” you rightly feel that God has made you different. He has made you “not like them” so that we can all help each other as part of one body.
God designed the body to have some singing, some giving, others empathizing, a handful teaching, another exemplifying hospitality. But, so often, we are not able to share our gifts with each other because we are so busy despising or being embarrassed of how God has made us.
We forget, as a human, that we have not been stamped with “made in America” insignia or “made in China” but “MADE BY GOD.” You are an undisputed image-bearer, and you are a fearfully and wonderfully made image of God in that you too—just like God—display a united body of diversity. Just as there is one God in three persons, there is one body of many parts. You are different by design, and you have been designed to image God individually and corporately. Therefore, we must act like it.
To help in applying this, a few Sundays ago, we handed out some cards to help us think specifically about how God may have gifted us. Our heart behind this card is to help stir up ideas of possible gifting by listing out just some of the many categories of gifts. We long to see each person discover their gifts and find a place where they delight to use them. Please take some time to pray about how God has gifted you and how you might be able to exercise those gifts within our body.