Our Daily Bread -- Ice Flowers

February 13, 2016

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:4-14
Bible in a Year: Leviticus 14; Matthew 26:51-75

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. —1 Corinthians 12:4

Fifteen-year-old Wilson Bentley was captivated by the intricate beauty of snowflakes. He looked with fascination through an old microscope his mother had given him and made hundreds of sketches of their remarkable designs, but they melted too quickly to adequately capture their detail. Several years later, in 1885, he had an idea. He attached a bellows camera to the microscope and, after much trial and error, took his first picture of a snowflake. During his lifetime Bentley would capture 5,000 snowflake images and each one was a unique design. He described them as “tiny miracles of beauty” and “ice flowers.”

No two snowflakes are alike, yet all come from the same source. So it is with followers of Christ. We all come from the same Creator and Redeemer, yet we are all different. In God’s glorious plan He has chosen to bring a variety of people together into a unified whole, and He has gifted us in various ways. In describing the diversity of gifts to believers, Paul writes: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work” (1 Cor. 12:4-6).

Thank God for the unique contribution you can offer as you help and serve others. —Dennis Fisher

Dear Lord, thank You for the unique way that You have gifted me. Help me to use my gifts faithfully to serve You and others.

Each person is a unique expression of God's loving design.

INSIGHT: Today’s passage was written to a group of people who were celebrating the value of some gifts over others. The apostle Paul makes three points to convince the church at Corinth that all gifts are of equal value: They all come from the same source—the Spirit (vv. 4, 11); they are not a reflection of the person but of the Spirit, and each person receives the gift that the Spirit determines (v. 11); and they all have the same purpose—the “common good” of the church (v. 7).

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