Romans 12: 6-8 "So that, having different gifts, according to the grace that is given to us, if that of prophecy, use according to the measure of faith; or if of service, in serving; or the one who teaches, in the teaching; he who exhorts, in the exhortation; the one who distributes, with liberality; the one who presides, with request; he who shows mercy, with joy. "
In the previous verses Paul says two things that are important: one, that we are humble, that no one has a higher concept of himself than he should have; and the second, that we are all part of a body, members that have different functions. Each one has its rightful place and its just reason for being, and none is better than another even if it is more or less visible; and all these parts fit to form a human being. The wonderful thing is that besides being a man or being a woman, we are the dwelling place of the invisible God who came to transform our lives.
So Paul says that in this reality of who we are, the Holy Spirit distributes gifts to each member of the body, and those gifts are not our property, but are ministries or gifts that God allows us to exercise to serve others. The word minister is not a title, it is a word that comes from the meaning of a deacon, that is, a servant. Therefore, we have that the Holy Spirit distributed gifts to all, and although some may not have been aware of it, the same Holy Spirit in his time will reveal to him how he is going to use it, and this not necessarily inside the temple, because generally our Service happens outside the church, in our daily life.
Now, after Paul gives us this introduction, he comes to talk about a phrase referring to love, and that love must be without pretense. This is very important, because we do not have to pretend anything, but rather day by day to show that the character of Christ is being formed in us. This has to be formed, because otherwise everything we do for the Lord is like a clanging cymbal, that is, a lot of noise and few results, because people copy what they see instead of what they hear, so like that, children copy their parents in everything they do.
That is why the first thing in the Christian life is that, the character, that is what should base our life as Christians. A character molded by the Spirit and by the word, will allow us to recover little by little the image and the likeness of God in our lives. This is what Paul in Philippians, when referring to the perfection of the saints, understanding that the saints are us, people who have been separated from the earthly world, to be part of the world of God. So perhaps someone's actions are not entirely holy, but we have been called Saints by the grace of God.
He has called us and has begun the work of transformation and perfection in our lives; and that is when we can serve God with humility. In service to God we are all equal, but we develop different functions.
