"By the grace given to me". When someone tells us what to do we might react against them saying "what right have they got to say that to me?" Paul had the "right" to say what he did because of the grace God gave him. He said these things because God had chosen him to be the apostle to the Gentiles to bring the good news of the kingdom to them. We tend to think of the grace of God only in terms of His forgiveness and mercy towards us. But His grace also gives authority to people, as it did to Paul. We need to look at people, particularly leaders, and ask what grace has God given to them? How does God want to work through them to bring His kingdom into our life. If we look at them only as men or women we will miss out on what God wants to do in our lives (2 Cor 5:16).
Likewise we are not to view ourselves from a human point of view. This leads to erroneous views of ourselves. We either think we are rubbish, or get to high a view of ourselves and our abilities. Instead we are to have a sober view of ourselves, a realistic view, But that is not all, we are to view ourselves according to the faith God has given to us. What we can achieve in life that is truly valuable is governed by the faith that we have.
We are not all the same, but are all part of the body of Christ. We can fall into the trap of either thinking our particular gifting is the most important one, or of thinking that we are not important because we do not have the same abilities as someone else. The body has many parts, and needs all its parts, and will function properly only if every part works as it should.
So whatever gift we have we are to use it according to the faith given to us, and to use it to the full, recognising that God works through us together with others to build the kingdom.
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