Frankie Mazzapica - Don't Forget Your Gift
The title of today’s message is «Do Not Forget Your Gift.» Let me lay the scriptural foundation of where this message is coming from. It’s in 1 Peter 4:10–11, and it says this: «Each of you should use your gift.» Now hit pause just for one second. He’s saying each of you should use your gift, meaning all of you have been born with a gift from God, every single one of you. I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but each of you should use your gift to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, you should speak as though you are speaking the words of God.
In other words, just as a sidebar, there’s a complementary scripture to that in Ephesians 4:29, where it says, «Do not let any word come out of your mouth, not an insult, not gossip, not a curse word. Don’t let any word come out of your mouth except that which gives strength to the person living, hearing you.» Alright, back to the original verse, 1 Peter 4:10–11: «If anyone speaks, let him speak as one who is speaking the words of God. If anyone is serving someone, let them serve with the strength that God gives so that God will be praised through Jesus Christ. Let all the glory, power, and praise go to God forever and ever. Amen.» Do you agree with that? Come on, forever and ever!
So, he talks about how all of us have received a gift, and I have three major points for you: the first one is we’re going to talk about your gift, then we’re going to talk about other people’s gifts, and then we’re going to talk about another category. It’s called power gifts.
So let’s talk about your gift. Imagine for a second that we just came out of the Christmas season. Imagine you’re exchanging presents with a friend; maybe it’s just one friend, maybe there’s a circle around you, and you’re exchanging gifts. You’re giving gifts away, and people are giving gifts to each other. Some of these gifts you look at and think, «Man, that was a good gift! I wish that gift was mine.» Have you ever done that? Yeah, you know, right? It’s like, «I’m really happy for you, but I kind of wish I had one of those.» But anyway, you’re almost keeping yourself from being jealous, right? You’re just saying, «That was good.» But everyone’s passing gifts, and then someone says to you, «Hey, you have a gift! Open it; it’s your turn.» You respond, «Oh, thank you! Thank you for telling me I have a gift,» almost halfway not believing it. Everyone sees it except you. You’re just saying thank you, and then everyone’s kind of waiting, like, «Don’t you want to know what’s in there? It’s yours!»
So eventually, you just kind of stand up and walk out the door, and everyone’s like, «Come on! It’s really good!» You don’t know what it is, but a gift this big—like my son came in before the service and was like, «What’s in the gift? Is it a box of tennis shoes? Like five boxes? Fifteen boxes of tennis shoes?» Because for him, that’s the ultimate gift! You give him a big box full of Jordan tennis shoes and he’s happy for life! But what’s in it? Well, something like this is beyond your imagination. It’s too small for a little refrigerator. What’s in it? And that’s the expectation we should have! Ephesians 3:20 states that He is able—not that He will, but that He is able—to give you more than you can imagine.
See, we ask for things that we legitimately need, but there are certain things that He wants to give you that you can’t even imagine. And so you can’t even ask for it because you can’t imagine it. It says now there are certain gifts. Point number one is that you were born with and already know you have. So before you discover the gifts that you don’t have, I want you to use and get comfortable with the gifts that I have given you.
Now the obvious question that all of us ask is: How do I know what gift God gave me? How do I know which gift? If everyone has a gift, how do I know which one God gave me? I’m so glad you asked! Your gift is your sweet spot. Our sweet spot is when our skill matches a challenge. And when our skill matches that challenge, it may be difficult for other people, but for you, it’s easy. It’s effortless. You don’t even have to try!
For example, some of you have the same gift I have, which is the encouraging gift. I sincerely enjoy telling somebody something awesome about themselves. That’s what makes me feel alive. Now, there are other people who don’t do that—not because they’re bad, but it’s just not their thing to encourage. Every single Sunday morning, I get a sticky note and write a love note to Ally. Like this morning, I wrote, «For Ally, you are so beautiful,» and I stick it. Every Sunday morning, I do that. Now around Thursday, I rip it down to dry it out a little bit before Sunday. But if you walk into any of my three kids' personal spaces, there are stickies everywhere, going all the way back. They’re rolled up; they fall off. That’s my thing! It might be your thing as well.
Other people enjoy bringing gifts to people because they love to see their faces light up, knowing that you were thinking about them. Another gift that many of you have is that you feel alive in level three conversations. A level one conversation is when you’re in the elevator and someone walks in. You say, «How are you?» and you’re like, «I’m good. How are you?» And then you look at the numbers. Okay, it’s just «Hey, hi, bye, see you, Merry Christmas.» Right? That’s a level one. A level two is kind of where we live; it’s just a conversation. But a level three—now we’re going under the surface. «How are you doing?» If this is a gift for you, if they give you some shallow answer, that’s not enough. You want to know how they’re doing. Because you’re skilled at it, you recognize that you have to set the standard sometimes for transparency: the kind of transparency you want them to have.
So you’re courageous enough to take your armor off first and talk about your feelings, what your concerns are, what you’re worried about. But because you’re skilled at it, that conversation isn’t all about you. You’re not just sitting there unloading—that’s unloading, which is fine sometimes—but because you’re skilled at it, it’s about them. You’re really good at listening, really good at asking questions, really good at being quiet. Don’t you wish more people had that gift? And you feel comfortable there. When you’re in your gift, it’s easy. It’s comfortable. You enjoy it. You feel alive when you do it.
My mother in the Lord—she’s not my biological mother, who I love dearly—but I was adopted, so to speak. I was 19, and she was about 41. She said, «I’m your spiritual mom, and I want to challenge every lady in this room to reach for that. Just look for someone who catches your eye and adopt them.» Because if Genie never adopted me, I promise you one thing: you wouldn’t be seeing me right now. I’d be doing something stupid somewhere. And so she lived her life just changing lives. I’m one of a million other Frankies out there. For 50 years—she’s 71 right now—she started when she was 20. Yeah, 50 years.
I said, «Genie, there’s a whole swath of people you’ve changed their lives. How are you so strategic in doing that?» Watch this. She goes, «I live my life giving to others what I wish someone would’ve given to me.» If you find yourself feeling alone a lot—like you’re just alone—here’s the thing about this: when you’re feeling really alone, you can be in a room full of people and still feel alone. That’s a different alone than being in a car by yourself. That’s a different alone. And if you are there, you say to yourself, «I’m not going to let anyone in my life feel what I’m feeling. I’m going to live my life giving to people what I wish I had myself.» If I always feel alone for the rest of my life, then so be it, but I’m not going to let anyone else feel alone.
What we’ve all learned is that what you give to others is like a boomerang. It comes back around. If you cuss at other people, get ready. Chin up, buttercup, because it’s coming back. And God does things like that. That’s your gift! You kind of figure out your sweet spot. That comes easy for you. But now, other people’s gifts—this is a dangerous thing because it is so easy to recognize other people’s gifts, and their gifts always look better than your gift.
I have a friend of mine who is so successful in business, and if I’m not careful, I’ll be jealous. Like, this is stupid. This is amazing! God has totally forgotten about me. All the favor is clearly on you. This is insane because other people’s gifts are always more impressive than our own gifts. David experienced this. Here’s Goliath, and people are telling David he’s too big for him to knock down. He says back to them, «No, no, he’s too big for me to miss.» It was just a different mentality. So King Saul brings him to the kingdom and says, «Alright, if you’re courageous enough to fight him, I’m going to give you the best armor. I’m giving you mine. I have the most impressive sword and armor in the land. It’s all yours.»
He backs up and looks at someone else’s gift, and it is shining. It’s a powerful moment when you recognize that your own shabby gift, if it’s anointed by God—well, David knew that, right? David knew that. And so he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a crumpled up leather pouch. He grabs the string from one side to the other, and there’s a pocket for a rock right in the middle. It says «slingshot.» You swing it; you put both strings in the pockets down here and swing it, and let go of one while hanging on to the other, and the rock flies! And he’s holding this shabby gift. But he knows that his gift is anointed by God. How does he know? Faith is spelled R-I-S-K. He’s taken a risk a lot in his life. For us, he’s practiced being encouraging, practiced in his level three conversation, and practiced with that sling over and over again. He’s saying, «No, this looks shabby, but God has anointed my shabby gift, and now it is powerful.»
So he goes out there and says, «Keep your armor. It’s impressive, but I’ll stick to what I have.» And you know the story—he comes running out, and his shabby gift is used to defeat Goliath. Here’s a good scripture: Galatians 6:4 says this: «Pay careful attention to your own work.» You know those horses that have blinders on? Pay careful attention to your own work, because then you’ll receive the satisfaction of a job well done. «I’m doing good.» And then you won’t have to compare yourself to others. «Look, more power to you, man! I hope you do great, but I’m not going to look at you very much because your gift looks a lot better than mine. I’m just going to focus on mine.»
Last one: we talked about your gift, we talked about other people’s gifts, and now I want to talk about power gifts. These gifts you’re not born with; some people are, but like the 05. Okay, these gifts you’re not born with. These are gifts you become aware of, and you back up and say, «Okay, I want those.» These gifts you cannot get on your own. You can only receive them. Let me list off these power gifts. It’s in 1 Corinthians 12:8, and I think it goes to verse 9 as well. These power gifts—I’ll rattle them off and then I’ll talk about them—are wisdom. Now wisdom, you can read all the books in the world, and you won’t have this kind of wisdom. It’s divine wisdom; it’s a thought from God. Have you ever said something and thought, «Man, that was really good? I’m not bragging, but that was awesome,» and you heard it at the same time? That was a moment of divine wisdom!
To operate in that is a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge where you know what someone’s going through. It’s like you have this sickness in your body, but they never told you. You are having this trouble at home, and they never told you. It’s that word of knowledge: it’s faith in God. That’s the one I’m going to circle back to. Faith in God, healings, miracles, prophecy. So you’re talking about something in the future. Discernment—where someone prophesies, and you go, «That sounds right; you’re out there.» And then someone else prophesies and you’re like, «Okay, that just resonated.» That’s just one example. You walk into your house, and you’re like, «There’s a demon in this place; something feels weird.» In Jesus' name, you open up the door and command, «Get out! Get out!» That’s discernment. You’re in the middle of an argument and think, «This isn’t normal; this is being fueled by something. There’s a devil in this.» That’s discernment. Many of you have moved in discernment without even knowing it.
Have you ever been talking to somebody, and they lie? And you think, «That’s discernment,» right? They’re big-eyed and trying to convince you. You’re like, «No, no, no; liar, liar, pants on fire.» You know! That’s discernment. Speaking in new languages—that let me say it this way. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:1 that «Though I speak the tongue of men and of angels,» there’s a tongue that only God understands. Some people have the gift of interpretation and understand what is being said. These are power gifts.
Now let me just use an example of a power gift in motion. I wrote about this in the first book I wrote, «Your Divine Invitation.» There are actually things that you can do to receive these power gifts. I remember saying, «God, if you just tell me what to do, I’m going to do it.» Then I realized there are things you can do. For the past five or six years—and I’ve been in the ministry for 26 years—nobody got healed. Actually, one person got healed, physically healed right in front of me. Nobody, for 21 years. Over the last five years, I have no idea why.
But let me tell you one example of faith in God. I was in Costa Rica, and we were passing out food. After we passed out food, I stood on the first step of the bus and said, «Hey, we’re out of food. There are like 40 people here. We’re out of food; we don’t have any more food. But Jesus is here, and wherever Jesus is, miracles can happen.» Now we’re in the barrios. I can’t even find it; it’s the poorest of the poor of the poor. Their homes are made of sticks. They string electricity from one home to the next, and they all use the same line of electricity. I know they don’t have insurance. They’re all like middle-aged or older. I’m like, «Is anyone here sick?» Nobody raised their hand. I’m like, «Is anyone here a liar?» Right? But then it dawned on me—I’m this American guy they don’t know. Why would they be honest with me?
I saw a gentleman sitting on a stool 20 feet away, and it was obvious he was blind. So I said, «Hey, will you come over here? Somebody get him and bring him over here.» I put my arm around him and said, «If God opens your eyes, will you believe that God can heal you?» All of them were like, «Yeah! Do that!» So I prayed for him. I said, «In the name of Jesus, eyes open!» The interpreter translates, but he opens his eyes and still can’t see anything but black. I’m like, «Okay, you know, I’m not stopping there! Let me pray again.» I prayed for him in the name of Jesus again. He opens his eyes and can’t see anything! I feel a circle of sweat building on my back; everybody’s eyes are burning into my face! I just went from having a whole bunch of faith to being sick!
Then I prayed for him a third time, and he opened his eyes, dropped his head, and tears flowed down his face as he said, «I can see! I can see! I can see!» Come on! Would you just put your hands together? I know you weren’t there, but how in the world—I’ve never seen blind eyes open in my life! Where did that faith come from? Saying, «Okay, this guy’s eyes are going to open"—that’s a power gift! And sometimes I have it; most of the time I don’t, but that’s a power gift that comes sometimes. I just knew, like I knew my name, that God is going to open that guy’s eyes.
These power gifts—you and I must have them. Sometimes, people are fine in the days and times we’re in. God is going to give gifts to His children that He has never poured out in mass before. One of the most accurate prophets I know is not a preacher; I actually bumped into her on social media. She’s like bullseye, insane. They’re not preachers. In 2024, during the election season, you don’t have to be a prophet to know it’s going to be crazy! You don’t have to be a prophet to know that COVID was a dry run. There’s going to be another big boulder swinging through America soon, and you have to ask: How will everybody respond? How will you respond?
What I’ve noticed is that there are some people who dig their heels in the ground and don’t waver—they’re like a palm tree. They get blown about, but their eyes are on the Lord. They never stop worshiping. This is a gift from God! And then there are other people who call themselves Christians, but as soon as times get tough, you can’t find them. Where’d you go? Where’d you go?
But I’m telling you that God is going to pour out His gifts on people who talk to Him every day, people who want the gift, people who stand in a gray area. There’s holiness over here and sin over there, and they say, «I don’t know. It could go both ways. I’m not going to hell if I do that,» and they go, «But you know that’s a gray area.» I’m going to err on this side. Those are the people where God backs up and says, «You already know what your gift is—it’s your sweet spot. You already know not to get jealous of their gift, but now I’m going to give you a supernatural gift that you cannot earn on your own.» Does anybody receive that? Come on! You can’t earn it!
When I say talk with Him all the time, I’m talking about a scripture I taught my kids when they were little and made them say it 50,000 times: 1 Thessalonians 5:17—"Never stop praying!» You’re just praying all the time—one-sentence prayers, one-sentence prayers. «God, I love you.» Twenty minutes later, «God, I love you.» Twenty minutes later, «I need you.» If we knew how powerful short prayers were, we’d never stop.
The people who want more, the people who talk to Him, the people who make the courageous decision in the gray areas, the people who are willing to take a risk. «I don’t know if this is from God or not, but the thought just crossed my mind"—that’s the kind of intro for people who take risks. And what you’ll learn is sometimes the person will look at you and say, «That doesn’t apply to me at all.» You back up and say, «Sorry,» but sometimes they’ll look at you and say, «Oh my goodness, I needed to hear that.»
Now, would you stand up on your feet for me please? We all prepare for Sundays to the best of our ability, but this is the part of the service where I can’t prepare because I never know what we’re going to do. It’s just kind of like a thought that crossed my mind, and I think that’s what the Lord wants us to do. And this is what I’m going to ask you to do: don’t do it now, but in a minute, I’m going to tell you to put your hands out like this. But before you do, I want you to think of one thing that you really need God to do for you. Think of that one thing, and think of the biggest thing, too, that you really need God to do. Once you get that one thing, keep your chin up to your Father, close your eyes, and just put your hands out like this.
And I don’t want you to pray; I just want you to put your hands out like this and leave them there for a few moments. You can leave them there longer than a few moments, but at the very least, a few moments. The stories I hear at these moments—some people just come and tell me, «When I was doing that, it’s almost like the Holy Spirit rested on my hands because my hands started tingling.» Now, I’ve put my hands like this hundreds of thousands of times, and it’s only happened to me a few times. So if it doesn’t happen to you, you know I can relate to that, but many of you, I believe, will feel that.
So don’t pray; let me pray for you. Holy Spirit, just make Yourself known to every person in this room. Lord, whether they feel You or not, let Your presence rest in their hands, and as You’re resting in their hands, bless them with what they have asked for. Now, don’t pray with me; let me pray for you. Satan, these are children of the Most High God, and if you are tormenting them in any way, we rebuke you now and command you to leave. If you are afflicting them with sickness, we command you to leave. With pain of any kind, we command you to leave right now.
Now I’m about to ask the prayer partners to come down, and if you feel like the Lord is touching you in any way—or if you know that if your heart were to stop beating in the next five minutes you don’t know where you’d spend eternity—if that’s you, I want you to come down and pray with a prayer partner.
If there’s anyone here who can turn their head to the right but can’t turn it all the way to the left, I’d like to pray with you. All the prayer partners come down. There’s going to be no official dismissal today, just like always. You can leave whenever you’re ready. But I’m going to ask you to sing this song at least once before anyone goes. If you would just let me pray for you: May the Lord bless you. May He keep you. May His face shine down upon you and be gracious to you. May His countenance be lifted up on you and bring you peace. In Jesus' name, amen.