When we go to the Lord’s table, to meetings for worship or for prayer, we do not go to exercise gift. Rather, we go to break bread, to worship and to meet Him. To go with the thought of using our gift is to misunderstand the true character of such meetings. The very expression shows a wrong thought in the mind, for it gives one the idea of a performance, which it too frequently resembles. This was the case with the Corinthians. They came “behind in no gift” (1 Cor. 1:7), but instead of using them in subjection to the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God and to the edification of His children, they were glorifying themselves by them.
I do not know of anything more sorrowful or dishonoring to the Lord, or that has brought more sorrow among believers, than this. Real subjection to the Holy Spirit, with a sense of the Lord’s presence, would at once put a stop to the thought of “exercising gifts.” A true sense of His presence at once displaces all thoughts of self. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17), and this is a liberty in which the Spirit leads, not the energy of the flesh. Then the Lord alone will be exalted, for no flesh shall glory in His presence. Then God is everything and man nothing. May the one object of all our hearts be that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever!
Adapted from The Bible Treasury, Vol. 6, p. 318