All tagged gifts
Understanding why we receive the gifts that God gives us has always been a perplexing challenge for me. We being sinners, fallen, and undeserving are not worthy of such attention, and yet He loves us and provides for us. In this quandary we look to scripture and it speaks to us in terms we can understand... He is our Father which art in heaven.
Our study today deals with faith, prayer, and grace, but it goes a bit further by telling us how we are to bear fruit in our faith, and gain knowledge in Jesus Christ, by realizing the divine order of these things.
I awoke on this New Year's Day to what felt like a fresh new beginning, but as I prepared to read my morning devotional and reach out to God in Prayer I had a revelation... Today is not unlike any other day in Christ. I was thrilled and blessed by this realization and His presence. God is indeed with us in His fullness, and remains the same each moment of every day. Whether this day is our first, or our last, He is without change.
The result of our faith is a realignment of our lives and how we interact with those within it. Are you seeing this occur, and are you willing to let it happen? Are you being transformed into a new person?
When we believe in Jesus Christ as our savior, the Son of God, and are then baptized, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift plays an important role in our spiritual lives by giving us such things as scriptural understanding, remembrance, prayer when we don’t have the words, and the various other gifts of the Spirit when we need them to obey and do the will of God. In the upper room, following the ascension of Jesus, the disciples received the Spirit, but they were not the first nor the last that the gospel of Jesus tells us of receiving him. We read first of Elisabeth the mother of John the Baptist, and John in her womb, being filled with the Spirit.
What gifts do we have that do not come from God? We like to think that our skills, abilities, characters, and even our faiths in Jesus, are from us, but they are not, however, the way in which we use them is of us. We can choose to use them well, or for dark and self-serving purposes. So, how have we each decided to use the gifts that we have been given in our lives? Have we convinced ourselves that our abilities come from our own efforts, and are manifest by in hard work and self-developed talents? Do we believe that our faith comes from within us, or from God whose Spirit abides in us all?
When Joseph had been through all his boyhood suffering, been sold into slavery, and had risen to power in Egypt, he was blessed with two sons. The first he named after God’s mercy for allowing him to forget those hardships, and the second he named for the blessings God poured out on him after his afflictions. We should take note that although we face trouble in our lives the Lord is merciful in them, and that blessings rise from their ashes. Do we look at our lives like a burning house, and forget this short lived suffering while seeing what our Father is preparing to build for us on that very spot?
God gives us blessings, treasures, that we don’t see coming, and He does so to show us that he is God, and that He loves us, but what do we do with that treasure once it is received? How much do we value it when the package arrives and it has our name on it? How do we react to the old and new gifts God gives us?
When we give, whether it be tithes, gifts, or to sustain another, the act of giving in love increases the worth of what we have given. On the other hand, when we receive a gift from someone, we shouldn’t revel in what it has done in our lives, but for the fruit it produces in the life of the giver. In this way, we might help someone in need, or benefit the church with our offering, but the real value comes in how it increases our own faith, and the spiritual warmth we realize from this simple act, because we are giving God’s bounty… not ours.
Are we one of those Christians who says they have no particular gift or talent to use in service of the Lord? Do we go to church, stand when the others stand, mumble our way through the singing because we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and in every way lead a rather obscure life? Well perhaps we do far more than we realize. Maybe our greatest gift for the kingdom is to live out a godly life, and quietly tell people about Jesus in a non-demonstrative manner. Are we one of the great heroes for the kingdom that flies under the earthly radar, and that no one except God sees?
Through the Holy Spirit we receive love, and many various gifts from God, and we know that we are to use them in doing God’s will, and to bring Him glory, but there are other reasons we have been given these gifts… we are to use them in service to one another, and also as we serve to be stewards of God’s grace. Do we receive a gift from God but neglect to use it as a means of helping and loving others? Do we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our neighbors, as a dispensation of grace by using our gifts to ease the burdens in their lives, and to further God’s influence in them?
We are tempted to believe that what we have in the world is good, and that it is all we need, but that is simply not true. The earth and everything in it is fleeting, and is never truly ours. So why is it that we value it so much? Why do we surround ourselves with what the world offers us, and treat it as if it were perfect, or even good, when in fact we will die, and all we have accumulated will be lost? In this life the things we have will disappoint us. God’s gifts are always good, and perfect; they never lose their value, and are always glorifying Him as we use them. They are unchanging, and eternal in every way.
The fruits of the Spirit are many, and wonderful, but the first of these fruits that Paul mentions in his letter to the Galatians is love, and rightfully so. When we first believe, and receive the Spirit, love is the first of the Spirit’s fruits that we are filled with. After the love of God comes upon us then the rest are made possible, and the fruits of the Spirit begin to set us apart as Christians. Without love the others can’t exist in us. So have we been changed, and opened ourselves up to the love that is offered us through the Holy Spirit?