Don't Wander Away From the Word

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed (1 Corinthians 12:1 TNIV).

It is hard not to be confronted by the irony of this statement.  God, through the Apostle Paul, is making His heart known about something in which He feels we should be informed.  Yet, if there is one thing in the Body of Christ that is beyond question a topic of misinformation, it would be this subject of spiritual gifts.  We go from the extreme of they don’t exist at all today to the opposite end of the spectrum in some circles of Christianity that look a lot like a three-ring circus.  The disparity between the two ends of this chasm begs the question – how did we get so far apart on a topic upon which God unequivocally called us to educate ourselves and gave us very specific information in Scripture to do so.

Well, that is the problem – we have become “informed” by sources other than the Bible and when we have actually used the Bible as our source, we have read into it our own interpretations based upon our biases, fears, expectations, pride, and even personal agendas.  How sad that we have missed the very heart of what God intended to be a great blessing and catalyst of unity for the Body of Christ and ended up with some of the greatest divisions in Christ.

It is important when God calls us to be informed on a subject – whether it be spiritual gifts or any other aspect of our Christian experience – that we stick to what is written and not wander into the uncharted territory of someone else’s opinion.  While the Bible does say that there is safety in the multitude of counsel, God expects us to seek His counsel first.  Then we will have a barometer by which we can verify if the counsel we are getting lines up with what is written or strays into those murky waters of pet doctrines that lead to division.

I will make a personal commitment to always seek answers from the Lord alone first and then run it by trustworthy believers who hold the same convictions about truth that I do. 

Unity from Diversity

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them (1 Corinthians 12:4 TNIV).

It is very important to notice two things in this verse.  The first is that the gifts are different.  As we can see from the passages that follow, the gifts are diverse and useful in varying situations.  From the gift of discernment to that of helps and everything in between, by virtue of the gifts themselves, we are different.  God used the gifts as part of the fabric that makes us unique individuals who share one thing in common – God’s Spirit.  And it is God’s Spirit that makes us one.

The second important truth this verse holds is that it is the Spirit who distributes the gifts.  That means that whatever giftings you may have, they have nothing to do with you.  They were given by God’s Spirit to match God’s calling for God’s purpose.  So there is really no place for pride when exercising the gifts. 

Consider these three scriptures collectively and you will see how this tapestry comes together from God’s vantage point:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV).

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13 NIV).

So, the bottom line on gifts is – they equip you to execute the Ephesians 2:10 good works that God prepared for you before the foundation of earth, which are part of God’s Jeremiah 29:11 plan for your life – all of which Jesus expects you to work out in fear and trembling because He is co-laboring with you in your Philippians 2:12 salvation.

When you consider all of the intricacies of how God orchestrates this providential tapestry, you have to realize that He is the ultimate Mastermind of all times.  And because His final goal is unity out of all this diversity, He gives us the crowning and final word on spiritual gifts -

Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel (1 Corinthians 14:12 NKJV).

All gifts – no matter what they might be – are for the building up of the church.  If they don’t accomplish that purpose, then they are simply the clanging gongs and noisy cymbals of 1 Corinthians 13.

Today, I need to use my spiritual gifts to build up others so that my life might rhyme in sweet harmony with Heaven.

A Call To Greatness

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called (Ephesians 4:1 NKJV).

The Bible says that many are called, but few are chosen.  As we consider Paul’s admonition to walk in a manner worthy of the call, it is important to realize that Paul also adds the qualifying statement, “to which you have been called.”  If he had left it at a manner worthy, it would be implied that the manner worthy would be the same for each believer and it would correlate to the model in which Jesus walked.  On the one hand, that’s true.  But on the other it is much more personal.  It is not just a call to holiness, but to greatness. 

Considering that we are knit together in our mother’s womb, that God has a specific Jeremiah 29:11 plan for each of us, and that there are Ephesian 2:10 good works we are to walk in that were created for us before the foundation of the world, then it seems that the Holy Spirit is helping us to see that the only way to attain true greatness in this life is to align ourselves in complete congruence with all of these things – how we were created, the plan for which we were created, and the exact works that make up that plan.

It is more than a little disconcerting to realize that I can just be a good Christian all my life – dotting my “i’s” and crossing my “t’s” and still miss the mark.  If I am not playing full out in pursuit of the destiny God specifically designed for me, then I am living a life of compromise that is not worthy of the calling to which I have been called.

This sobering truth is overwhelming when we consider the consequences of getting it wrong.  However, God never gives us something to do that He has also not given us the way to do it.  The key in this case lies in the Ephesians 2:10 good works.  When we seek the Lord daily, we will not miss the things He has for us to do that day and we will be empowered with the grace to do them.  Then, at the end of our days, we will look back and see the Jeremiah 29 plan unfolded in hindsight and realize that our daily steps of obedience led to a lifetime of worthy walking and a legacy of greatness.

Today, I will seek God for the eyes to see what He sees as important and not get caught up in the mundane and meaningless trap of the unworthy and non-essential details of my day.

Sobriety Takes a Savior

Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitter of heart (Proverbs 31:6 NKJV).

From the pen of the wisest man that ever lived, Solomon recalls the words of warning from his mother.  But I’d be willing to bet that these words were not recorded until after he had ignored them completely.  It is usually only on the other side of having been the victim of the destructive nature of alcohol that someone can clearly see that while it is permissible for the Christian to drink, it is not really profitable.  In fact, the entire purpose for alcohol, according to this verse, is to give comfort to those who do not know God and are, therefore, perishing and have become bitter of heart.

When you examine the other side of this equation, it makes all the more sense.  The reason that people grow bitter of heart is because they process life through the lens of a temporal mindset and therefore every injustice, every wound, every broken dream, and shattered relationship, remains unresolved.  And no matter how much “therapy” they undergo, they cannot rid their heart of the longing for closure.  In another area, Solomon wrote about this condition as well:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12).

Does that phrase, “tree of life” ring any bells?  There were two trees in the Garden of Eden – the one that bore the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree that bore the fruit of eternal life.  Mankind, through the act of Adam and Eve, ate of the first tree and were thereby introduced to the reality of evil that cannot be fixed in this life.  Yet Scripture tells us that we have eternity written in our hearts, so the only way to really avoid this heart sick condition is to place our hope back in the place where we lost it.  We need to eat of the tree of life – through what Jesus did on His own tree – and thereby reenter the Garden and have the longing fulfilled to be reunited with our Creator. 

Only from that eternal vantage point can we shrug off anything that happens in the here and now with the knowledge that God will make all things right, eventually.  When we can’t do that, we end up needing a good strong shot of whatever to help us with the bitterness that slowly takes over the heart whose hope has been crushed over and over by a destiny that cannot deliver.

So, if we have no hope in Heaven, then a good strong drink is the only way we can seriously make it through the nagging internal longing that haunts us every day.  Sin was never part of God’s original plan for mankind and deep down inside, we know that.  That’s why it really rattles us when we are caught in the trap of sin, can sense that it is wrong on every level, but we can’t seem to find the way out on our own.

This was my life for 31 years before I met Jesus.  For me, I do not need any form of sedation because I am not perishing and through the grace of God I never have to be bitter of heart again since my longing for Heaven is always fulfilled in Christ.   Today, I will walk in the joy of having no need for anything but Jesus.

To Drink or Not to Drink?

It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, (Proverbs 31:4 ESV).

It is interesting that one of the top things on Bathsheba’s list of wisdom for her son, Solomon, was not to drink alcohol.  It ranks right under not having anything to do with loose women.  As you look at our society today, it is easy to see how far from this mark we have come.  In fact, we kind of expect that young men between the ages of 18-25 will actually go out and “sow their wild oats.”  Instead of telling them to stay clear of this, we tell them to designate a driver and use a condom.  This is pretty pathetic when you compare the two mindsets this closely.

It makes you wonder what our society would be like today if this was still the advice mothers gave to their sons.  And yet, it does require one other factor as well – that the sons would listen.  And, not unlike today, Solomon didn’t listen.  He went through a period of “sowing his own wild oats” in way that not many can because he was a King.  There was not a woman unavailable to him and he had his choice of the finest in wine – and anything else you can imagine.

Yet, at the end of his wild escapades, his sowing reaped for him the bitter truth of what his mother had initially told him.  The entire book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s commentary on what life is like when we live only for the gratification of the flesh.  It is probably one of the most depressing books in the Bible, second only to Lamentations, yet it still yields wisdom for anyone who is wise enough to glean form it:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV).

Solomon, like every other son that ever has live, is alive now, or will be born later, could save themselves a lot of grief and misery by applying the wisdom of the ages at which he finally arrived:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV).

I don’t have to be a son to know wisdom when I see it.  I, like Solomon, had to learn the hard way that all of the indulgences of my flesh only lead to death.  Today, I will choose life by fearing God and keeping His commands, to the best of my ability.

Are You A Servant or Just Serving?

Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? (Luke 17:8 TNIV)

It has well been said that you can test someone’s servanthood by treating them as a servant.   What you will find is that most “servants” are not grasping the true nature of a servant.  Anyone can serve someone else and even enjoy serving others because that’s their personality.  They are caretakers who love to take care of others.  Mothers wait on their children hand and foot not because they are servants, but because they are mothers. 

Serving is not the true test of servanthood. The real test of being a servant is how you act when you have done what you love to do, but it becomes expected and goes without appreciation, or you are asked to do more even in spite of all that you’ve already done.  And how you act is intricately tied to how you think about your act of service.  If we are ladened with ulterior motives – if I serve, I’ll be accepted; if I serve, I’ll be noticed; if I serve, I’ll be loved; if I serve, I’ll be served back; if I serve, …. you fill in the blank, then our service is not born out of a servant’s heart, but out of self-serving mindset.  The motive for service is where the rubber meets the road and separates the silver from the dross.  If our motive is simply to serve because that’s what Jesus told us to do and that’s what He did and we truly consider ourselves servants, then when people treat us as such, expecting us to wait on them hand and foot, asking for more than we want to give, and give nothing in return, then it will not affect our attitude one iota.

No wonder Jesus prefaced this area of Scripture with the assurance that if we have even a miniscule amount of faith, we can move the mountain of self that stands between us and the mindset of a true servant.

Whenever I am treated like a servant, I need to immediately check my attitude.  If I am offended, then I am walking in my flesh and not my spirit.  I will pray for God to grant me the tiny little bit of faith I need to suck it up and course correct.

Truth or Circumstances?

Blessed is anyone who doesn’t stumble on account of me (Matthew 11:6).

When people think of Jesus, many things come to mind, even for the unbeliever.  Prophet, Rabbi, Savior, Son of God.  And when we considered the things Jesus did, we have a line up that would be a headliner at any Las Vegas show.  Giving sight to the blind, healing a man who had been lame for 40 years and a women for 12, turning water into wine, feeding over 15,000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, and the mac daddy of them all – raising someone from the dead – oh, wait a minute, how about being raised Himself from the dead and returning to see over 500 people to prove it.  Yes, He would have definitely been in the top 3 contenders for Israel’s Got Talent. 

But not many would have ever listed stumbling as one of the things Jesus was known for and yet a careful reading of Scripture shows many who did stumble on account of Him – the Pharisees, the rich young ruler, the lawyers, John the Baptist, Judas, James, the brother of Jesus, and of course Peter, to name just a few.  But that list is not complete either because we can add our own names to it without really much hesitation.  We’ve all had the stumbling thoughts at one time or another – “God, where are You?  Why me?  Don’t You care? How long? Are you even there at all (our variation of John the Baptist’s question, ‘Are you the One?’)?”

We shouldn’t feel too terrible when we consider the company in which we find ourselves as stumblers.  In fact, Jesus Himself said:

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!  (Matthew 18:7 NIV)

In fact, as far back as Isaiah, God told the nation of Israel that the Messiah would be a stumbling block:

He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare (Isaiah 8:14 NIV).

God is not taken back when we stumble, He even says:

The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand (Psalm 37:23-24 NIV).

But what we do next is very important.  The above verse tells us that when we are delighting in the Lord, even though we stumble, we will not fall because God will uphold us.  That’s why Jesus told John the Baptist – don’t go there. 

The Amplified Bible gives a better understanding of what Jesus is actually saying to us in this verse:

And blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) is he who takes no offense at Me and finds no cause for stumbling in or through Me and is not hindered from seeing the Truth.

Jesus does not chide John for stumbling – He’s telling him that there is no blessing in it and it blocks us from seeing the truth.

The truth is that God is there, chose you specifically for the trial, does care, knows the exact length it will last, and is more real than the circumstances that cause us to lose hope.  But how do we keep these truths in our heart when we come to the place of stumbling.  The stumbling Apostle Peter has some great insights for us on that topic:

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble (2 Peter 1:10 NIV).

Do what things?  Go back five verses:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;  and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-8 NIV).

When we focus on growing in goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love, we will not stumble when God decides to do something we never expected.

If I focus on my circumstances, I’ll stumble.  If I focus on the truth, I’ll stand.  It’s up to me, which is why I am not a victim to anything or anyone, but more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus.