Mission Statement

In classical sacrifices, the people get the good bits, and the gods get the refuse, the bits that would get thrown out otherwise.

Not our God. Leviticus (particularly Leviticus 3) describes the sacrifices that our LORD demanded from His people of Israel. God gets the kidneys, the tail, and all the fat. He gets the prime steak, He gets the best.

Today we do not literally give sacrifices of animals. For us the ultimate sacrifice has been made through our Lord, Christ Jesus. But should always be our ambition to do the same thing - to offer God the best of what we have, to offer Him the fat, and not the smoke and bones.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Spiritual Gifts

Have you ever done one of those dorky spiritual gift quizzes? I remember doing one. The main thing I remember was that I insisted on marking some of the questions as negative and as a result got negative 2270 for the spiritual gift of celibacy.
All dorkiness aside, the fact of the matter is that “spiritual gifts quizzes” and the like encourage us to be LAZY CHRISTIANS.

My friend Stephen, after reading a few posts here, decided that I have the spiritual gift of evangelism. I’m personally going to guess no. I am not especially gifted in that area. I find talking about God difficult at times (as in, a lot of the time!). I’m not gifted. But I strive to be obedient.

And that’s the thing. We use our lack of “spiritual gifting” in an area to claim that we are not meant to do anything for it. If I got a dollar for every time I heard a Christian say “I’m just not called to do that” or “That’s not my gifting” I’d be able to contribute the entire costs of an international adoption to a few families. Which is extremely worrying.

We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work, and that includes a whole lot of things that we are not gifted to do, naturally or spiritually. But God gives us the grace as the time comes. Not before, but during. And the result is that He is glorified.

Our only calling is to Him. Our only gift is Him. And to Him alone we must be obedient.

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