Jesus and Your Talents

Michael Hollinger wrote once: It’s a good thing that God is less concerned about our ability to value resources than he is concerned about our ability to use them. In our lives, however, we tend to have the reverse problem. Sometimes we overvalue ourselves. Generally instead of overvaluing our own resources, the problem tends to be that we overlook what we actually have.It’s very easy to think that because we don’t have as much money as the guy down the street that it should really be up to him to fix it. 

We think that the other guy is smarter, so he should be the one to solve the problem. We think those folks are more spiritual, so we’ll let them pray about it. Therefore we believe that since that church has more people, they are the ones responsible for evangelizing this part of the world, I’ve done my part.

The point is pretty simple actually: Don’t focus on what you do not have. That’s not important. Focus instead on what you do. As a child of God, you have a loving Master who, from the beginning of time picked you as his special child, worthy of doing good things for him. As Ephesians 2:10 says: He has created us in Christ Jesus to live lives filled with good works that he has prepared for us to do. I know that the One who gives us a job to do is never going to put his own child out to pasture without the resources needed to do the job.

We just need to remember that ultimately it’s the Master’s resources in the Master’s time that bring the increase to our church families and our own personal families.  We are actually sitting on a spiritual gold mine as children of God. We have a great pool of talent and resources that just needs to be used.  It may mean that we shift our focus to the people in our neighborhoods or in our areas. There are people herein your neighborhood and with whom you are friends who need the Gospel, and you have it. You just need to use what you have to get it to them. 

We can sit around here all day doing assessments of what we do and do not have, silently mourning our state, or we can get out there and use what we have to the glory of God.  We can't sit and say, "I'm the only one doing anything.  Others help would make it go that much better." 

In the end, the results are up to our God, Jesus and our choice. He isn’t going to hold us accountable for the numbers or the money that we do or do not have – just our faithfulness in using what he’s given us. 

Are you ready to be a part of something new and exciting? 

It is time to use your talents for God. 

Seeking New LIfe

“Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do." - Steve Goodier, Quote Magazine, in May, 1990 R.D.

I am amazed a how our so called "Christian Family" can be at peace with themselves when they are constantly on the lookout for the rotting meat in a desert of sinful brothers and sisters.  Yes, we have people in our churches who sin and make mistakes.  Some have gone on to be great men of the church.  Paul would be one example, and he was a murderer.  Peter was accused by Jesus as an agent for Satan.  I believe that they were forgiven.

Those who cast stones and feast on the death of the past need to remember that God is a forgiving God.  He takes vengeance upon those who attack His family.  If you are the one determining the validity of a Christian brother or sister's relationship with God and their sincere remorse for their sins by attacking their past you are a vulture who craves to dine on death and putrid rottenness.  

We, those of us who are in Christ, need to repent and turn back to God and once we have done this, live for Him.  We can never go back and change the past, but we can, with God's help, move forward in the knowledge that we are still children of God and forgiven.  We seek a new life everyday.  I am so thankful that I have no man to answer to for my salvation.

When we attack a brother in Christ, no matter the reason, we sin!  Love keeps no record of wrong is what Paul told the church at Corinth.  How are we doing?