Declare Your Design

I ran across this paragraph on a website today while doing a search on Spiritual Gifts for someone at work:

Declare Your Design: "Please check your Spiritual Gift boxes and press submit. Spiritual Gifts are your gifts from God given in celebration of your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. The Bible describes the gifts, and as you serve, you will begin to see your gifting emerge. These are not natural talents or passions. These are additional gifts only Christians possess. To help you see where your gifts may be you can use man-made spiritual gifting tests that are available on the internet. "

The line that I have a really hard time with is, "These are additional gifts only Christians possess." As if one day after submitting my life to Christ, I wake up and suddenly have the gift of mercy. I didn't have it last week, because I wasn't a Christian then (hypothetically speaking), but today I am able to show great compassion and mercy because now I am gifted. Maybe this is not completely what they are trying to say, but that's the conclusion that I drew. I do think that as God's creation, we bear His image. We have been fashioned with certain traits and qualities that reflect the heart of God, and these traits and qualities are prominent in Christians and non-Christians alike. I think people are gifted in the area of administration, giving, teaching, mercy, the prophetic, etc. before they ever come to know Christ because they bear the image of their Creator. These giftings are used for the utmost good when we submit ourselves to God, and potentially for destruction or harm by those not submitted to Him, but to deny their existence in a life just because a person may not be a follower of Jesus is a little arrogant. This is my opinion, please feel free to disagree.

Anger: Good or Bad?

It's amazing how many conversations I have had over the past few weeks revolving around the emotion of anger. It seems as though I am surrounded by people who are struggling with the validity of allowing themselves to feel this strong emotion. I think the Church has taught us that to feel anger is wrong. Anger and love, peace, joy cannot coexist with oneanother. It is the exact opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. So, with that in mind, what are we to do with this very real emotion of anger? I think many Christians, including myself, tend to bury this emotion, denying it's reality and believe that there must be something seriously wrong because "good" Christians don't get angry. I have been very relieved to find out that I am not alone. Dan Allender has a very interesting thought on this subject:

Love is not an absence of anger. Unfortunately, Christians have often neutered love by putting it at odds with anger. Love is not inconsistent with a holy hatred; in fact, an absence of righteous anger makes love anemic and devoid of passion.

I know that the Bible is very clear in its imperative not to sin in our anger, but that doesn't make feeling anger invalid. He who disagrees obviously has not read through the Psalms very thoroughly. Many times I've questioned why such depressing Psalms charged with negative emotion are in the Bible. I guess if anything, God is saying that He will meet us in whatever state we are in. We don't have to be happy-go-lucky all the time in order to be spiritual. God is not afraid of our anger, and I believe that He welcomes the raw honesty of our hearts before Him, anger and all.

Bring on the Questions

I received an email from one of the professors at Bethany with the following quote:

Oswald Chambers has said that we don’t truly own our faith unless we have struggled over it in some form. Belief is not pure acceptance. God desires interaction and He revels in our working through the process of believing Him. He wrestled with Jacob and even let him win.

So don’t be afraid to question. Even doubt is a legitimate step in the process of faith. God welcomes the serious questioner. It means we care enough to persist in finding the answers we need. The person who is threatened by questions has much too small of an understanding of God.

This really struck a chord in me as this process of questioning is something that I have struggled with over the past few years. I was brought up with the mindset that to question God, or the Biblical teaching that I received was somehow sinful, or at least a sign of my lacking faith. I know that ultimately I can never fully understand God nor completely comprehend His ways, but there's something about asking questions and wrestling with the deep things of God that makes me want to know Him more. There is personal ownership in the sometimes difficult pursuit of knowledge that I would not possess if I did not seek it out on my own. Most of my life I have based my belief of God on what others taught simply because I trusted that they knew what they were talking about. I never thought about searching the Scriptures out in order to gain a more intimate knowledge of God. I was satisfied to let someone else do the work. The promise given to those who search Him out wholeheartedly is that He will be found. He will honor the seeking heart with the revelation of who He is and who we are in Him. It's almost as if God is sitting in heaven saying, "Go ahead, bring on the questions...ask, seek, knock and see what you will find."

I just can't say no!

Tonight, Heather and I went to the Half Price Bookstore in St. Louis Park. I like this store a lot. In fact, it's kind of a dangerous place for me to go because I usually find a couple books that I want to buy and it's hard to resist because the books are so cheap. This particular trip was to sell books, not to buy. Heather had a box full of books given to her and I had left over books from the Bluer garage sale. While we were waiting to receive their offer for our books, I wandered back to the religion section. I normally peruse the shelves and look for particular authors like Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, AW Tozer, or Elisabeth Elliot. As I was scanning the shelves looking to see a name that I recognized, a book that I thought I would never see at a store like this jumped out at me. There it was, Pleasures Evermore by Sam Storms sticking out like a sore thumb. I first heard about this book when I was at a conference down in Kansas City a few years ago. The author is associated with the International House of Prayer down in Kansas City and I have heard great things about the book. I guess I just never expected to see a Kansas City IHOP author at the Half Price Bookstore. Anyways, I'm standing in the aisle knowing that I just can't pass up a deal like this. If I were to buy this book from IHOP it would cost me at least twice what I would be paying...I was hooked. Now this is the part that kills me. I brought in at least a dozen books to sell and walked out with one book that was "worth" the dozen I sold plus $2. I'm glad I bought the book, but something about that whole transaction just seemed wrong. I guess I'm just a sucker that can't say no!