Best Buy-Back
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. James 1:17 NASB
From above – “Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.”[1] What does it mean to give God your best? What are you best at? What gift did He give you that makes you the best? If James is correct, then that perfect gift that you were given came from Him. Think about the thing that makes you the best at who you are. What is it that makes you shine? No, not the product of that gift. Not the money or the trophies or the books or the titles. Think about what makes you special. Maybe it’s your ability to quickly assess a situation. Maybe it’s how you organize things. Maybe it’s your ability to communicate with others, or to empathize. Maybe it’s your management of resources or your ability to lead. Whatever it is, it came from above.
The Greek anothen that James uses here is the same word used in John 3. Of course, in John 3 it’s routinely translated as “again,” not “from above.” But that’s a mistake. When Yeshua tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above, he’s talking about the giver of the gift. James is talking about the gift itself. Now that you have your gift in mind, you can ask yourself, “Is this what I am giving back to Him?” Oswald Chambers points out that true worship is a return of what He gave. Perhaps you thought worship meant going to a service, singing songs, saying prayers, performing certain rituals and giving away some of the money in your pocket. That may be nice, but it isn’t worship. Worship is returning to Go what He invested. With your gift in mind, are you returning it to Him?
How? How are you giving it back? If it’s not the product of the gift, but rather the gift itself, how are you sending it back to the Father of lights? How are you taking deliberate steps to put what you were given on the altar for Him? It’s not an easy question to answer. First you have to have done the homework of determining what the real gift is. Then you have to separate it from the results of using the gift. Then you have to figure out how the gift itself can be returned. Not easy. It might take a very long time to understand how this is done. It’s much simpler to just give back some of the results, but therein lies the problem. What is easy to give back probably isn’t what is necessary to give back.
Maybe one example will help. Mother Teresa was given a gift. She had incredible empathy for the poor. In fact, the gift was so overpowering that it took control of her entire life. She embraced that gift and turned it into a lifetime of service. She gave back what God gave her by spending all she was given in service to the unlovable. It wasn’t the results that she gave back. She didn’t dedicate orphanages to God or give Him the uplifted lives of those she touched. She gave back herself because the gift was who she really was. Now see if you can do the same.
Topical Index: from above, anothen, gift, give back, worship, James 1:17
[1] Oswalt Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, January 6th.
Skip asks a couple tough questions this morning. What is your gift and How do you give it back? As I’ve grown up navigating through the Christian paradigm I was always challenged by others to identify my “spiritual” gifts. It has always been difficult for me to do so. Many times I relied on others to help me out in answering this question. One of the more memorable helps along the way came from a friend and mentor who said I had the gift of compassion. While flattered, to me it was almost laughable at the time. In a way though, it kind of started to fit. While the exterior rarely showed this to others, my actions did; or at least so I was told. In many ways, I think I started to receive that gift after I was told I had it. Make sense? Perhaps we all have the potential to receive any of the gifts God would give us, it just a matter of actually using them, giving them back. Since being told I was compassionate, I guess I’ve had moments that would be considered giving that gift back to God. For the most part, probably not as often as I should. As I continue to seek the path He gives us to walk, it is easier. My ways are definitely not His.
As I consider other gifts that I may have been given at this point in my life, I would self identify one as empathy. I have so many friends and family that I want to share what I am learning about God, but as Skip said, I am finding it hard to give it back. Why? While I have moved on from the paradigm that once defined how I view God and His Word, they have not. While my heart aches to see them grasp what has been revealed to me, I am learning that they just don’t have eyes to see. Been there! Skip asks another tough question this morning — How are you taking deliberate steps to put what you were given on the altar for Him? Right now I’d have to say that I’m continuing to be open to being teachable so that I can better meet people where they are. It is one thing to see others in a place you’ve been, it’s quite another to go back there and wrestle with the things of the past.
Perhaps it is like Jacob at the crossing at Jabbok. As Skip offers, maybe Jacob was wrestling with dust (himself). What I took away from Skip’s presentation this past weekend was that we have to look at the old and new man in a much different way. We must realize that the old man (the name we make for ourself as he put it) might be “passing away” but will never completely go away. That’s life — at least until we are actually made new. We will wrestle with the reluctance to give back to God what He gives us all our lives. Until then I pray that God would give me more patience, now there is a gift I could use more of.
I spent yesterday with a couple of girlfriends cleaning a place for a woman who is sick and disheartened. It should probably be condemned, the roof leaks so bad. She lives with three geese, and treats them much better than she treats herself. Lots of feathers! We had so much fun. So did she. She said it was the very first time, ever, starting since birth, that anyone had EVER treated her that way. I’m sure she is going to crash for the next week, she overdid herself so much. Me? Too fun for words. I routinely do work like this for a living, but this was different. Instead of having to tiptoe around a more or less upset person who is getting their world disturbed, this one was happy and grateful. What a difference! I told her so, too.
It struck me a few years ago that time should be tithed, too, and so I started offering my time. That was reinforced by someone on this site pointing out that every third year the tithe was supposed to be given directly to the poor, just because they were poor. What fun! Today this understanding got capped off with realizing that I should be giving the ability itself back. Instead of saying that all I can do is this, I should be saying “Hey, this is something that I have gotten rather good at doing, so I should do this for Him”. What can He do with a few cents from me? Limited. What can He do when I myself show up in the offering plate? Limitless.
TA LOVE SONG LYRICS
There’s a wren in a willow wood
Flies so high, sings so good
And he brings to you, what he sings to you
And the love in his lullaby
Seems to tell me if I try
I could fly for you
Lover I wanna try for you cause
I wanna sing you a love song
I wanna rock you in my arms all night long
I wanna get to know you
I wanna show you the peaceful feeling of my home
(Yes God, I want to try for you. )
Summer thunder on moon-bright days
Northern lights in the skys ablaze
I’ll bring to you, if you let me sing to you
Silver wings in a firery sky
Show the trail of our love and
I wanna sing to you, love is what i bring to you
I wanna sing to you
Oh, I wanna sing you a love song
I wanna rock you in my arms all night long
I wanna get to know you
I wanna show you the peaceful feeling of my home
(Thank you, YHVH, for this ‘home’. Thank you for loving me!
I wanna sing you a love song. )
Taking a cue from Carl. ?
Often, success at something is so difficult to measure. Yet I start each day with this one goal. Sometimes I succeed, at least in my eyes, and some times I fail, without question. Come from love and be your best. That may be all I can really expect of myself. And so I hope that I can return the gift of love. At least I know that I’ve tried.
Gifts of Grace
What do we have that we have not received? – And the answer is? “Nothing.” EVERY good gift and EVERY perfect gift is from above! Life itself is a gift. Our family, our friends, our food, our fellowship, our future – ALL of it is a grace-gift, a gift from our (always) good God.
It’s all good. Who has “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.. ~ Our salvation is a gift. A perfect gift. For God Himself, through Christ has given unto us the perfect Gift, (the Gift that keeps on giving!), in giving unto us the Word incarnated into human flesh, our LORD Jesus (who is the) Christ.
(Again) Who has given unto us (only?) “all things that pertain unto life and godliness?” And what “all” does this include? A long, long list! May we name just a few? “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control; (and btw) — against such things there is no law!.…
Each of these “Gifts of Grace” deserve at least a chapter in a Book, and each of these has been demonstrated (I’m from Missouri, — “show me”) in the life of the Lamb, the One sent from God.
This “eats on me.” In Star Wars parlance, there is a great disturbance in the force, for I have been taught (thanks mom and dad!), when Someone gives or does something nice for you, the “right thing,” the polite thing, to do (minimally) is to say “thank you.” When we realize or recognize these things to be the “Gifts of Grace” – our “right response” (that is, if we are “rightly-related”) is nothing less than a grateful heart! And amen, Celia Thaxter, “There shall be Eternal Summer in the grateful heart.”
But all is not “sunshine and roses,” “for in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,..” Friend, “ungrateful = unhappy!” Without gratefulness there is no joy! May we never be found to be among those who fail to “count their blessings!”
And btw, it is the “goodness of God” (His benevolent, lavish grace!) that leads us to repentance! (Romans 2.4)
What a blessed prayer this is, — a much needed “tune-up” for us all!
Come Thou “Fount of every blessing”
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love
Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I come
And I hope by thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wondering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood
O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander LORD I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above!
Where are those people whose God is the LORD??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqY…
Yes, Mother Teresa was amazing and without question gave back herself to God… but I’m certain He is VERY pleased with the “results” of her giving back.