Gifts & Sin

James 1:16

So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

There’s no doubt that we are all gifted of God. We have talents and abilities granted by him for the benefit of others. Some encourage, some give, some show mercy, some preach, some teach, some organize, and some lead, among others.

Yet, an ability left to itself withers… the vessel and ability must serve. It is servitude, recognition of others, and dependency upon God that lifts an ability beyond the unused mundane to the excellence intended by the creator.

An excellent ability often unseen and unappreciated. Abilities that work in and around us as slightly as the whisper of the Spirit of God. Gently guided by Christ for the work of leading, guiding, and shaping individual lives into the Body of Christ.

We are then representatives of Christ to a fallen world. Yet, how do we represent when church members behave just as sinful as those beyond the door? Our veil of religious deceit must be replaced by confession and repentance. Sinners do not crave hypocrisy but the pureness of truth. Truth lived out by action, be deed, coming from the heart, whose hands were once stained by sin but now cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.