Using the Gifts by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1907

Using the Gifts

By C. M. S.

We rob ourselves of much that God designs should be ours when we neglect to seek a preparation for the work he designs we should do.

To each person endowed with reason God has given gifts for whose exercise and development that soul is held responsible. It matters not how forbidding the environment, there is a debt upon that soul which none but he can discharge. It matters not how humble the birth, how lowly the occupation, the demand of the Creator is upon every one of us for service. It is a just demand, for has he not purchased us with his own blood out of the very jaws of death?

Because we have not the gifts another possesses does not excuse us from using to the utmost of our power the gifts God has bestowed upon us. It is not for us to choose our endowment. That is in God's hands. “All these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will.” 1 Cor. 12: 11. The gift God bestows upon you, use to his glory. You may consider it nothing. He does not so consider it, or he never would have bestowed it. Rest assured it was precious in his sight, or you would not possess it.

God's gifts were bestowed for a purpose, and that purpose can not be accomplished while they are unused. He says they were given that we all might “attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error.” Eph. 4: 13, 14. But it is not possible that the “gifts of the Spirit” should accomplish that work in us while we leave them unappropriated and unused. We can never “come into the unity of the faith” while practising idleness toward the cause of God. We can not possess a “knowledge of the Son of God,” while refusing to labor for the souls for whom he died. We can never be “a full-grown man” in the Christian sense until our labor for souls has taught us the worth of a soul; and “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,” how can it be attained but through the school which he himself found necessary for his perfecting?

The child is not expected to have the judgment necessary for its guidance, either temporally or spiritually. With the gifts of the Spirit unused, we are reckoned as “children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine;” but the gifts appropriated, developed and strengthened by use, furnish ballast, sail power, and anchoring facilities. They make our voyage straighter, steadier, and safer toward the eternal haven.

With every professed member of the household of Christ using to the utmost of his ability the gift or gifts bestowed upon him “for the perfecting of the saints,” the cause of God presents a strong, impregnable front; the work goes with rapidity and force; and the coming of Christ is hastened. If we are not busy with the Master's business, using whatever gift it has pleased God to bestow, we may be sure Satan will put something into our hands to take our attention and absorb our energies and means. Then let us work. Let us lay plans to broaden and strengthen whatever work we may be doing. While praying for opportunities, let us practise using on those we already have. We are in a busy world. Let us be busy about the greatest business in the world—the third angel's message. C. M. S.