Questions and Answers

Question: Do we choose God through accepting through our choosing His gifts or do we receive with out works the gifts of God?

 “God gives Gifts not Presents to be received by our actions”

Answer: It appears to me that some people compare the gifts of God with receiving presents.  When you receive a present, one it is wrapped, and two you either have to hold out you hand to receive it or make the effort to pick it up, and then you have to unwrap it.  If the present is something you don’t want you can either return it to the person you gave it to or re-gift it as they say to someone else.  It probably would be more correct to say re-present it as you forward the present to another person.  Fruitcake is a good example of something commonly re-presented.  What about a gift?  Well it certainly can carry two different meanings or definitions.  One definition is that a gift can also mean present, if you are speaking in physical terms, you cannot give a spiritual gift, only God can do that, and He does not wrap them up and hand them to you.

A gift can be something entirely different than a present when you are speaking in the spiritual realm of gifts.  God has given us many gifts as in spiritual gifts or gifts of the spirit.  The gifts of the spirit are not something you chose whether to have or not to have, but what God has given you to have and to use for His purpose.  It is true that some people have a God given spiritual gifts and they do not want to use that gift.  Whether they want to use the gift or not the fact remains that they still have the spiritual gift God gave them.  Spiritual gifts are not physical and they do not come wrapped in some seasonal or holiday paper tied in a fancy ribbon, and topped off with a clever bow.  Spiritual gifts are given in the form of a talent or in the form of salvation.  That brings up another gift type, which are vocational gifts given to us by our Father in heaven.  These gifts as do spiritual gifts differ from person to person.  They are the gifts we were given to perform some task that enables us to earn a living by contributing to the communities around us.

There is still another gift, only this gift seems to be confused with the presents that come wrapped and need you to either pick up or reach out to receive as some try to demonstrate.  This is the gift that Jesus gives us, which is the gift of salvation.  Along with salvation this gift also brings you to discipleship, believing, and having faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that He died for your sins, bringing you to repentance, and having an everlasting relationship with God.  It is a gift from God and it too is spiritual in that it comes from our Lord Jesus while He paid the ransom to save us from eternal death, and bring us back into the right relationship with God our Father in heaven to share in the inheritance of eternal life.  It is a gift that you cannot re-gift, though you can refuse the gift.  You then choose eternal death, because the result of refusing God’s mercy, grace, and eternal relationship and life through God’s forgiveness is eternal death.  There are only two results, heaven, or hell and there is nothing in between the two.

The Gifts from God should rather be compared to saving one’s life.  If a person has drowned are you going to wait until that person tells you that they want to be saved?  In other words should you wait for them to accept that you are going to save them? And, if a person lies unconscious in a car wreck or a burning building will you wait until they say they want to be saved?  The answer is No.  I hope you would give the gift of doing what you can to save that person without hesitation.  God sees us drowned in our sins, unconscious to be able to save ourselves, (you know, “forgive them Father for they know not what they do:).  Christ acts on our behalf to save our lives, and gives us that eternal life and relationship with Him.

How do we come to this conclusion?  The conclusion can only come from the very word of God.  If we say we choose God then we can boast about ourselves, but if we realize it was Jesus who called us and saves us then we can boast in the Lord.

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ESV ³⁰ He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

James 4:6 ESV ⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

            We did not choose Christ, but Christ chose us.  You cannot just confess with your lips that you believe in Christ, The nameless one confesses with his lips and surely not his heart.  We must believe in our hearts and then when we confess with our lips God who knows all things can see that the Holy Spirit regenerated our belief and then our belief is s seen by God as being true.

John 15:16 ESV ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

John 15:19 ESV ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

            Lets be sure we understand what it is to believe that Christ is Lord and that God raised Him from the Grave.  The nameless one believes Christ is real, but he has no faith that Christ is his Lord and savior.  It is the faith that is given to us through the Holy Spirit that helps us believe in our hearts. And once we have faith and believe Christ is our Lord and Savior, we now can confess with our mouth.

Romans 10:8-10 ESV ⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV ¹⁴ The natural person does not accept (agree with) the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 12:3 ESV ³ Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Philippians 2:10-11 ESV ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

            The only gift that was wrapped up for us was not wrapped in paper, bound by ribbons, and decorated with a bow, rather, He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laying in a manger, He was the baby Jesus who brought with Him salvation and an eternal relationship and life with our God in heaven.  Do you still think it is your choice?  Let me know how that really works for you, because when you make the choice you must be perfect in every way, but if Christ has made the choice then He has not died in vain.  Its quite simple.

John 3:16-17 ESV ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Amen, Amen, Amen.