| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 17 |
Page 6 |
Instead, therefore, of thinking highly of himself because of the attractiveness of his gift or power, each man should accept it as something committed to him by God to be used. There is no room for contention as to which is greater, or for claiming that our particular form of doing good is superior to our neighbour’s. Instead of this each one should consecrate his own particular ability to God, and then use it. “Whether … ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry; or that teacheth, to his teaching; or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting: he that giveth, let him do it with liberality.” That is the way thinking soberly about our own life should inspire us to use our gift. Instead of boasting of our fine abilities and things of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, we should use our particular ability to its very utmost and in its own line. Many a person, with most meagre natural gifts, makes his life radiant by its service of love, while the man with the brilliant natural powers does nothing, his gifts, unused, dying in his brain and heart. It is a true word which Milton wrote:
“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race where the immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat.”
Thus there are many reasons against thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, and for thinking soberly. Noble gifts, instead of making us vain and self conceited, should inspire in us a sense of responsibility. We are to use our abilities, whether large or small, and then we must account for them at the last – not for the abilities as they were when first given to us, mere germs and possibilities, but for their development into their full power of usefulness, and then for their use in ways of blessing, unto the uttermost. If we understand this, we cannot but think soberly about our life.
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