http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16559071/how-could-god-acquit-the-guilty
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Brother Ass: Stewarding the Body as Christian Hedonists
“Man has held three views of his body,” writes C.S. Lewis in the “Eros” chapter of his 1960 book The Four Loves.
First there is that of those ascetic Pagans who called it the prison or the “tomb” of the soul, and [others] to whom it was a “sack of dung,” food for worms, filthy, shameful, a source of nothing but temptation to bad men and humiliation to good ones. Then there are the Neo-Pagans, the nudists and the sufferers from Dark Gods, to whom the body is glorious. But thirdly we have the view which St. Francis expressed by calling his body “Brother Ass.”
Lewis then says, “All three may be . . . defensible; but give me St. Francis for my money.” He continues,
Ass is exquisitely right because no one in his senses can either revere or hate a donkey. It is a useful, sturdy, lazy, obstinate, patient, lovable and infuriating beast; deserving now a stick and now a carrot; both pathetically and absurdly beautiful. So the body. (93)
And so we now move to address the topic of body stewardship, which may seem like a surprising turn in our spring chapel series on the virtues. And, as Lewis saw 60 years ago in his day (and as he summarized three main enduring views of the human body throughout history), so we see them too today. We have our ascetic Pagans, or digital Pagans, who feel their body to be a prison. The body holds them back; screens and virtual reality create new possibilities. Life, for many, has become shockingly sedentary.
On the other hand, those same screens show image after image of meticulously sculpted and enhanced bodies — Lewis’s Neo-Pagans, half-nudists, at least, for whom the body is glorious, or must be glorious no matter how much dieting and exercise and surgery it takes.
And third, we have the road perhaps least traveled. Saint Francis’s road. Lewis’s road. Our road — the road of Christian Hedonists — Christian Hedonists. Today’s non-Christian hedonists may divide themselves up pretty well between sedentary, digital Paganism and semi-exhibitionist Neo-paganism, while we Christian Hedonists are gladly left with “Brother Ass.”
Now, I know the word Ass is arresting and hard to ignore. It accents our natural, sinful laziness and obstinance — the “infuriating beast” deserving the stick, as Lewis says. But I don’t want you to miss the affection and warmth in the word Brother. I don’t think Lewis says “Brother” lightly. Just as Jesus doesn’t say “brother” lightly. I don’t say it lightly. Brother accents the usefulness, sturdiness, patience, and lovability of these bodies, which are, Lewis says, “absurdly beautiful.” And he steers a careful course between reverence and beauty — they are not to be revered, but acknowledged and appreciated as “absurdly beautiful” — or as the psalm says, “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).
As Christian Hedonists
Let me just say, I’m a pastor (and adjunct professor). I’m not a personal trainer. I am not a dietician. In fact, I don’t know if I have anything to say here about diet — except a general plug for moderation, and a general warning about drinking sugar — but as a Christian Hedonist, I do have an interest in how the body serves not just natural joy but supernatural joy. And because this is a college and seminary chapel, it might be good to say something about the mind as well. And I hope, as Christian Hedonists, that the flavor of these next few moments would feel far more like the carrot than the stick.
“Working and pushing these bodies, as God designed them, serves Christian learning, joy, and love.”
Question One of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, as many of you know, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The answer is this: “That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” We could talk about how the soul affects the body. But in these moments together, I’d like to focus on stewarding the body — and in particular moving the body, exercising the body, even training the body — in service of the soul.
So let me take you to one of many important texts in the Bible on the body, make some observations, and then consider how working and pushing these bodies, as God designed them, serves Christian learning, and Christian joy, and Christian love.
First Corinthians 6, start in the middle of verse 13:
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. . . . Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:13–14, 19–20)
Four observations:
1. Your Body Is for Jesus
“For the Lord” means for drawing attention to Jesus, for making Jesus look good. Verse 13: “your body is for the Lord.” Verse 20: “So glorify God in your body.” We are made, Genesis 1 tells us, in the image of God. Images are irreducibly visible. We were made to image the invisible God in his visible world — to draw attention to him, not have it terminate on ourselves.
As Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Speak in such a way, and live in such a way in these bodies that others see what you do in your body — they see your good deeds — and they give glory, not to you, not to your body, but to your Father in heaven, and his Son, Jesus Christ.
2. Jesus Is for Your Body
He designed it. He gave it. He took a human body himself — and still has it. He is for your body’s good. Which means he is for us stewarding our bodies well. He is not against some modest efforts at upkeep. He is for that — wind in our sails.
3. God Will Raise Your Body
He raised Jesus’s body. Jesus is the firstfruits; we are the harvest. If you are in Christ, God will raise your body, and glorify your body. It will be changed, and far better, when he raises it. But it will be your body and modest upkeep now, especially in the service of learning and joy and love, is not a waste.
4. God Dwells Now in Your Body
If you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. He is “within you.” Your body is a temple, a dwelling place, for God. So your body is yours but not “your own.” You didn’t make it. God did. You didn’t buy it back from sin and Satan; Jesus did. And you don’t dwell alone in it; God the Spirit dwells “within you.”
Consider, then, how working and pushing these bodies, as God designed them, serves Christian learning, and Christian joy, and Christian love.
For Christian Learning
As I have aged, I’ve sensed more and more tangibly how much better I feel after I’ve exercised. And in particular, I feel like I can think clearer, and more effortlessly, and more creatively. I feel like I have more energy, not only to move but to think and work hard with my mind. But is this just in my head, or is it real? I’ve heard other people talk about it too, but I want more clarity about my perceived mental clarity.
A few years ago, I found a book by a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, John Ratey. He had spent most of his career on ADHD and co-written some of the key texts on ADHD. He was a former amateur athlete and took notice over the years of what amazing medicine exercise proved to be for his patients. So eventually, he put his findings together in the 2008 book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Now, if any of this sounds too good to be true, remember what his prescription is: exercise. Apparently, many want to just take a pill. Few want to exercise. Here’s how he opens the book,
We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important — and fascinating — than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain. (3, emphasis added)
He continues, “To keep our brains at peak performance, our bodies need to work hard” (4). “The brain responds like muscles do, growing with use, withering with inactivity” (5) — and movement activates the brain. And Ratey explains how it is that exercise improves learning — which matters to us as Christians. We call ourselves disciples, which means learners. Christianity is a teaching movement, and a learning movement — in Christ, we are no less than lifelong learners. Learning matters to me as a pastor and editor and adjunct professor. And I hope it matters to you as a student, and as a Christian. So, here’s “how exercise improves learning on three levels”:
first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells. . . . (53)
Active bodies improve learning. I’ll say more in a minute about how. But there’s the first reason: for Christian learning. Second, then, for Christian joy — that is, natural joy leading to supernatural joy.
For Christian Joy
Hippocrates, the father of medicine (four centuries before Christ), said, “Eating alone will not keep a man well; he also must take exercise.” Hippocrates also learned to treat depression with a long walk. And if that didn’t seem to help, he advised taking another: “Walking is the best medicine,” he said — in the pursuit of joy, a happy soul.
One of the key truths for which we stand at Bethlehem College & Seminary and Desiring God — and perhaps the most distinctive one — is that we believe enjoying God is essential to glorifying God as we ought. To be bored or uninterested in him is to dishonor him, whatever motions we go through with our bodies. And so, vital for our fulfilling the very purpose and calling of our lives is our enjoying, delighting in, being satisfied, in our souls, with who God is for us in Christ.
In terms of the carrot, the angle that has proved most helpful for me over the years in motivating and sustaining body stewardship through regular exercise is reckoning with how it supports the pursuit of joy in God. The little bit of intense exercise that I do is, in its highest and best form, about enjoying God, which glorifies him.
Getting Energy from Expending Energy
I am not mainly motivated by living longer. “To depart and be with Christ . . . is far better” (Philippians 1:23). And I am not motivated much by looking fit and healthy. For me, those motivations are inadequate. For me, the driving motivation under the banner of enjoying more of God is the energy I get from expending energy. And that’s first emotional energy (we’ll talk about the other in a minute). When I exercise regularly, I feel better. Not only do I feel like I think clearer, but I seem to sleep better, and I’m generally happier.
“Regular exercise puts my body and soul into a better position to clearly see and deeply savor who God is in Christ.”
Regular exercise puts my body and soul — and their complicated and mysterious relationship — into a better position to clearly see and deeply savor who God is in Christ. And so I want to put natural joy (and alertness and attention and energy and resilience) to use to serve spiritual, Christian, supernatural joy.
I said I’d say more about how this works — how bodily movement and exertion serve our natural joy. Back to the Harvard psychiatrist, who says,
Going for a run is like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin because, like the drugs, exercise elevates these neurotransmitters. It’s a handy metaphor to get the point across, but the deeper explanation is that exercise balances neurotransmitters — along with the rest of the neurochemicals in the brain. (38)
Miracle Grow for the Brain
But let’s go one step deeper, and stop here. Knowing a little bit of the mechanism helps me:
“BDNF [Brain Deprived Neurotrophic Factor, “Miracle Grow” for the brain] gathers in reserve pools near the synapses and is unleashed when we get our blood pumping. In the process, a number of hormones from the body are called into action to help. . . . During exercise, these factors push through the blood-brain barrier, a web of capillaries with tightly packed cells that screen out bulky intruders such as bacteria. . . . [O]nce inside the brain, these factors work with BDNF to crank up the molecular machinery of learning. They are also produced within the brain and promote stem-cell division, especially during exercise. . . . The body was designed [!] to be pushed, and in pushing our bodies we push our brains too. (51–53)
We know that “bodily training is of some value,” and godliness all the more (1 Timothy 4:8) — but one of the reasons I take “bodily training” with such seriousness, rather than ignoring it, is precisely because of how it serves the joy and strength and stability of my soul.
So, there’s the Harvard psychiatrist. What about Christian voices? Well, I haven’t been aware of many, at least in our circles, over the years. But I did edit a chapter one time on exercise in a book called Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. The chapter was called “Brothers, Bodily Training Is of Some Value.”
John talks there about “the correlation between the condition of the body and the condition of the soul” (183); he says that “consistent exercise has refining effects on our mental and emotional stability” (185). And one of the motivations he points to, and now other Christian voices are chiming in, is energy — in the service of doing good for others. So not just Christian learning, and Christian joy, but finally Christian love.
For Christian Love
Not only does regular exercise make me feel like I think clearer, and I feel happier, and more ready to pursue spiritual joy, but I also feel stronger and more ready to exert bodily effort, whether mental or physical, for the sake of others. I’ve also found that pummeling or disciplining (Greek hupōpiazō) my body, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:27, strengthens my will, and chases away laziness, in all of life. Regular exercise makes me more active, rather than passive or lazy, in every sphere and every relationship — not the least of which is relating to God through his word and prayer. But also for others.
Too Tired to Love
Here are the other voices. In 2019, we published a short article at Desiring God, called “Remember the Body,” by pastor Mark Jones in Vancouver, speaking, like Piper, to fellow pastors, with clearly broader applications:
Physical exertion is an important part of normal human life. . . . [I’m] persuaded that a lot of pastors should jump on a bike, go for a run, walk, or build some modest muscle, and they’d likely get more work done. A lack of discipline in areas such as food, exercise, and drink typically reflects a lack of discipline in other areas of the Christian life. . . . Exercise is a friend [Brother?] of the Christian, and one that, unless prohibited by health reasons, should be part of the ordinary Christian life.
About the same time, I came across the 2017 Crossway book Reset by David Murray, pastor and professor. He says, “Exercise and proper rest patterns generate about a 20 percent energy increase in an average day, while exercising three to five times a week is about as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression” (79).
Finally, in his late 2020 book on church leadership, Paul Tripp writes about his newfound appreciation for stewarding well the bodies God gave us. He realized, beginning with himself, that “widespread church and ministry leadership gluttony is robbing us of both gospel consistency and physical energy.” He continues,
Regular exercise boosts and builds energy. Perhaps many of us are tired all the time not because of the rigorous demands of ministry but because of the lack of rigorous physical exercise in our normal routine. . . . [T]hese are not ancillary issues. (Lead, 82)
Modest Path
Now, before we get going down any Neo-Pagan paths, let’s bring it back to “Brother Ass” — beloved, obstinate, useful, not revered and not hated, pathetically and absurdly beautiful, Brother Ass.
Mark Jones uses the word modest which I appreciate. He says, “build some modest muscle” — which I think will serve most of us well in our age of extremes related to our bodies. On the one hand, we feel the pull of our world’s sedentary patterns: riding in cars, mesmerized by screens. We have indulged ancient instincts, designed for days when food was scarce, to intuit how to move as little as possible. But thank God, we’re not living in times of famine. Just deadly excess.
On the other hand, we find the fitness junkies, pushing back against sedentary assumptions, but for what reason? “Well-being” as enjoying life more today, not just someday far off, is doubtless more honorable than a brazen pursuit of self-glory. But as Christians we have more to say, critically more, about fitness as stewarding these remarkable creations of our Lord we call bodies.
Fit for What?
I do think “fitness” is a word we can work with as Christians. We just need to ask, Fit for what? Fit to draw attention on Instagram? Fit to draw eyes on a stage, or half-clad? Or fit to do others good? Fit to live up to the modest and important calling we have as Christians to love others and use these bodies to serve and bless and help others?
Paul twice uses a phrase — in 2 Timothy 2:21 and Titus 3:1 — that might be a good rallying cry for the modest upkeep of these physical bodies: “ready for every good work.”
We not only want to learn well, which is critical for disciples. And we not only want to have spiritual joy, which is critical in glorifying Jesus as we ought. We also want to fulfill our calling to use these bodies to do others good — and in such a way that others see our good works, in these bodies, and do not give glory to us but to our Father in heaven, and to Jesus.
“We tend to overestimate what can be done in the short run, and underestimate what can be done in the long run.”
And for most of us, we will be well served by modest upkeep. Subtle changes in our default mindset about minimizing movement, or learning to enjoy it. Walking counts; it gets the blood pumping. Small steps over the long haul. Walking for 30 minutes, five times week, would fulfill the recommendation of many of the experts. And if over time, your body was in enough shape to enjoy regular 30-minute walks, you might find exercise to be an acquired pleasure and enjoy some weights or jogging as well. But we tend to overestimate what can be done in the short run, and underestimate what can be done in the long run.
Brothers and sisters, your body, as a priceless gift from God, is “both pathetically and absurdly beautiful.” It is “a useful, sturdy, lazy, obstinate, patient, lovable and infuriating beast; deserving now the stick and now a carrot.” As Christian Hedonists, let’s pursue the carrots of Christian learning, Christian joy, and Christian love.
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We Need More Holy Fools: How God Awakened Me to Eternity
A man is trapped in a car, rushing down a hill toward a cliff. The doors are locked. The brakes are out. The steering barely works. Far ahead, he can see other cars hurtling into the abyss. How far they fall, he does not know. What they find at the bottom, he cannot imagine.
But he does not seek to know; he does not try to imagine. Instead, he paints the windshield, climbs into the back seat, and puts in his headphones.
This image, adapted from Peter Kreeft, captures my life in January 2008, as I walked down a college sidewalk in Colorado. The car was my body; the hill, time; the cliff, death. I was, as we all are, rushing toward the moment when my pulse would stop. And though unsure of what would come afterward, I found a thousand ways to look away.
“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God” (Psalm 14:2). Like so many other children of men, I neither understood nor sought, I neither asked nor knocked, but let myself tumble through time without a thought of eternity. I was a “fool,” to put it bluntly (Psalm 14:1). And I desperately needed another kind of fool to wake me up.
Puncturing the Daydream
Few people, perhaps, would look at a normal Western life like mine — busy, successful, spiritually indifferent — and say, “folly.” But could it be because the folly is socially acceptable? Might we modern Western men and women have made a silent pact to ignore eternity?
“Might we modern Western men and women have made a silent pact to ignore eternity?”
Blaise Pascal, seventeenth-century Christian polymath, thought so. When Pascal looked round at his modern country, neighbors, and self, he saw a collective pathology, a shared insanity: “Man’s sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder,” he said (Christianity for Modern Pagans, 203).
We cultivate hobbies, and follow celebrities, and read the news without knowing why we exist. We stumble through an unthinkably vast cosmos, circled round by unthinkably intricate wonders, too distracted to ask, “Who made this?” We develop firm opinions about politics, and care not whether souls live forever, and where. We look often into our mirrors and seldom into our deep and fallen hearts. A strange disorder indeed.
And so, Pascal walked around with needles in hand, seeking to puncture the daydream of secular or religiously nominal apathy to eternity. His unfinished book Pensées (abridged and explained in Kreeft’s masterful Christianity for Modern Pagans) may have been his sharpest needle.
What Is a Life ‘Well-Lived’?
Our lives here are hemmed in by mystery and uncertainty. We live on a small rock in an immense universe. We know little about where we came from or where we’re going. We struggle even to understand ourselves. But a few matters remain clear and unmistakable, including the great fact that, one day, we will die. Our car hurtles down the hill, lower today than yesterday. The abyss awaits.
And what then? For secular or nominally religious countrymen like Pascal’s, and ours, the options are two: “the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched throughout eternity” (191). Either Christianity is false, and our flickering candle goes out forever — or Christianity is true, and, awakening to life’s meaning too late, we fall “into the hands of a wrathful God” (193).
A society like ours would lead us to believe that eighty years “well lived” (whatever that means) filled with “personal meaning” (whatever that means) makes for a good life; we need seek no more. To Pascal, those were the words of one who had painted the windshield black. Death, rightly reckoned with, functions like the final scene of a tragic play: it reaches its fingers back into all of life, disfiguring every moment, darkly witnessing that all is not well.
“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play,” Pascal writes. “They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever” (144). Stand above the hole in the ground, the dust from which we came and to which we’ll return (Genesis 3:19), and consider: “That is the end of the world’s most illustrious life” (191).
“We ourselves are an enigma, wrapped in a world of mystery, headed inevitably for the grave.”
We ourselves are an enigma, wrapped in a world of mystery, headed inevitably for the grave. Such a dire plight might send us searching for wisdom, if it weren’t for our insane “solution.”
Insanity of Our ‘Solutions’
How do we — mortal men and women, nearing the cliff’s edge — typically respond to our plight? “We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it” (145). We deny. We divert. We distract. Until one day we die.
Of course, no one ever says, “I will distract myself because I don’t want to consider my death and what may come afterward.” We suppress the truth more subconsciously than that (Romans 1:18). Instinctively, we avoid the “house of mourning,” or else dress it with euphemisms, for fear of facing, terribly and unmistakably, that “this is the end of all mankind” — that this is our end (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
Summarizing Pascal, Kreeft writes,
If you are typically modern, your life is like a rich mansion with a terrifying hole right in the middle of the living-room floor. So you paper over the hole with a very busy wallpaper pattern to distract yourself. You find a rhinoceros in the middle of your house. The rhinoceros is wretchedness and death. How in the world can you hide a rhinoceros? Easy: cover it with a million mice. Multiply diversions. (169)
Eighty years may seem like a long time to distract yourself from the most fundamental questions of life and death. But with hearts like ours, in a world like ours, it is not too long. Make a career. Raise a family. Build wealth. Plan vacations. Get promoted. Watch movies. Collect sports cards. Read the news. Play golf. Resist uncomfortable questions.
We hang a curtain over the cliff’s edge that keeps us from seeing the abyss. But not from rushing into it.
Sanest People in the World
Our chosen “solution,” then, only aggravates our dire plight. Our distractions sedate us on the way to death rather than sending us searching for some escape. Which means the world has a desperate need for people like Pascal, men and women whom we might call (to use a phrase from church history) holy fools.
The term holy fools drips with the same irony Paul used when he spoke of “the foolishness of God” (1 Corinthians 1:25) and said, “We are fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10). In truth, holy fools are the world’s sanest people. They have felt the sting of sin and death. They have found deliverance in Jesus Christ. And now they are trying to tell the world.
With Pascal, they see that “there are only two classes of people who can be called reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him” (195). And so, holy fools call people into the “folly” that is our only sanity.
They come to those caught in distraction, lost in diversion, and they serve, love, persuade, and prod. They risk reputation and comfort, willing to look foolish in the eyes of a wayward world. They bring eternity into everyday conversations with cashiers, neighbors, and other parents at the park. Boldly and patiently, courageously and graciously, they say, “See your death. See your sin. And seek him with all your heart.”
To those bent on diversion, holy fools may seem imbalanced, extreme, awkward, pushy. But not to everyone. Some, as they hear of the Christ these fools preach, will catch a glimmer of “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). And they will become another fool for him.
Give Us More Fools for Christ
Pascal (and the apostle Paul) make me feel that I am not yet the fool I ought to be. Too often, I prefer social decorum to holy discomfort, this-worldly niceness to next-worldly boldness. But they also make me feel a keen gratitude for the holy fools among us, and a longing to be more like them. For I owe my life to one.
In January 2008, as my little car rushed down the hill, and as I did what I could to cover my eyes, someone stopped me on the sidewalk. I would later learn that he belonged to a campus ministry widely known for sharing Jesus with students — widely known, but not widely loved. Their message was, to most, foolishness — and their way of stopping others on the sidewalk, a stumbling block. But to me that day, by grace, it looked like the wisdom of God.
In time, I would realize that my various diversions could not deliver me from death. Nor could a life “well lived” forgive my sins or undig my grave. Only Jesus could. It took a holy fool to make me sane, and oh how the world needs more.
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How to Squander Your Spiritual Gifts
What particular abilities has God given you? When God wove you together before you were born, and when he made you new in Christ, he chose gifts for you — special resources, experiences, and abilities for you to steward and practice. Do you believe that? If so, do you know what they are? Can you name some specific ways you’re striving to use them and grow in them?
If you believe in Jesus, he has given you something of his power and ability. Whoever you are, and however “gifted” you feel compared to others, you have abilities from God that are meant to make a difference in the lives of others.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4–7)
In everyone means “in you.” To each means “to you.”
Where Abilities Wither
The reality is that while all of us have particular potential for good, not all of us realize that potential. Some squander the miraculous and personal gifts of God. They sit, as it were, on shelves in the basement, decorations of a life focused elsewhere.
The apostle Paul charges the church in Rome, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:6). So what keeps us from using our gifts well? What keeps you from putting to work the grace-filled abilities God has given you? When we squander our God-given resources and abilities, we often don’t realize we’re squandering them. This is part of Satan’s craft. If he can’t convince us to reject God altogether, he’ll draw us away from him in a hundred smaller ways. He’ll embed some subtle temptation, barely discernible, that slowly corrupts our impulses and buries our potential.
“Most spiritual gifts die not by outright rejection, but by distraction.”
Most spiritual gifts die not by outright rejection, but by distraction. These temptations become spiritual cul-de-sacs, comfortable places to live, but leading nowhere. Paul passes by four of these cul-de-sacs in Romans 12.
Selfishness Street
Perhaps the most common way we waste these gifts is by assuming they are about us and not about meeting the needs of others. Paul’s charge to use our abilities comes directly after this remarkable statement of our identity:
As in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (Romans 12:4–5)
The abilities God gives us are not mainly for advancing our careers or unlocking favorite hobbies or giving us a sense of achievement or fulfillment; they’re for blessing and supporting the body of Christ, the church. You’re good at what you’re good at because the church needs that, in some way, shape, or form — because the church needs you.
This is not how the world thinks. What are gifts if they’re not mine to use and spend however I want? Like the 5-year-old hovering over his host of Matchbox cars, we survey our abilities, resources, and time, and declare, “Mine!” God sees gifts so differently. What are gifts, he asks, if they die on the vines of self? No, gifts are only truly experienced and enjoyed when we hold them loosely and gladly say to God, “Yours!”
Pride Boulevard
Beyond a selfishness that blinds us to the needs of others, we might squander our gifts because we think too highly of ourselves. A couple of verses earlier, Paul writes,
By the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12:3)
Sometimes gifts spoil because we’re too focused on self; other times, because we think the needs we might meet are below us. We assume we’re too gifted for quiet, ordinary, thankless love. Pride inflates our heads, lifting us out of reality and making real needs seem small, even trivial, next to our conceited priorities. God-given abilities, however, suffocate at that elevation. They breathe and flourish when they’re rooted in real, ordinary lives with real, ordinary needs. Our gifts won’t reach the heights of their potential if we refuse to use them on our knees.
“Our gifts won’t reach the heights of their potential if we refuse to use them on our knees.”
Paul tucks a weapon against this gift-smothering pride in the verse quoted above: think sober thoughts about yourself, he says, “each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” The abilities you have are assigned by God. Even the faith you have is assigned by God. “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Anything you do well, remember, you do well only by the creativity and generosity of God.
Worldliness Lane
A third cul-de-sac may be the most prevalent and subtle: worldliness. We waste or misuse our gifts because we prize and prioritize what the world does, rather than seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33). It’s far too easy to fall in line with the crowds casually strolling away from the cross. “Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul warns, “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
What does the wrong kind of conformity look like? We spend the best parts of ourselves at the office, rather than at home and in church. We’re more excited about our hobbies than we are about heaven. We find the most comfort and “rest” by scrolling through the leftovers of others’ lives on social media. We stay up to date on our favorite shows and movies, but struggle to find time to sit and meet with and enjoy God.
When our hearts are in all the wrong places, it’s no wonder when our gifts — our time, our attention, our resources, our abilities — consistently land in the wrong places too (or never land at all). Those who use their gifts well reject what the world would teach them to do with their gifts. They carry and spend their gifts where God leads them through his word, prayer, and the fellowship of other believers.
Passivity Circle
The last cul-de-sac along this narrow path of faithfulness brings us back to Romans 12:6: “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” Like an especially fertile weed, passivity poisons the gardens of giftedness.
How many God-given abilities shrivel because we’re too preoccupied or insecure or lazy to even try? We had an impulse to serve in this way or that, but we kept putting it off. We knew that person might need a call or a visit, but we assumed someone else would reach out. We heard the church was looking for someone to cover that base, but we kept finding excuses to stay in the dugout. Paul says to the church — young and old, male and female, new believers and older saints, healthy and hurting, outgoing and shy, musical and, well, not — “You have abilities (yes, even you), so use them.” Find some way, any way, to use whatever you do well to care for someone else.
Being gifted in these ways doesn’t mean you’re more gifted than everyone else or that God doesn’t expect us all to teach and serve and exhort (and give and lead in various ways); it just means that there’s evidence God has given you greater measures of grace in certain areas to meet the needs of others. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Whatever experience or ability God has assigned to you, start using it.
Wait, What Are My Gifts?
Some, however, still may not know what their gifts are. Perhaps you’ve never really thought of yourself as “gifted,” and can’t point to any particular skill or knowledge you would consider a gift. How does someone begin to uncover his or her gifts?
In Romans 12:6–8, Paul does give us a few examples: Some are gifted to teach, so find someone to teach, even if it’s three or four 6-year-olds in Sunday school. Some are gifted to serve, so find someone to serve, even if it’s helping out around the house for a widow who sits a few pews away. Some are gifted to exhort — to encourage, to challenge, to correct, to inspire — so find someone to exhort, even if it’s the guy faithfully teaching three or four 6-year-olds.
A lot more could be said here, but you might start with a simple question: What do you enjoy doing well that a ministry or family in your church might need? What do other people thank you for doing? It could be teaching, or encouraging teachers. It could be leading music, or setting up equipment. It could be serving meals, or cleaning up meals. It could be hosting big gatherings, or befriending lonely people. It could be greeting guests as they come in on Sunday morning, or faithfully praying for fellow members. Every church, however small, has real and significant needs. Sometimes the needs are even bigger in smaller churches because there are fewer leaders and resources. What’s something you do well that meets the needs of others?
If your gifts have wandered into a cul-de-sac and begun to wither, it’s not too late to revive them and put them to use. Lay aside the pride, selfishness, worldliness, and passivity that devour what God has given you. Liberate your gifts from the cul-de-sacs that suppress them. Identify something you do well by God’s grace, and ask him to help you find a need to meet.