What is Beauty?  How would you define beauty?  Would you say that beauty is found in Jesus?

Where then, is the beauty in Jesus?

Jonathan Edwards has made an effort to answer this question with a series of questions. As you read, ask them of yourself: What are you afraid of, that you dare not venture your soul upon Christ? Are you afraid that He cannot save you; that He is not strong enough to conquer the enemies of your soul? But how can you desire one stronger than the “mighty God” as Christ is called in Isaiah 9:6? Is there need of greater than infinite strength? Are you afraid that He will not be willing to stoop so low as to take any gracious notice of you?

"But then, look on Him, as He stood in the ring of soldiers, exposing His blessed face to be buffeted and spit upon by them! Behold Him bound with His back uncovered to those that smote Him! And behold Him hanging on the cross! Do you think that He that had condescension enough to stoop to these things, and that for His crucifiers, will be unwilling to accept of you if you come to Him? Or, are you afraid that if He does accept of you, that God the Father will not accept of Him for you? But consider, will God reject His own Son, in whom His infinite delight is, and has been, from all eternity, and who is so united to Him, that if he should reject Him he would reject Himself? What is there that you can desire should be in a Savior that is not in Christ? Or, in what way would you desire a Savior to be otherwise than Christ is? What excellency is there lacking? What is there that is great or good; what is there that is venerable or winning; what is there that is adorable or endearing; or what can you think of that would be encouraging, which is not to be found in the person of Christ? Would you have your Savior to be great and honorable, because you are not willing to be beholden to a mean person? And, is not Christ a person honorable enough to be worthy that you should be dependent on Him; is He not a person high enough to be appointed to so honorable a work as your salvation? Would you not only have a Savior of high degree, but would you have Him, notwithstanding His exaltation and dignity, to be made also of low degree, that He might have experience of afflictions and trials, that He might learn by the things that He has suffered, to pity them that suffer and are tempted? And has not Christ been made low enough for you and has He not suffered enough? Would you not only have Him possess experience of the afflictions you now suffer, but also of that amazing wrath that you fear hereafter, that He may know how to pity those that are in danger, and are afraid of it? This Christ has had … a greater sense of it, a thousand times, than you have, or any man living has. Would you have your Savior to be one who is near to God, so that His mediation might be prevalent with Him? And can you desire Him to be nearer to God than Christ is, who is His only-begotten Son, of the same essence with the Father? And would you not only have Him near to God, but also near to you, that you may have free access to Him? And would you have Him nearer to you than to be in the same nature, united to you by a spiritual union, so close as to be fitly represented by the union of the wife to the husband, of the branch to the vine, of the member to the head; yea, so as to be one spirit? For so He will be united to you, if you accept of Him. Would you have a Savior that has given some great and extraordinary testimony of mercy and love to sinners, by something that He has done, as well as by what He says? And can you think or conceive of greater things than Christ has done? Was it not a great thing for Him, who was God, to take upon Him human flesh."

Jesus, and only Jesus, says Edwards, has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when [weary souls] come to see it they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in Him; it sees that till now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean. The excellency of Christ is an object adequate to the natural cravings of the soul, and is sufficient to fill the capacity. It is an infinite excellency, such a one as the mind desires, in which it can find no bounds.… Every new discovery makes this beauty appear more ravishing, and the mind sees no end; here is room enough for the mind to go deeper and deeper, and never come to the bottom. The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it. The mind never has any satiety, but Christ’s excellency is always fresh and new, and tends as much to delight, after it has seen a thousand or ten thousand years, as when it was seen the first moment.

Could it be said then, that God’s desire for us is to maxmize our “delight and contentment” in Jesus?

“Have you ever spoke in tongues?  No?!?  Then you haven’t received the Holy Spirit!”

I remember when I was told that as a new believer and it offended me significantly.  I couldn’t believe that my friend would say to me that I haven’t received the Holy Spirit on the basis of not speaking in tongues.  I have seen and experienced my life radically transformed by and through the work of the Holy Spirit and I have exerpienced what it means to be filled with the Spirit and what it means to be led by the Spirit.

So what gives?

I had a few of these interactions when I was in college and it developed in me a resentment towards certain groups of believers, which then developed in me a bitter taste in my mouth regarding certain spiritual gifts.

But all that changed when I found myself confronted with 2 verses in 1 Corinthians 14 that caused me to begin a honest journey into understanding spiritual gifts and how they ought to be stewarded today.

These 2 verses are:
1 Corinthians 14:1  “Pursue love and eagerly DESIRE spiritual gifts , and ESPECIALLY THAT YOU MAY PROPHESY.”
(Emphasis mine)
1 Corinthians 14:39  “So then, my brothers and sisters, be EAGER to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.”

Early on in my faith journey, when I read this I would typically think something like this:  “Huh, that’s interesting.  Isn’t this how cults are formed?  Moving on…”

My faith didn’t really know how to process this.  The church I attended in my early years of following Jesus never taught these passages and the closest we ever got to spiritual gifts was taking an assessment like you would for personality typography’s.  

“Cool!  I have the gift of XYZ.  Good to know.”

Now, I know that I just brought up prophecy and tongues and yes, I’m gonna leave those hanging because I don’t want us to get distracted by the specific command given by Paul.

There are 2 concrete imperatives Paul lays out.  First, pursue love.  We are to use these spiritual gifts out of a posture of love and not for selfish gain or recognition.  Second, eagerly desire spiritual gifts.  Oh, especially prophecy.

We are to steward the mysteries of God.  God has entrusted to us one specific spiritual gift and also commands us to eagerly desire all the other spiritual gifts, ESPECIALLY prophecy.  

Why is this overlooked so much in the church?  I get the confusion over prophecy and the other ‘super-natural’ gifts of the Spirit.  I am very well aware of the theological debate over continuationist or cessastionism regarding the ‘super-natural’ gifts.  My hunch is that it is overlooked and not often obeyed is because we have seen or experienced the lack of love regarding some of these gifts.

The Holy Spirit will always point us to Jesus.  He desires to root and establish us individually and corporately as a church in the love of Christ.  We are given a manifestation, or a gift of the Spirit to steward for the common good.  Where the chief goal and the motivation is love.

Yes, people and churches have abused these gifts, but does that mean we are given permission then to disobey the command to eagerly desire the spiritual gifts?  Does that mean we can through the proverbial baby out with the bath water?  But wait…don’t people abuse the Bible and teach false doctrine?  Why don’t we then through that proverbial baby out with the bath water?  Of course we can’t.  Oh but wait…isn’t the verse about being told to eagerly desire or pursue spiritual gifts in the Bible?  Ya, but that’s not for today?  

Oh really?  How did you come to that conclusion?  Can we do that with other commands as well then?

Here’s the thing.  We are called to steward the mysteries of God.  We have been entrusted with a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, for the building up of the church.  Why?  To make Jesus known.

We will cover things like prophecy and tongues in due time.  We will unpack if the “sign” gifts are for today or not.  But for now, I encourage you to wrestle with 1 Corinthians 14:1 and ask yourself these questions:
1. How am I pursuing love for the common good of the church?  
2. How am I using my spiritual gift for that purpose?
3. What does it mean to eagerly desire and pursue spiritual gifts?  Why does that matter?
4. Why am I not eagerly desiring spiritual gifts?  

Till next time…

A steward is one who is given responsibility and authority to rule over and manage the affairs of a household or enterprise.  They are expected to ‘steward’ the responsibility well by putting the entrusted resources to good use without waste.  They were to use their entrusted authority with wisdom in order to make sound decisions.

The concept of stewardship is a creation principle that is hardwired into our very fabric.  Take a look at Genesis 1:26-28:

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  And God blessed them.  And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

From the beginning we see this principle at play.  We are created in the image of God and the call of being an image bearer is to imitate Him in a certain way - being fruitful and multiplying.  This isn’t just a reference to having children.  This is also a reference to take the model of the garden of Eden and cultivate the rest of creation to resemble the garden.  They were given responsibility and the appropriate authority to steward the resources well and were expected to use wisdom to make sound decisions.  

Why are we talking about stewardship when we are going to deal with spiritual gifts?  It’s simple.  If we don’t understand stewardship we won’t understand the purpose of spiritual gifts.  In fact, in 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul is having to rebuke and realign the church due to its poor stewardship of the gifts, and dare I say, some abuse of the gifts.

Let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians 12:4-11:

“Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good: to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit, to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, to another, interpretation of tongues. One and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as he wills.”

‭‭There’s a lot here which we will address in due time.  But for now, here’s what I want to focus on.  Observe verse 7.  What do you notice?  Besides the big word ‘manifestation’.   It should be clear.  If you have placed your trust in Jesus to forgive you of your sins, to bring you from death to life, then you have been given a spiritual gift to steward.  You have been entrusted by God’s grace to steward this gift responsibly, with wisdom, and to use it for the common good.

I leave you with a few questions to chew on.

Have you placed your trust in Jesus?  If so…

How are you stewarding the spiritual gift that God has entrusted to you?

How are you using it for the common good?

Till next time!