Those who subscribe to my blog will be surprised to hear that I write all the time. Surprised because I post new blogs infrequently.
The infrequency isn’t because I’m not writing, thinking or caring about our shared interest in Apologetics.
Aside from the time and energy constraints of owning my own business (the last seven months especially), the challenge for me is knowing what makes a post engaging to others without compromising my writing integrity.
How do I do that?
Shared interest is a binding force of course. But the blogs I’ve written with the most “hits” have been those where a moment of passion has risen around a subject on which I write. A momentary burst. A williwaw.
These brief storms of passion are the driving and the binding force of these blogs. Somehow the reader is picked up and driven by the same force as the words themselves.
As wayfarers in a cold world we are attracted to the passion of others, where we can temper our minds and warm our hearts in a shared fire.
Yet it’s interesting how often we attribute negative connotations to passion, forgetting the original intent of this gift was good. Gift because the capacity for passion was given to us. We didn’t create or earn it. It was received without our asking along with life itself at conception by God Himself.
It’s part of being made in His image. And as such it was never God’s intent for this or any of His gifts to be misunderstood and therefore ignored or misused.
The unique spiritual gift each Christian receives from the Holy Spirit is his/her passion. It is an empowerment for a specific role or activity within the Body of Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit who chooses the person to fill each role in the church, not a committee or specific person designated by that committee.
Their role is to recognize, support and sustain the decisions of The Spirit.
Not usurp and ignore those decisions in direct violation of God’s authority.
I wonder how many Christians wander “homeless” burdened with unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual gifts?
1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (NIV)
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
