Jewels thus to crown my Lord!’
From Woman’s Work.
[1]See Gen. xiv. 20, xxviii. 22; Lev. xxvii. 30, 32; Num. xviii. 21; Deut. xiv. 22; 2 Chron. xxxi. 5, 6, 12; Neh. x. 37, xii. 44, xiii. 12; Mal. iii. 8, 10; Matt. xxiii. 23; Luke xi. 42; 1 Cor xvi. 2; Heb. vii. 8.
[2]Christian Progress, vol. iii. pp. 25, 26.
Chapter VIII.
Our Intellects kept for Jesus.
‘Keep my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.’
There are two distinct sets of temptations which assail those who have, or think they have, rather less, and those who have, or think they have, rather more than an average share of intellect; while those who have neither less nor more are generally open in some degree to both. The refuge and very present help from both is the same. The intellect, whether great or small, which is committed to the Lord’s keeping, will be kept and will be used by Him.
The former class are tempted to think themselves excused from effort to cultivate and use their small intellectual gifts; to suppose they cannot or need not seek to win souls, because they are not so clever and apt in speech as So-and-so; to attribute to want of gift what is really want of grace; to hide the one talent because it is not five. Let me throw out a thought or two for these.
Which is greatest, gifts or grace? Gifts are given ‘to every man according to his several ability.’ That is, we have just as much given as God knows we are able to use, and what He knows we can best use for Him. ‘But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.’ Claiming and using that royal measure of grace, you may, and can, and will do more for God than the mightiest intellect in the world without it. For which, in the clear light of His Word, is likely to be most effectual, the natural ability which at its best and fullest, without Christ, ‘can do nothing’ (observe and believe that word!), or the grace of our Almighty God and the power of the Holy Ghost, which is as free to you as it ever was to any one?