1 Timothy 4:14 - 16 "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. (15) Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. (16) Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee."
The easiest thing for a believer to do is to take God for
granted. I was taught as a young minister that the only way to learn of God is
to continually study, then when you learn act upon what you learn, and if you
do, you will be a good believer. Lot of the time we learn but fail to act and
if we do, we are taking God for granted. God said, “Neglect not the gift
that is in thee”, now most will rightly argue that God is talking about
Ministers here. However, it is not limited to Ministers because all believers
have gifts of God given to us. For example, salvation is a gift from God, “For
the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23 Can a Christian neglect their salvation,
absolutely we can if we are not being followers of Jesus Christ. Solomon wrote
in Ecc. 5:19 “Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth,
and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to
rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.” Our worldly goods
are a gift from God, and they also can be abused in an ill manor. If we look at
our life properly, we will understand that everything is a gift from God.
And if it is a gift from God then it is by God’s grace because He gave
it to us. We all, every single believer takes God’s gifts for granted in one
way or another and some more than others, even if we know it or not. Let’s look
at our gift of salvation because it is the most abused gift of all. God gave us
our salvation, it was not earned, it was not bought, it did not just fall out
of the sky, God gave it to us. But none of us walk absolute according to God’s
word. Sometimes we subconsciously may believe that we are walking rightly but
in reality, we are wrong. Let’s face it, we are all wrong about some things
because none of us are perfectly aligned with the scriptures. We are only
perfect in Jesus Christ because He was perfect. Some
may say that if we do not understand then we are not guilty, others will say
the word “neglect” means - to be careless of – that is true, but it also means
- not regard something -. Just because we do not understand something may be
because it goes against the belief we were raised with, or maybe it’s not
within our line of thinking. Just because I believe
something to be right doesn’t mean I am right, and it is the same with you. The
more we learn in God’s word and the more we believe what God says the more
right we will be. God said, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
2 Timothy 2:15 The bottom-line for a believer is to study, not to study a
little but a lot. We need to study with much prayer because the Holy Spirit is
our teacher. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 14:26
Our fervent study will show us much, but if we are going to “rightly
dividing the word of truth”. It is the Holy Spirit that will teach it to
us, this is why we must listen to the scriptures and not give to much savvy to
the teacher, who are just men. If it is in the scriptures then it is right, and
right over even out thoughts or belief. We cannot simply overlook something
scriptural as though it isn’t there, if God said it then it’s there and we need
to learn to rightly divide the word of truth. It is our responsibility to
learn God’s word and rightly divide the Truth. God has given to
every believer gifts, those gifts are given to rightly serve Him without error.
God said, “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them;” If
we fail, then we are neglecting God’s gifts.
