The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1961-11-24
Keep Growing

Lesson for November 26, 1861
The word grow" is used
three times in the New Tesla
ment as a command. Each time
it is SO used. it is written to
grown" people. You do not
grow taller and stronger all
your life. You do not keep grow
ing more intelligent with advanc-
ing years. But you can grow in
| knowledge, you can grow in wis
dom. and you can grow as a
person, as long as you live. And
if you take the Bible as God S
message to you, you will feel
not only that you can, but that
you ought to grow. If you are not
growing you are negelecting
something God wants you to do
"Stir to Flame the Gift .
The word translated in the 1911
translation "Stir up" the gift,
has nothing to do with anything
stirred with a spoon. The Greek
word means to stir to a flame
to re-kindle, as more recent
translation correctly express it.
The gift of God Paul means in
general the gift Of being Christ
ian, and specially the gift Of be-
ing a Christian minister) in Tim
othy is like a spark. glowing but
without a flame. Paul wants to
see that gift burning brightly,
sending light farther than it was
doing.
The spirit God sends to those
who ask Him is indeed gift. 1t
is nothing we can create or
initiate. But the Christian is ex-
pected to do more than merely
receive it. It is possible so to
neglect the gift of God that in
time We might almost as well
never have had it. There is a
kind of law of cooperation be-
tween men and God: we neglect
1t at our peril. God sends the
spark, we have to stir it to a
flame. No one else, not even
God, will do that for us. There is
nothing automatic, nothing in
Simultaneous. about Christian life
and development. We have to stir
the flame. to tend the fire. It
takes more than wishing!
But. what is this fire, this
spirit, this gift of God? Some
claim to have it who have never
known it. Some pray for it but
would not recognize the answer
to their prayer. Let us pass by a
argument which commentators
can always have over Paul S
meaning here. When he speaks
OF the spirit God gave us, does
he mean the Holy Spirit or does
he mean the spirit as the Psal-
mist did who cried: Renew a
right spirit within me? Is it, in
short, the Spirit of God or the
spirit of man which is on Paul's
mind at this point? Either way,
Paul may be speaking of the
Holy Spirit or of the new heart"
but the first produces the second,
you cannot have the second with
out the first.
The marks Of the genuine Spirit
which Paul gives at this point are
three. We don't know why he
said SO strongly that this spirit
is NOT one of fear; perhaps
Timothy himself was still tirnid
man. At any rate, the Spirit
gift of God is one of power. and
love. and seH-control. Are any
OF these lacking? Then it is not
Gods spirit-gift. To be sure, all
men know something of power,
love and self-control: but at the
divine level they go beyond any
thing human beings can do BY
their own strength.
Model to Grow BY
There is another important
fact about Gods spil-it-gift. It is
this: 1t will not save US from
the necessity of thinking and
working. Again and again the
New Testament makes it clear
that what God intends for each
OF us is to grow into the hkness
OF the Master. But again. his is
far from automatic. A Christion
cannot relax and say to himself.
God will make me what He
wants me to be. will wait and
see how l turn out, and then
Ill know" BY no means. Paul
gives Timothy something to do.
"Rekindle the gift do not be
ashamed of testifying To orr
Lord God has called us to
dedicated life take your
share Of suffering Follow
the pattern Guard the
truth
The Christian life calls for
study this is a world filled with
difficult problems, and we cannot
solve them Just by being sweet.
The best Of Christians need some
pattern. some model, to 20 by.