As we have discussed, we tend to think of righteousness in terms of morality, which is of course the most basic part of it. However, in the teachings of Scripture, a huge part of the teachings on righteousness are about management—being a good steward of what we have been entrusted with. Righteousness is also caring enough for the things we have been entrusted with to manage them right. This is so important that in the Parable of the Talents, the Lord taught that we would either hear "Well done, good and faithful servant" (see Matthew 25:21 NIV) or "You wicked, lazy servant" (see Matthew 25:26 NIV), depending on how well we have managed what has been entrusted to us. Therefore, we want to give attention to sound management principles.
The first principle was our emphasis last week, which was remaining humble enough before the Lord to be teachable, and continually seeking His grace and wisdom to manage what He entrusts to us. Every great leader and manager I have ever met was continually studying leadership and management, reading books on the subjects, or going to seminars taught by those who had proven success in these areas. That is the kind of humility that God gives His grace to.
In Scripture, there are four types of grace. The first is "common grace" which is given to all. These are such things as our natural talents. A brain surgeon may be an atheist, but his skills still come from God. If you needed brain surgery, would you want someone to operate on you who is considered one of the best, but who happens to be an atheist, or a Christian intern? The common grace is offered to all, believers and unbelievers, as He explained in Matthew 5:45, "...for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
After common grace, we have "saving grace," which is the grace to receive salvation in Christ. This is a grace, and not something we earned. No one comes to the Son unless the Father draws him. It takes grace from God to receive salvation.
The next level of grace in Scripture is called "special grace," which is a special empowering from the Lord for special deeds. We see special fillings, or a special empowering, coming upon the disciples in the Book of Acts to do certain exploits, just as we do throughout the Old Testament. This is why we may feel the faith and have the power to heal cancer one day, and the next cannot heal a headache. As we grow in faith, this special grace can become more permanent in our lives, but often we are not trusted with the permanent "special grace" because pride gets in so easily. Therefore, the Lord has to keep us in touch with how utterly dependent we are on Him to do His works until He can trust us not to stumble in pride.
The fourth grace in Scripture is called "the great grace of God." This should be our ultimate pursuit, and it is something that very few in history seem to have been trusted with. We will study this in more depth as we seek to understand the true riches of the kingdom, but this is basically our goal—to be like Christ and do the works that He did.
Now to back up a bit—even though common grace is given to all men, we must esteem it as grace from God, and esteem it enough to manage it well. What are the natural gifts or talents that He has entrusted to us? How have we developed them? Are we deriving the maximum benefit from them? Even though these are "natural talents," they are gifts from God, and we should honor and esteem them enough to develop and use them with care. Remember, to be careful is to be "full of care" for what has been entrusted to us. To be careless is to "care less." The good steward will be the one who cares for his master's resources that he has been entrusted with—including our natural talents.
You may have heard me lament before how I get irritated at times when people ask me to lay hands on them and impart to them my writing gift. I realize many have the right attitude about this and are seeking a spiritual impartation, which it is right to esteem enough to seek, but many just want a cheap, easy way to begin writing which does not take any work on their behalf—it just gets imparted. I have spent more than forty years developing the writing gift that I have, and I still do not feel that I am that good at it, and have to work hard to make even a Word for the Week such as this to be clear and make sense. This writing skill is a common grace, which many unbelievers have in a much greater way than I do.
The real difference that my writing can make is in what I say, which comes from what I have been given the grace and vision to see and understand. This, too, comes from quite a bit of work in caring enough to learn the ways of the Lord, and to read, study, and listen to others who have walked with Him. I have had quite a few supernatural experiences in which I think I was given almost instant understanding of things that I feel would have taken me many years to learn on my own. However, even these would not have made sense to me if I had not had the hunger for understanding, which caused me to build a broad foundation of knowledge. I consider the special revelations to be "special grace," or at times possibly even a touch of the "great grace," but they are given to us when we have been faithful with what might be considered "common grace." Nevertheless, it is grace from God and should be honored as such.
I love the supernatural works of God. As the Scripture teaches, this world is but a shadow of the spiritual realm (see Colossians 2:17). The great miracles in Scripture were but a tiny release of the power of the kingdom of heaven to touch the earth. There is a deep yearning for the supernatural in every human being because we were created to have fellowship with God who is Spirit. The "new creation" man is also supposed to be a "new species" that bridges the natural and supernatural realms until we are more at home in the Spirit than we are the natural. However, the natural is a shadow of the spiritual realm, and it is in this realm where we actually learn many of the ways of the Spirit. It is super-natural by the way.
When our home really is in heaven with the Lord, we can be trusted with much more of the natural wealth and resources because even the greatest of these will always pale before the true riches of the kingdom. So we are seeking a balance of caring for them enough as something the Lord has entrusted to us, but at the same time not setting our hearts on them, but on the Lord.
I have met many doctors who are excellent professionals. They are always reading, studying, and keeping up with the latest research in their fields, and generally do an excellent job. However, occasionally, we may meet a doctor who is a true healer. To them this is not just a job or a profession, but they are moved out of compassion, and their reward is not just money, but seeing their patients get better.
I greatly appreciate cancer doctors who have devoted themselves to fighting this terrible enemy, caring enough to go through all of the schools and training they have gone through. However, there is a spiritual gift of healing, an authority, which is going to be given to some in the near future who will be able to heal every cancer patient they pray for. They will not have gone through years of school for this, but it will be a "special grace" imparted to them by God. This is better than those who have a great medical practice built on their natural gifts and knowledge; these with the spiritual gifts will most of the time have spent as much time and effort in pursuing the Lord as those with the natural gifts have spent pursuing knowledge in their particular fields.
These spiritual gifts are free, but they are not cheap. We cannot earn them with any amount of effort, but there is still a foundation of diligence and caring enough to seek something diligently, which is required to be trusted with them. The Lord will bless many things that He will not inhabit. We must rise above just seeking the blessings of the Lord and seek to be His dwelling place. Many people, and even movements, have been blessed by the Lord for periods of time, but what He is seeking is a dwelling place. The Son of man still does not have a place to lay His head, a place where He can be the Head, but there is a people being prepared. This is worthy of more attention and devotion than any doctor ever gave to their degree. Do you hear the call?
