Quotes about Gifts

Gratitude is not something we give to God because he wants to make sure we know how much trouble he went to over us. Gratitude is the gift God gives us that enables us to be blessed by all his other gifts, the way our taste buds enable us to enjoy the gift of food. Without gratitude, our lives degenerate into envy, dissatisfaction, and complaints, taking what we have for granted and always wanting more.

There is a use herein of the natural abilities of invention, memory, and elocution. Why should not men use in the service and worship of God what God hath given them that they may be able to serve and worship him?

Christ is the meritorious cause of the bestowing of those good gifts, faith and constancy unto martyrdom, upon you.

for as gospel gifts are useless without attending unto gospel institutions, so gospel institutions are found to be fruitless and unsatisfactory without the attaining and exercising of gospel gifts.

Be it so, therefore, that these gifts we intend are not in themselves saving graces, yet are they not to be despised; for they are, as we shall show, the "powers of the world to come," by means whereof the kingdom of Christ is preserved, carried on, and propagated in the world.

And it will one day appear that there is more glory, more excellency, in giving one poor minister unto a congregation, by furnishing him with spiritual gifts for the discharge of his duty, than in the pompous instalment of a thousand popes, cardinals, or metropolitans.

That profession which renders a church visible according to the mind of Christ, is the orderly exercise of the spiritual gifts bestowed on it, in a conversation evidencing the invisible principle of saving grace.

In brief, that which the whole parable teach-eth is, that wherever there is a ministry in the church that Christ owneth or regardeth, as used and employed by him, there persons are furnished with spiritual gifts from Christ by the Spirit, enabling them unto the discharge of that ministry; and where there are no such spiritual gifts dispensed by him, there is no ministry that he either accepteth or approveth.

Well," Nicholas said seriously, "I think that all good gifts come ultimately from God. It wouldn't do for the messenger to take credit for his master's work.

Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.... these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty.

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are effects, and the energy of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance isn't. Gifts, powers, cloth, highbrow, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they're thoughts completed, items carried out, visions found out.

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized. The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this you will become. SERENITY