Charles Spurgeon liked to make a distinction between ‘gifts’ and ‘graces.’ Jonathan Edwards made much the same distinction in Charity and Its Fruits. By gifts, Spurgeon means particular gifts for ministry. By graces, he means actual holiness and communion with God.
The reason that this distinction is vital is that, as any preacher can testify, it is possible to be lacking very much in communion with God and yet still find that your ‘gifts’ are functioning. Many men have powerful gifts who sadly lack in the internal experience of grace and holiness (and indeed, I think we all do at times). This is why, as Tim Keller points out (listen to lecture 31, you won’t regret it), Jesus can say,
- Matthew 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
The gifts were functioning, but redeeming grace was not. In the lecture I linked above, Keller hit home by making the point that likewise there will be many who say, ‘Did I not preach the gospel? Did not hundreds come to the altar under my ministry?’ only to receive the same response.
Spurgeon writes,
It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organise societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war. M’Cheyne, writing to a ministerial friend, who was travelling with a view to perfecting himself in the German tongue, used language identical with our own: – ‘I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man – I mean of the heart…Is is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God’ (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, Zondervan, p. 9).
Do not forget the culture of the inner man. Guard your heart. Seek communion with the triune God above all else.
