Blog

Spiritual Gifts

God has given each Christian a spiritual gift. 

First, you are to do as commanded in 2 Timothy 1:6: “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you.” 

Second, you are to do as admonished in 1 Peter 4:10: “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” 

We encourage you to prayerfully consider completing the spiritual gifts survey found here: https://gifts.churchgrowth.org. It will help you identify your dominant spiritual gifts.

The Bible states there are many gifts. This survey covers the nine (9) team or task-oriented gifts used in daily life to do the work of Christian ministry. 

Evangelism

Prophecy

Teaching

Exhortation

Shepherding

Showing Mercy

Serving

Giving

Administration

Begin to discover and understand how your spiritual gift relates to your life, other people’s lives, our local church, and the body of Christ as a whole. 

The Growth Group Team would love to hear what you find out. After completing the survey at the link above, email us at info@cbcbrantford.ca and share your name and dominant spiritual gifts. By better understanding and exercising the gifts God has entrusted to you, you will press forward with joy to do what God has gifted and called you to do. May your daily service bring glory to God, and may His name be praised.

~ Central’s Growth Group Team

Falling in Love?

Challenge Central: a CBC devotional

By: Pastor Lars Janssen

Have you ever been in love?

You know what I mean when I say in love, right? It’s that giddy feeling of light-hearted bliss each time the object of your love is near. It’s an exciting and somewhat intoxicating feeling. When we’re in love, we find the object of our love to be very lovely. And if we’re honest in our thinking, we can be in love with more than just people. Sometimes we feel this way about activities, things, ideas, and even seasons—at least for a while. We may, in fact, look ahead to the coming year hoping to find this feeling.

Whether entering a new job, a new relationship, or a new year with the same ingredients as last year, hoping for satisfaction from some lovely part of creation will leave you hollow. In his book, The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis talks about Need-love, which is expressed when a lover recognizes his own incompleteness. This kind of love is an essential part of our human experience. That’s why the romance and advertising industries are so successful. We express Need-love toward what we feel completes us. The media industry simply appeals to our human desire to love and be loved by something lovely. But God’s love is different.

The Apostle John tells us twice that “God is love.” In 1 John 4:7-21, he explains that God “sent His Son,” that He “abides in us,” that He “has given us of his Spirit,” and that “He first loved us.” All of these action statements express what Lewis called Gift-love, which is a love that overflows from abundant fulness. It’s a love that gives and requires nothing in return. God perfectly embodies this kind of love. He needs nothing and has everything to give, so He can give without limit.

Our Need-love collides with God the Father’s Gift-love in Revelation 2:4 when Jesus confronts the Ephesian church (and by extension us). He says, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The excitement of being in love with any part of creation is a passing shadow of the satisfaction found only in our Heavenly Father’s love. No person, activity, thing, idea, or season can satisfy human incompleteness. The Father alone provides the endlessly deep Gift-love that can fill us up and satisfy our needs. God’s love—both experienced and expressed—is necessary for us to thrive in a new year that will likely bring challenges, needs, and blessings.

So let’s not waste our time with cheap substitutes this year, no matter how appealing they seem at first. The only way to be truly in love is to be in Christ because “God is love.” He has promised that He will pour His love into us and through us because of who He is (See John 17, especially verses 23 and 26!).

Let’s praise our God and spend time with Him! Let’s read and hear His Word often. Let’s sing, pray, laugh, and cry with our Father and His children—our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s talk about His loveliness. Let’s express our need for Him.

Here’s your challenge, Central: Let’s fall in love with the Lovely One again and again.

“God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” 1 John 4:16

New Year’s Revolutions?

Challenge Central: a CBC devotional

By: John Kerr

Christmas is over, and the new year is almost upon us. Time for those New Year’s revolutions!

“Wait.” you say, “don’t you mean resolutions?” No! If we are being honest, how many times have we made resolutions to exercise more, cut out junk food, read our Bible, and so many more? I am just being practical here. I have made my share of New year’s resolutions to the point that I no longer do so. The feeling of pressure to revolutionize our lives feels even more acute at the New year.

Perhaps what is really at stake here is a feeling of failing and even a bit of remorse. It can be a need to do better, to “pull oneself up by the bootstraps.” Why not take the calendar change as a time to take a personal inventory? A time to be honest rather than revolutionary; a time to prepare for the battle ahead?

The Psalmist, in Psalm 101, seems to be taking inventory. First, he sees a need for personal worship; “to you, O LORD, will I make music.” Filling one’s mind with worship for God will push out many negative and often sinful thoughts that prevent us from living a blessed life.

Second, he seeks to have integrity, especially as it relates to his house. What effect does a parent who is often physically present but practically absent have on the children of the home? Watching three football games on a Sunday afternoon while missing the opportunity to interact with one’s children is a telling blight on family life.

Third, “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” This can involve many things, not necessarily things evil in themselves. It can involve that which is really important to us, which in turn will define who we are.

Lastly, “I will know nothing of evil.” This sums up the true desire of the heart of a Christian man or woman. One way of looking at this is to avoid anything that can hinder me this year, even the most innocuous things.

So don’t make your resolutions “revolutions.” Make attainable goals. Enlist help to achieve those goals. Include your spouse and children to make these goals a family affair.

Have a happy New Year. It all begins with having a heart of integrity.

Immanuel

Challenge Central: a CBC devotional

By: Roger Wood

As we began a new season for Pioneer Clubs in September, each age group started in Genesis, with the historical account of God’s creation described in Chapter 1.

The following Wednesday evening, the grade 4-6 Pioneer Boys left planet Earth to discuss the staggering expanse of creation.

We discovered that our sun is 93 million miles from Earth, and a hollow ball the size of the sun would hold about one million planet earths.

Sirius Canis Major, the brightest star in our sky, is twice as big as our sun. Arcturus, the third brightest star in our night sky, is more than twenty-three times larger than our sun.

Betelguese, one of the stars visible in the constellation Orion, is three hundred times larger than our sun.

Job expressed his awe of God: “How should man be just with God?… Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades and the chambers of the south.” Job 9:2, 9 KJV

The fastest known speed is the speed of lightning, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000 km per second.

It takes 8 ½ minutes for light from the sun to reach us. If we could travel at this speed, we could be on the moon in 1 ½ seconds, Mars in 4 ½ minutes, Jupiter in 35 minutes, and Pluto in 5 hours and 20 minutes. Arcturus in 37 years and Betelgeuse in 522 years.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains over one hundred billion stars, and there are billions more galaxies in the universe. Travelling the breadth of our galaxy would take 100,000 years at the speed of light!

The size of the universe is beyond our comprehension, and the baby in Bethlehem made all of it. He created everything.

“He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:2-3, ESV)

The humble birth of Jesus Christ is not about the Saviour’s infancy; it’s about His deity. The miraculous gift of Christmas, Christ, God’s own Son, gave up His wealth and privilege to live as God with us, Immanuel, that He might save His people from our sins so we can be born again in His glory.