Do you enjoy giving gifts? Do you find it rewarding to be thoughtful and generous? Are you familiar with the gift-giving dilemma of what do you get for the person who has everything? Do you see how this question applies to gifts that you would give me to an extreme degree? For I created all things. Yet I have told you what is on my list. The thing I want most from you is a broken spirit and a contrite heart. Have you seen these qualities in people and found them to be attractive? Yet they come at a cost. Do you know anyone you would describe this way that didn’t suffer to get it?

You have material needs, so you need a source of income, and this typically means a job. So a job can provide you with an income, but it does more than this. A job also provides you with an opportunity to serve; to provide a useful service for your employer or customers. So your income is created out of the value you create. Which do you think is more important? Does the Bible speak more highly of acquiring money or being a servant? Since your job performs both functions, you have the choice of the perspective you take and how you prioritize them.

Do you find that believers in general have a reputation with those who are outside the faith? In your experience is this a positive or negative image? In times past was it assumed that someone who practiced the faith had character and integrity more than those who did not? Do you see a trend in the reputation of believers from the culture at large? If their standing is declining there could be more than one explanation. Christians like the explanation that the world around them is in decline and that depravity and darkness will not tolerate the light. But is there another possibility?

Are you a pacifist? There are few who identify with this label, even in the church, but there are plenty of verses to support this position, such as, resist not evil, and turn the other cheek. Are you an armchair pacifist because you live in a nation at peace with a low crime rate and you are not forced into a moral dilemma about the use of force because others defend and secure you? Do you realize what a blessing this is? Like many things, being a pacifist is not real until it has been put to the test. Believers can land on both sides of this issue with a clear conscience.