Quotes About Gifts

One of the most important lessons the Lord has taught me is that you are not your gift. That is, you are not defined by what you do or create. Jesus is a wonderful example of this. He would not allow the crowd to define Him by His considerable gifts, even though they tried to do so. Jesus always points away from Himself and His gifts and thereby wins praise for the Father. We are not our gifts. We are called to give more. Like Jesus, we are called to give ourselves. That is the real purpose behind our gifts; they are vehicles for giving the self.

These were specific enablements given to certain believers for the purpose of authenticating or confirming God's Word when it was proclaimed in the early church before the Scriptures were written. The temporary sign gifts included prophecy (revelatory prophecy7), miracles, healings, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. The sign gifts had a unique purpose: to give the apostles credentials, that is, to let the people know that these men all spoke the truth of God. Once the Word of God was inscripturated, the sign gifts were no longer needed and they ceased

The gifts of caring, attention, affection, appreciation, and love are some of the most precious gifts you can give, and they don't cost you anything.

It consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitude of God's gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life; and that we actually have received, and do now possess as our own, gifts which come direct from God. It is a blessed thought, that from our childhood God has been laying His fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of his hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received.

Just as important as knowing what gift God has given you is knowing which gifts He hasn't give you. Many Christians try for years to function with gifts they never had in the first place, and this doesn't do the Lord's work much good. It's like trying to hear something with your knee or throw a ball with your nose. Knees and noses are better off doing other things.

With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.

What is wrong with Christians today is that we have the gifts of God but have forgotten the God of the gifts.

One of the great tragedies of life, it seems to me, is when a person classifies himself as someone who has no talents or gifts. When, in disgust or discouragement, we allow ourselves to reach depressive levels of despair because of our demeaning self-appraisal, it is a sad day for us and a sad day in the eyes of God. For us to conclude that we have no gifts when we judge ourselves by stature, intelligence, grade-point average, wealth, power, position, or external appearance is not only unfair but unreasonable.

If beings knew, as I know, the results of sharing gifts, they would not enjoy their gifts without sharing them with others, nor would the taint of stinginess obsess the heart and stay there. even if it were their last and final bit of food, they would not enjoy its use without sharing it, if there were anyone to receive it

In order to thrive as artists we need to be available to the universal flow. When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the larger gifts as well.

[What I want to communicate] doesn't have a language with which I can communicate it. The things that I want to communicate are simply self-evident, emotional things. And the gifts of those things are that they bring both intellectual and emotional gifts - understanding. But I don't really have a major message that I want to bring to the world through my music. The music can tell people everything they need to know about being human beings. It's not my information, it's not mine. I didn't make it. I just discovered it.

Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices.

There are few places outside his own play where a child can contribute to the world in which he finds himself. His world: dominated by adults who tell him what to do and when to do it -benevolent tyrants who dispense gifts to their good subjects and punishment to their bad ones, who are amused at the cleverness of children and annoyed by their stupidities.

We may never be able to pay directly for the gifts of true friendship - but pay we must, even though we make our payment to someone who owes us nothing, in some other place and at some other time.

The real questions for parents should be: "Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?" If so, plan to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions. Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. The mandate is not to be perfect and raise happy children. Perfection doesn't exist, and I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to India...However, I was a cunning child so I kept my ambition to myself, thus avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders.

Both sex and death are eternal themes. You could make thousands of movies on this theme, and whether you have a human being who is painting, singing, making a film, writing, these are the themes that you will come back to and return to. If you don't have any of these artistic expressions, sex is one of the only gifts that nature gave you for free, so it is very important to celebrate it. And then, with death, we are condemned to that. This is absolutely present in our lives.

To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.

His divine spark lives within me, a presence that will never leave. And I am but one of many tools He has at His disposal. If I cannot act - if I refuse to act - that is a choice I am allowed to make. He has given me life, and all I must do to serve Him is to live. Fully and with my whole heart. With this knowledge comes a true understanding of all the gifts He has given me.

Our time on earth and our energy, intelligence, opportunities, relationships, and resources are all gifts from God that he has entrusted to our care and management. We are stewards of whatever God gives us. This concept of stewardship begins with the recognition that God is the owner of everything and everyone on earth. ... We never actually own anything during our brief stay on earth. God just loans the earth to us while we're here. It was God's property before you arrived, and God will loan it to someone else after you die.

How many gifts and graces You have given me! How many favors You have fed me from your hand! I look for your love in all directions, then suddenly its blessing burns in me.

You didn't accidentally get your personality, looks and gifts. You were designed on purpose to be the way you are. You have what you need to fulfill your destiny.

Never pass up any opportunity to share your gifts with the world.

Think not you are charitable if the love of Jesus and His brethren be not purely the motive of your gifts. Alas! you might not give your superfluities, but "bestow all your goods to feed the poor;" you might even "give your body to be burned" for them, and yet be utterly destitute of charity, if self-seeking, self-pleasing or self-ends guide you; and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart.

Gratitude is a humble emotion. It expresses itself in a thousand ways, from a sincere thank you to friend or stranger, to the mute, up-reaching acknowledgment to God--not for the gifts of this day only, but for the day itself; not for what we believe will be ours in the future, but for the bounty of the past.

I'm quite happy for that smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.

As gifts increase in you, let your humility grow, for you must consider that everything is given to you on loan.

As one's gifts increase, his friends decrease.

We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

We know that the gifts which men have do not come from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own line by education than without education, just as you can make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it than if you do not; but no cultivation in this world will ever make an apple out of a potato.

It's really neat when you become a role model. It's also a lot of responsibility. But if you see it as a platform where you can pour into others for Jesus with love, that's where I want to be. Becoming known or noticed in my sport isn't what drives me to work hard and want to be the best I can be. It's Jesus. That's why I play. I play to glorify Him. I worship Him with the gifts I've been given.

Brilliant ideas are gifts from God, sent to you in answer to your prayers . . . and all you need to do is act upon the ideas, one divinely guided step at a time. If you want to validate if an idea is truly heavensent, ask your angels to send you clear signs.

There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

By a great man, however, we mean a man who, because of his spiritual gifts, his character, and other qualities, deserves to be called great and who as a result earns the power to influence others.

It is up to each of us to search for and build upon the gifts which God has given. We must remember that each of us is made in the image of God, that there are no unimportant persons. Everyone matters to God and to his fellowmen.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom.

I was given the gifts of the artist, and the trouble that goes with them: So I have that blessing, and there was never a time thatI questioned it or doubted it.... For forty years, I wanted to jump out of windows.

Honestly, I just think we all have special gifts, everyone. You know, obviously, some are more noticeable than others and that's why there's the limelight. Everybody's in it.

The starting point of discovering who you are, your gifts, your talents, your dreams, is being comfortable with yourself. Spend time alone. Write in a journal. Take long walks in the woods.

I had my first kiss under a tree near the school. It was with a boy named Michael who rarely spoke, but he would sometimes give me one of the cookies from his lunch. Maybe it was the gifts that made me feel special? I don't know, but when our lips touched, it felt magical.

We all have tremendous potential, and we all are blessed with gifts. Yet, the one thing that holds all of us back is some degree of self-doubt. It is not so much the lack of technical information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence.

Santa is having a tough time this year. Last year he deducted eight billion for gifts, and the IRS wants an itemized list

My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.

Have you ever known anyone who bought a fruitcake for himself? Of course not. They are purchased as Christmas gifts, mostly for people you don't particularly like.

The more we enter our own gifts, the more we feel that sense of proportion. In that sense, I think our life lies in the fulfillment of those potentialities, whatever they may be.

Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.

The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.