Thrive in Your Gifting - The Penguin - The Character of Creatures

This is a chapter from the book The Character of Creatures: What the Animal Kingdom Teaches Us About God and His Word.

Thrive in Your Gifting – The Penguin

Do you think penguins are sad that they can’t fly in the sky? I don’t think so, because Penguins do fly! They just do it underwater! Unlike airborne birds, Penguins create thrust both on the up flap and the down flap of their wings. Some can swim up to twenty miles per hour! They are designed to shoot out of the water at incredible speeds by capturing air under their feathers and compressing it like a rocket! I think it would be fun to be a penguin!

They have different gifts that provide different abilities!

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them! ~ Romans 12:6

Discussion:

1. Which of these animals is best equipped to climb a tree: A goldfish, a monkey, a penguin, or an elephant? If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will fail miserably. What is that fish good at? What gifts has God given you? What are you good at? Are there any gifts you wish he had given you? 1 Corinthians 14:1 says there are gifts you can gain through pursuit and effort; the most important is the ability to share Jesus and his Word faithfully! Do you have that gift? Do you want it?

2. It’s so tempting to look down on others who don’t have our gifts. But they have gifts of their own. What is something someone else is good at that you’re not? Are you thankful for them and their gift?

3. The penguin can teach us that just because we can’t do what someone else does, we can still accomplish God’s will in our lives! Just like the animal kingdom is full of different animals, so is a church built up of many Christians with many different gifts! Do you have a local church?

You did not earn your gift, you did not choose your gift, and you did not develop it by human ingenuity. God designed you, saved you, and gifted you uniquely for the building up of the body of Christ. ~ John MacArthur

Hypocrites - The Ostrich - The Character of Creatures

This is a chapter from the book The Character of Creatures: What the Animal Kingdom Teaches Us About God and His Word.

Hypocrites – The Ostrich

Ostriches are amazing birds that can run incredibly fast. You usually don’t hear about birds running, but the Ostrich has to run because it cannot fly; it is too heavy and its wings are too small. The ostrich is also notorious for not caring for its babies, it goes through all the work to lay an egg, then it sometimes forgets about it, or even steps on it!

God designed it in such a way to help us not be like the ostrich:

The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? ~ Job 39:13

Discussion:

1.      A hypocrite is a person who puts on a show or a mask to pretend to be someone they are not. How can you tell if a person is a Christian? Is it because they say they are a Christian? Or is it because they bear fruit in keeping with repentance? James tells us that we can see that a person is a Christian by their works (James 2:24). Can you think of any people, past or present, who claimed to be Christians but did not bear good fruit?

2.     If an ostrich decided it wanted to fly, could it work out, strengthen its wings, lose weight, and take to the air? If God wanted the ostrich to fly, he would have had to design it completely differently; if God wants someone to go from a hypocrite to a Christian, he is going to have to completely remake them! We call that transformation (Romans 12:2).

3.     Jesus wrote to the church in Sardis, “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead!” (Revelation 3:1). It’s a scary thought that we might look like Christians but have no Christ in us. Read Galatians 2:20 and pray that Christ would live in you.

Salvation is not a reformation of behavior but a transformation of character. ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones