7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’
The reality that men and women are endowed with certain God given aptitudes, is evident in the comprehensiveness of the following statement in Acts 17:25:
He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things,including your gifts, your talents, your capacity. 1 Corinthians 4:7 reads:What do you have that you did not receive?James 1:17 says,Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.Those statements are indiscriminate, comprehensive, unlimited in nature, and thus by deduction, they include a man or woman’s aptitude for a particular pursuit.Then there is the lesson in Deuteronomy 8:17, that connects closely with this matter of one’s aptitudes given by God. It is in the context of the warnings of the old covenant people coming into the land and becoming proud and forgetful.
Otherwise, you may say in your heart, My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.We are self made people and thus are warranted to congratulate ourselves. Deuteronomy 8:18 says,But you are to remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth.The language cannot be plainer. It is he who gives you capacity, who gives you the requisite skill to make wealth. What was true of the old covenant people, is true of you. It is he who gives you the power to make wealth.In this connection Romans 12:3 applies:
George McDearmonFor through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.Sound judgment, as the paragraph goes on, as to the gifts and in this context, they are redemptive in nature, but by principle they would include any gift God has given. Sound judgment as to the gifts God has invested in you. We are to endeavour to accurately assess, accurately identify our God given aptitudes, because they are indices through our future pursuits with regard to work. We are to think so as to have sound judgment, relative to the powers, capacities, and aptitudes with which we have been endowed. And we are to select an employment to which we are adapted in terms of those endowments.1
25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.