The Neglect of our Gifts

By Odon Bulamba (summarised by Benedicte Bahjejian - 18/05/07)


The Lord is building us up brick by brick. If you read the daily Bible readings you will clearly and easily understand, but if you didn’t do it, you will struggle somehow.

Hebrews 2:1-4
‘We must pay more attention, therefore to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him. […]’

In the Bible, there are 3 main questions to which there is no answer:
1. How can we escape judgment?
2. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)
3. Church will be the first judged.

God finds we are neglectful, we do things according to our will, not His, and according to what pleases others around us, instead of pleasing God, our Creator.

If you neglect the great salvation, what will happen to you? Jesus told us about the great salvation to go and make disciples (Mat 28:19).
Neglect is not something good: marriage can be broken because of neglect, joy can be lost because of neglect, even money can fly away because of it, and neglect can make somebody’s life become worse than what it was.

• We, human beings neglect important things, we neglect God’s work, and we believe we are perfect. And the consequences of neglect is that I neglect myself, for example, not washing my dirty dishes or not changing my sheets. Therefore, we mix dirty stuff with God’s work, as mixing dirty and clean clothes.

• Furthermore, neglect doesn’t accept advice, people get angry when they are told to change something.

John 5:40 “Yet you refuse to come to me to have life”
Don’t wait for Good to come to you, come to him first!

The Great Salvation

The great salvation includes these 9 characteristics:
Second birth, forgiveness, reconciliation, salvation, sanctification, redemption, justification,
the gift of the Holy Spirit and new creation.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is the only thing Jesus gave to the Church. Muslims, Buddhists have salvation but not sanctification, not redemption etc. If I neglect this great salvation, I will not enter the kingdom of God.

Why do people, today in the Church, neglect their gifts?
1. Because they can’t be bothered
2. Because they don’t care
3. Because the satisfaction of physical needs comes first (eat, sleep etc.)

The consequences of carelessness
First stage - God comes to those who are careless & removes their gifts one after another, not all at the same time. And how does this happens?
For example, if a wife doesn’t respect her husband, he will not love his wife.
And if a husband does not love his wife, she will not respect her husband.

So if we don’t respect Jesus, the love of God for us will decrease, & we will be losers in everything we do, and become foolish.

2nd stage- God removes other people’s respect toward us. People will start to neglect you and avoid you. Therefore, you will try to impose your will by shouting or using physical force. And because God removed people’s respect for you, people will start to talk behind your back. The fruit of redemption in you will lose its life.

3rd stage- We bear the fruit of neglect
The opposite of the fruit of the Spirit stated in Gal 5:22-23.
Instead of love --- hatred
Instead of kindness --- harshness
Instead of peace --- strife and discord
Instead of goodness --- wickedness
Instead of patience --- impatience
Instead of gentleness --- rudeness
Instead of self- control --- license (excessive freedom)

LOVE, you loved someone yesterday, tomorrow you will hate him / her. We easily hate people because of small things they do to us. Yet life without LOVE is meaningless.

4th stage- We neglect ourselves
Example: A neglectful woman will stay in her pyjamas the whole day, neglect to prepare food, to look after the children and her husband. She will just find excuses. We also, as the bride of Christ, we give excuses to God why we don’t do his work properly, and we blame others. But why don’t you blame yourself first?

• When we neglect God, God humiliates us, the world humiliates us as well. And that’s when Satan sends his people to criticize us: “This man is not a man of God”. You will start to hate even people with whom you usually pray.

When they are sick, neglectful people cannot stop complaining that God doesn’t answer their prayers, and they get easily disappointed.

I will give you an example. When you are constipated and want to go toilet, nothing comes out. You want to poo but you cannot. Neglect is like constipation, it will prevent you from fulfilling your spiritual tasks. What is the solution? Fix your problems yourself.

Only God can heal you from being constipated. If you are neglectful, God will put a barrier in your works, to make you understand that you have to come back to him & repent.

People are leaking

Many people today are leaking. To take an example, if you remove the pin from the tube of a bike, the air will leak out of the tube. You can pump it this morning, but after a 1 hour ride the tube will be flat. To find the leak, you have to use water, & to fill it with air then you must glue a patch.

In the same way, people who show neglect in the work of the Lord, God will remove their power. The first love you once had for Him will vanish. Reading the Bible & praying won’t be any longer a priority in your life. And once you get flat, you pump your Spirit, you prepare your leading and exhortation, come at the prayer meeting pretending you are fine, when you are actually leaking. And after the meeting you are flat again. Pumping is not the solution.
WHY DON’T YOU JUST FIND THE HOLE, buy the glue and fix a patch to cover the leak?
If you are consuming God’s Words & not moving, you won’t move on. Fix the problem.




Isaiah 40:29 “He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak”

If you are weak & accept you are a neglectful person, you should go to God & ask him to increase my strength and care for his work. The trouble is that we only give God some time when we are asked to do so & we keep the rest of our time for ourselves.
God hates that!

God’s gifts are within us. If a neglectful preacher hides is gifts, people will never know he is a preacher. Thus, the more you use your gifts, the more people will see it and realize you are a servant of God. Pray, pray for your gifts, that people will discover what is inside you.

Consider this carefully: practice your gifts. To the ones who neglect to practice them, God will remove them one after another. Use them yourself.

If you face any problems, read Ps 34:6, shout to God for help & He will help you.
Pray God that his power may lead you.

Verses to help us where we are leaking

If you lost your first love, read Rev 2:4
If you lost your joy, read Ps 51:12
If you lost your burden for lost souls, read Mat 9:36
If you lost your priority- fact that God created you & have a purpose for your life, read
Mat 6:33
If you lost your sensitivity, read Hebr 3:8
If you lost your motion- less interested in God’s word, prayer, worship, going to church, read Mat 15:8
If you lost your fire for the Gospel, read Rev 3:15-16


Whoever practices his gifts will receive a crown, so work for your crown!
In conclusion, God wants us ready to serve him. So be ready.

Also, use the sheet ‘What we need to cover’ about the themes in the Bible to know about, and start your own research on the one you find relevant for you. The more you go deep in God’