Wednesday 20 Jun 2012

Wednesday Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 7:16
16  For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

Devotion:
You may well ask why I have suddenly jumped into one of those ‘subject we should not discuss’, or at least that seem to be how so many feel about talking about death and divorce! But the reason why I have come here is not to harp on about how we should not get divorced unless Christ allows it but rather to look at the world from a realistic point of view instead of the ideal that we know it should be.

None of us live in an ideal situation – or at least I am yet to meet someone who does. Yes we can trust as much as we do in Christ and we can live our lives as much as we can according to His will, but there will still be mistakes, concerns and departures from the ideal – no matter how hard we do try! Just as divorce seems to be of manic proportions nowadays, there have been many times in the past when the same was true of both Jews and Gentiles. Why else would the Apostle write about such things if it were not so then? We need to be able to focus on what God wants in our lives and some of those things may well not agree with our ideals about life!

When I was young and first employed, my ideal life did not have God in it unless someone else wanted me to be with them in a church somewhere. Yes I knew God back then and He knew me – but my life did not involve Him in everyday living. Instead it was not the normal thing to have God as any portion in my life other than on a “seldom Sunday” event. How then should He be allowed to work in my life when I was specifically excluding Him with the way I was living? How then was I supposed to be able to see that He was trying to work in my life? How was I supposed to know how much He cared for me?

The more that I have trusted in God, the more closer walk I have had with Him and the more that I have been able to place my trust in Him and in His ways. I was the one who had to start walking back to Him as He patiently waited for me (and it was with extreme patience I kept Him waiting). I was the one who had to make the move so that I could see the hands that He was holding out to me. I did not know how much He could do in my life until I trusted Him properly with my life. So I chose these verses to make us think, not in terms of what we normally see as black and white but in terms of the unseen things that God continues to have an effect on in our lives. We don’t know how much He can use us until we submit to His ways properly.

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are doing enough?

Have you actually allowed God to do something in your life yet?