Wednesday 4 Jun 2014

June 4: 2 Corinthians 11:22-29

Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 11:28
besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

Devotion:
Some of us look at the lives we live and we wonder if anything else could go wrong. Some of us look at our lives and marvel at all that goes right and all that is good. Some look back and think about how they should have done things whilst others continue to see more. It is not what we have in our lives but how we look at what we have that makes the big difference.

We may look at what the apostle had to go through and say that we could never cope with having to face all of that; thank goodness we don’t have to! God is not going to bring all those sufferings into all of our lives just because we believe in Him. Christ wants us to live a blessed life that is full of joy and peace and not suffering and pain; but we live in the real world and we have to face these things because they exist in this world. It is the world that brings these sufferings to us and not God. How we deal with it will show others how we see God in our lives.

We could blame God for allowing stuff into our lives but what is that going to achieve? When we complain and blame God, others get to hear about our blame game and they then may believe that God is unfair and unjust. The apostle did not blame God but lifted His name up instead. He did not dwell on all the things that went wrong other than to show us that they did happen.

When we are able to take what happens in our lives and still find ways of lifting up God, of bringing glory to Him, then we have moved on to a place where God can use us. If that is going to be in a very tight spot as we wrestle with difficulties, then we should be able to say that we are still protected by God even in these cases. God is just and will not bring hardships just to see what happens. He will allow things that He knows we can cope with; we may need to constantly call on His name for the strength to cope, but we shall be able to cope.

Points to Ponder:
Do you blame God?

Are you still willing to work with Him?