Saturday 17 Feb 2014

February 17: 1 Corinthians 4:6-13

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 4:7
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Devotion:
Isn't it amazing how pride works in our lives. We become proud of what we achieve and what we can do. We become proud about how we can help others. But then we let pride get in our way and our pride begins to separate us from our friends. Our pride gets the better of us even when things go wrong for us! If we look at the good times in our lives, we see how we show pride in how good things get for us. Then when things get rough, we show pride in how bad things get for us... we boast about who has the worst time!

How little we realise just how much God is actually in our lives and how much God is trying to allow us to see that He is! When we start to get overconfident about ourselves, we often stumble and fall – how else do we get saying such as “pride comes before a fall”.  We have all things in our lives because of the grace of God. It is through the richness of God's grace that we are allowed things in our lives. If we start to make others believe that it is anything other than that, then we can expect things to go wrong. If we are not glorifying God for things we have or do, then we are not trusting in the truth and not passing that truth on to others. How can we take credit for the things that are not ours?

If we think we have it bad, we can look back to the apostles’ lives and see just how good we have things in comparison. We can look at people in other countries and see how peaceful and safe our lives are. When we see how good things are going and start to boast about how good we are, we are deceiving ourselves because we know that it is through God's grace that we are allowed what we have. We need to work honestly under God's grace and make sure our work not only reflects God's wishes, but also glorifies God for what He has allowed into our lives. No matter whether we are in the best or worst times – we need to let others know how God can change their lives too.

Points to Ponder:
Do you find yourself boasting without thinking about it?

How often do you let others know that God is behind you?