Today's scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:16-18
Paul exhorted the Christians in Corinth to imitate him. He didn’t do this
because he thought he was somehow better than they were. He did it because he
knew he was more mature in his faith, and he knew they could learn from him.
Each of us has someone (or perhaps more than one someone) who is farther along
his faith journey than we are. We can learn from their example. We can see how
they handle adversity with grace. We can watch how they strive to be more like
Christ. My maternal grandfather was such a person. I would consider myself
blessed indeed if I knew I was imitating his faith.
If you don’t have someone like this, find someone. And it doesn’t necessarily
have to be a flesh-and-blood person. You can study Paul’s life. Read each of
his epistles very carefully and learn from him. Two mentors of mine are Joni
Eareckson Tada and Corrie Ten Boom. I never met either of these women, but
their stories have inspired me, encouraged me, and convicted me through the
years.
Imitating godly people helps us to become more the people God created us to be.
And it does something more: We often become mentors for others. As we grow in
faith, God will bring younger (and I don’t just mean chronologically) believers
into our lives. They then look to us as examples of more mature faith.
It’s a wonderful circle of learning and being influenced, and then teaching and
influencing. And God’s in the middle of it all!
Today's scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:14-15
We
need to be taught. None of us learns by osmosis. We’re taught by our parents to
speak, to behave properly, to understand values. Then we go to school, and
we’re taught math, history, and science.
We go off to work, and we’re taught the essential duties of our jobs.
And if we’re really, really fortunate, we have good teachers who have hearts
for helping us learn what we need to learn.
It’s the same with our faith. We need good, godly teachers to help us
understand what it means to be followers of Christ. We need people who have
spent countless hours studying God’s word, investigating it, looking at each
word’s meaning in Greek or Hebrew. We need men and women whose passion is to
teach believers about God, about faith.
And we learn from each other as well. That’s one of the things I love best
about group Bible studies: learning from each other. The Holy Spirit speaks to
each of us as we prayerfully study God’s word. And oftentimes, He’ll give me an
insight that differs slightly from the insight He’s given you—and we can both
be inspired.
Learning should be life-long, and this is even more so for followers of Christ.
We’ll never learn, this side of heaven, all the Bible offers: encouragement,
affirmation, exhortation, conviction. But as long as we’re on this earth, we
should seek out godly men and women who love God’s word and learn from them.
And then, perhaps one day, we can teach others.
Today's scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:8-13
I am continually amazed at Paul’s deep love for Christ and his unwavering
faith. Many places in his epistles, he wrote of the suffering he endured as a
follower of Christ. But he faithfully followed his Lord anyway.
In today’s verses, he wrote of being a fool for Christ, about his weaknesses,
and about being dishonored.
He was hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed. He was “roughly treated … homeless.”
And yet, he didn’t complain. He continued to follow God’s call on his life.
Look at how he handled adversity:
~He blessed those who reviled him.
~He endured when he was persecuted.
~He attempted reconciliation when others slandered him.
Do we handle things in the same way? Frankly? I’ve never been hungry or thirsty
or poorly clothed. I’ve always had a home. I’ve never really been mistreated
because of my faith.
I don’t know if God will ever ask me to live through such adversity, such
suffering, such pain, but I pray that, if He does, I will be just like Paul.
Today's
scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:6-7
A few days ago, I quoted Psalm
24:1, which says that “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world
and those who dwell therein.” Everything
belongs to our Creator God.
So why do we struggle with pride or arrogance? Why do we look at all the stuff
around us and think, “Look at what I have. Look at what I’ve done.”
We owe our very lives to God, and if He’s chosen to bless us with earthly
treasures, then we should be grateful, not arrogant.
It’s the same with any spiritual gifts with which He’s chosen to bless us. I
have to admit, this is an area I used to struggle with a lot. I’m immensely
privileged to speak and/or sing for women’s events, and for many years, I
served on worship teams. It was often all too easy for me to think about my
gifts. When I thought of those gifts as mine, rather than something from God I
should steward, I’d think, “I could do that better.”
It’s only when I finally recognized how weak and incapable I am without God’s
work in my life—and that everything I have and am is His—that I was able to
give whatever gifts He’s given me back to Him. If He chooses to use me to speak
or sing, then it’s a blessing. If He chooses not to, then it’s still a
blessing because He’ll use me in another way.
We can’t take credit for anything. We’ve received everything from God, and it
is for His glory that all we have—our time, our talents, and our
treasures—should be used.
Today's scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:3-5
Paul writes about judgment in today's verses. We Christians like to quote
another verse about judgment a lot: “Judge not, and you shall not be judged” (NKJV, Luke 6:37). But I like today’s
verse even better: “… do not go on passing judgment [because] the Lord … will
bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of
men’s hearts …”
We have no idea what’s in a person’s heart. We can point fingers all we want,
but God is the ultimate judge. And because we cannot know what goes on between
a person and God, we must not judge.
God examines … not us.
There’s something in human nature that wants to be judge and jury. We love it
when someone else seems to stumble. Our flesh likes to think we’re somehow
better than someone else. But we all have sin of some kind in our lives. And we
all have things we do to build God’s kingdom.
And I’m going out on a limb here, but I think God judges the person who does
“good” with a wrong motive just as He does someone who practices sin. What I
mean is if I’m using a gift He’s given me, but with a prideful heart, I’m
sinning. Pride is a sin. Just like anger. Or gossip. Or covetousness. Or
murder. Or adultery.
Or what about when I follow God’s will for my life, but I do it grudgingly,
whining and complaining all the way? God will judge that as well because He
also looks at my heart’s motives. It’s like the parable Jesus told about the
two sons: "Tell me what you think of this story: A man had two sons.
He went up to the first and said, 'Son, go out for the day and work in the
vineyard.' The son answered, 'I don't want to.' Later on he thought better of
it and went. The father gave the same command to the second son. He answered,
'Sure, glad to.' But he never went. Which of the two sons did what the father asked?"
They said, "The first" (MSG,
Matthew 21:28-32). It’s a tall order: We need to live as sinless as we possibly
can, and we need to serve with right motives.
But praise God, we’re not in this alone. We have the Holy Spirit within us to
encourage us when we’re struggling and to convict us when we veer from God’s
path.
So the bottom line is, we need to watch out for ourselves. We need to focus on
our own relationships with God.
And leave all judgment to the only One who has the right to judge … and it’s
not us!
