Devotional: August 2008

You're Not All That

Night after night, we minister in churches and auditoriums across the country.  We have people come up to us often and tell us how much they enjoy our ministry, how God has used something we said or sung to make a difference in their life, how talented they think we are.  That is so extremely encouraging, but we must be careful when we receive that, that we know that anything good in us has only been given to us and is not something to glory in. 

I Corinthians 4:7 states: “For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive?  Now if you received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it?”  I absolutely love this verse!  It brings up some interesting questions.  Did you make yourself talented?  Are you good-looking because you are somehow better than someone else?  Were you born into a privileged family because you made some kind of reservation before you were born?  The answer is a resounding “no”!  In fact, Psalm 103:14 says, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”  No matter how highly we think of ourselves, our Creator knows exactly where we come from and what we are made of.  I may be admired by people, but I am simply dust put together by a Master Builder.  I am amazed when I think of what Christ has done in me.  It’s when I begin to think that I am something in myself that I am in trouble.  In fact, it has been in the times that I thought I was really performing well that I have made the worst and most embarrassing mistakes, a reminder that I am a flawed, imperfect human being!  Remember: pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18). 

Sonya