SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS!
Do you ever find yourself thinking rude things about others? The other morning I woke up and I was extra tired. As I was putting dishes away from the night before, making coffee, and getting ready to make lunches, I found myself irritated with my husband. For what you ask? Well, this devotional isn’t about him. Besides, he hadn’t even done anything. This devotional is about me just having horrible, rude thoughts and for what? Do you find that you have horrible thoughts before coffee and before your quiet time with God? I’m sure it’s a combination of my flesh and the enemy trying to keep me from receiving God’s encouragement through His Word. I knew I better submit to God. Apparently, I needed an extra huge dose of God on this particular morning.
“God, please help me! I’m a mess this morning. Forgive me, Father, please. Please convict me. There is something ugly going on in me right now. Please identify it and cleanse me with Your truth. In Jesus’ Mighty Name, Amen.”
I poured my coffee, got my Bible, and sat down.
God began to speak, “Kristina, you are angry about what I have assigned to you to do. You were relying on your own strength for a moment. Remember that I give sufficient grace for each task each day. I give to each as he or she needs to accomplish My will in their life each day, each task, each moment. My grace is sufficient for you. You are to only compare yourself to the cross. Jesus wins the comparison test every time. If you compare yourself to your husband, you will trip on that big self-righteous pride-filled version of yourself. Now, go forward in your humbleness and my overflowing grace.”
I spent the rest of my quiet time in quietness. I can still hear the slurp of my coffee on my lips as I reflect.
Paul’s Vision and His Thorn
2Co 12:1I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.
2Co 12:2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.
2Co 12:3And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—
2Co 12:4was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
2Co 12:5I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.
2Co 12:6Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.
2Co 12:7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me athorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
2Co 12:8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
2Co 12:9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2Co 12:10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Kristina Seymour loves to encourage and equip women through the Word and through community. She is the author of The Warrior Mom Handbook, The Warrior Mom Leadership Manual, and The Warrior Wife Handbook; they are available at Amazon.com. Kristina's Bible studies are for women who desire to live by faith in the midst of their everyday lives. She has learned that women can't survive on caffeine and animal crackers alone; women in the Word and in community are united and able to stand firm. To learn more about Kristina, please visit her recently founded Share & Company Publishing House http://seymourkristina.wix.