Recipients

Daily Reading:  1 Corinthians 4

 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Corinthians 4.7)

Devotional Thought: In America, we are blessed with freedom and wealth, with long life and health.  Everyone who lives here benefits from the system of government, from the sacrifices made in the past, and from the values of personal responsibility and hard work.  As Americans, we can feel superior and say: "Look how great we are!"  Or, we can feel gratitude for being so blessed!  The same thing is true in our Christian lives.  We can feel superior, or we can feel gratitude.

Paul dealt quite forcefully with the Corinthians' attitude of spiritual superiority.  They felt superior to others in wisdom and spiritual experience.  They looked down their noses at Christians whose relationship with Christ was different from theirs. They wanted to be elevated above all others.  Pride had a firm foothold in their hearts.  Paul would have none of it: "Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing?" (v. 7, The Message)

The same thing is true about each of us.  I was deep in spiritual poverty - hopelessly lost! - before Christ saved me.  It was not because of my superior intelligence or my spiritual quest that God saved me.  It was purely a gift from God!  Now, having walked with Christ for 47 years, I am still amazed at God’s saving grace.  Yet, I must confess that there are times when spiritual arrogance begins to creep into my heart: "Look where I am!"  Then God has to bring me to my senses.  I’m no better than anyone else.  I have simply been the recipient of God’s amazing grace!

Prayer: Lord, when I forget that I am a recipient of your amazing grace... "Roll back the curtain of memory now and then. Show me where you brought me from and where I could have been. Remember I'm a human and human's forget, so remind me, remind me dear Lord." Amen. [Alison Krauss]

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 109:6-15

6 Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy; let an accuser stand at his right hand.

7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him.

8 May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.

9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

11 May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

12 May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

13 May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.

14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

15 May their sins always remain before the LORD, that he may blot out their name from the earth.