Wednesday September 24th, 2014
1 Corinthians 9:25 “And everyone who competes for
the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable
crown, but we for an imperishable crown.”
I
kind of touched on the crown yesterday, but it’s so incredible to think. Every
time I think of a crown, I picture that of a princess, or even more so a queen
or king! Shinning gold, with a bunch of precious jewels, emerald, ruby,
sapphire, diamond, etc. that goes on your head. It sounds so expensive! It’s
like when you get a new phone and you’re just afraid to touch it, or some new
shoes and you don’t even want to wear them because you don’t want to scuff them
or whatever. But every single one of those things are just material items, and
they will wither away, just as Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers, the flower
fades, but the word of God stands forever.” -This verse speaks of God’s word
living forever, but in a way it’s like that, I should desire to obtain that
imperishable crown, the eternal crown the Lord has for me, that lives on. I
will not receive it right away, it will be one day in heaven, and I should
desire God to say, “Well done good and faithful servant; you were faithful over
a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of
your Lord.” (Matthew 25:21) What grace it is that God, who created me, who
loves me, who doesn’t need me, yet chooses to use me, still can give me a crown
for the works I do for Him on earth. It just blows my mind every time I think
of that!
But
touching on the first part of 1 Corinthians 9:25, I am to be temperate in all
things. A synonym for temperate is self-controlled. That definitely goes along
with dying to self. I can’t be the one to run the show, Jesus is. I need to ask
for self-control so I can let Him lead, and that is a daily task. Being human I
always want to know what the next step is and have that control in my life, if
I don’t know what is going on, I tend to freak out a little bit. The whole
nobody knows what the heck to expect about going to Cambodia thing is kind of
scary…But that’s the beauty of it all, only God knows the entire parade, I just
see the Snoopy float that’s right in front of me. It’s a matter of daily
placing my trust in Him. Man, I just can’t go over the fact that God has to
work these types of things in me constantly, especially since I’m only human
and I forget. All my goal should be is bring others to know Him, run my race,
well the Lord’s race, with all I’ve got, and receiving a shiny crown that is
solely thanks to God is an awesome plus and blessing from the Lord!
Application:
I will write, “Seek out God’s parade float for today” in my journal and pray
that God will show me something new that I can serve Him or my family here in
Antigua.
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