Hi ladies, I pray that our last devotional gave you encouragement in how to view yourself in the eyes of the Lord. Today, we are going to read about ministry. Open your bibles and read 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Hebrews 13:20-21; and 1 Corinthians 3:5-7.
Now you may be confused as much as I was when I started reading this. I thought “how can ministry be bad?” It can become an idol when we make the ministry about ourselves and wanting to be seen for the good work we are doing and not for God’s glory. As humans, we always want at least a small part of praise. We want to be patted on the back be told what good Christians we are. Our goal is to please Jesus and share His good news. It is not for us to be praised. I pray that the Lord keeps me humble as I continue this blog. It can be easy for me to fall into the trap of feeling like I am such a wonderful person for doing this, when the reason I started this blog was to share the gospel and give women a place for community. The heart of idolizing ministry is using and abusing a God-glorifying task to glorify ourselves.
Let’s discuss what we just read. I have some questions that I want you to think about, write them down, and if you’d like to comment below we can discuss them together!
- In what ways might you be tempted to idolize ministry?
- In what ways can ministry be abused to glorify self instead of glorify God?
- How can we fight the temptation to ministry?
When we identify the idol of ministry in our lives, we must actively fight against it. Remember in our last devotional we talked about giving power over to Satan? This is the same thing. He wants us to believe that we should have at least a little bit of glory for serving Jesus. He tries to tell us the lie that Jesus is selfish and we deserve praise. We do not deserve anything. We don’t deserve God’s grace, His mercy, His love, His holiness, any of it. We are not worthy, but He makes us worthy in Him!
“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:20-21 (ESV).
Well, ladies, we are finished our third week of More Than Anything together! As we wrap this study up I want you to answer a few more questions. Make sure you’re comfortable, get your coffee, your blanket, and let’s reflect on this week.
- What passages stood out to you the most this week?
- What did you observe from this week’s text about God and His character?
- What do these passages teach about the condition of mankind?
- How do these passages point to the gospel?
- How should you respond to these passages? What is the personal application?
- What specific actions steps can you take this week to apply these passages?
I hope you enjoy this study and decide to come back. Next week we’ll start with Knowledge and see how we make that into an idol. I hope you enjoy the beautiful sunset that was made by our loving Father and y’all have a wonderful night.