The Blinding Trophy
His faithfulness to the cross has made us. Wonderful God! Even today, His grace abounds.
In her beautiful song "No one knows", Sinach sings “Your favor surrounds me like a shield, Your Love amazes me, Your Grace has lifted me... Oh! You lifted me from nothing but you set my feet on a Rock to stay. Thank you, Jesus!
Surely it pleased God through the foolishness that was preached that we were saved. Our calling reached us not because we were wise, noble or mighty but God chose us who were the foolish things of this world. Though we were weak, we were chosen from among the mighty.
Now we have trophies from our service to mankind. Our names are sounded in households. We look at these trophies and we feel elated with the joy of our achievements. Sometimes we are tempted to compare ourselves with other ministers.
But wait! It is His grace. It is His love. It is His favor that has brought this about.
He freely gave us His Spirit of wisdom and power we are now visible. He opened doors of opportunity. He shut out the enemy. He gave us favor, audience, money, insights, gifts, life, name it! We have a story because of Jesus. We met a minister who kept reminding us how “I built this church. The sheep are mine. I started from scratch. This is my sweat.” When we recognize Jesus, we realize how frail we are and how everything we have accomplished was only possible because of him. And we don’t need to compare ourselves to anyone. For who makes us different from anyone else? “What do I have that I did not receive? And if I did receive it, why do I boast as though I did not? (1Cor 4:7).
Prayer Lord Jesus, the harvest is plentiful but my vision is blurred by my trophies. Oh God, how I could see these trophies as nothing and cast them at Your feet in worship and continue laboring humbly in Your vineyard in Jesus Name.