IBS Application for 1 Corinthians 12:14-15

“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.”

I’ve always found this verse to be very convicting, personally. I struggle with knowing what my place within the body is. When I see how other believers have found their place and are functioning well within that role, I’ve gotten envious of them, and I want to be like them and try to imitate them. The problem is, I haven’t been made for any role other than my role.

I may not still have a firm grasp on what my role is, yet. But I know that it isn’t to be like most of my brothers and sisters. David said in Psalms 139 that he praised God because he had been “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The entirety of that Psalm is all about God’s intimate knowledge of every part of us as our Creator. We’re all uniquely made to serve God’s purposes. He didn’t make any one person to be exactly like anyone else.

When I try to be like someone else, I tell God that He made a mistake in making me somehow. How arrogant is that! I wasn’t made to be like anybody else. I’m me, and God loves me that way. Obviously, I’m not a finished work, and He’s still shaping me into the perfect vessel He wants me to be. However, I’m also never not within His will; I may get off-center once in a while, but I’m always where He wants me to be.

This is a problem I’ve noticed in some form or another in the walks of some my fellow Ignite classmates. I know that this comparison is crippling, because it can prevent us from being barefaced before each other. How can we edify each other when we lack the honesty required to do so? Ultimately, the issue isn’t between each other, but a problem we each have with the way God made us. When we envy or compare ourselves to others, we really have a problem with the way God made us, and our relationship with Him suffers because of it.


For the sake of hoping for greater openness and edifying mutual submission amongst our team, my application for today will be to pray throughout the day that God would break down the walls of our pride and help us realize who each of us is to Him, that we might be satisfied with the way He sees us. I will also pray that these harmful comparisons will cease to be a part of our thoughts, so that we all may not be crippled by what we weren’t made to be.

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