To hear this Morning Devotion, please click It’s the contents that really count
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It is a bit frustrating to purchase a product that promises a certain benefit but then, when used, fails to deliver.
Thank God for those random times we kept the receipt.
We learn from such experiences that what is on the label is no guarantee of an effective product within the container.
High-end packaging simply cannot compensate for dumpster-worthy quality.
And so it is with our spiritual lives.
Today’s reading in the One-Year Bible included a verse that really drilled home this point:
“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts” (I Corinthians 7:19).
The Apostle Paul wanted the believers in Corinth to know that it was not one’s life situation or social status that determined the value of one’s faith in God’s sight. Instead, it was the measure of commitment toward living as God wanted.
Believers who had come from a Jewish background often were tempted toward spiritual pride because of their Hebrew heritage, thinking that being among the chosen people made them better than those around them who weren’t.
Paul wanted them to know that it wasn’t a physical change that determined their spiritual value, but instead a spiritual attitude of surrender.
Likewise, Paul wanted the Gentile believers in the church to understand that the New Covenant’s exclusion of circumcision as a legal requirement for males didn’t mean that uncircumcision was the official physical status for faith. Living to please God was the mandate.
It’s clear that the physical label of cultural/ethnic origin, whether circumcised or non-circumcised, was a label that didn’t matter in the New Covenant.
It was, instead, the contents that really counted.
I pray that your life and mine appear to God and others as having value because of the contents, because of what we accomplish for God and for others.
Yes, we might have value to some people if we look impressive while in the worship service or Sunday school class or in a social gathering or in the work lunchroom.
But if our lives leave God distressed over dumpster-quality attitudes toward Him, they are deserving of being treated like salt that has lost its flavor — tossed out on the street to be trampled upon.
Please pray for wisdom to lead a life of obedience to God. That way, God and everybody else will know His top-shelf place in your heart.
As you and I do this, we prepare ourselves for sharing that top-shelf existence with Him in glory when our container of years is used up.
As always, I love you
Martin
