Today’s reading is 2 Corinthians 10.
My oldest son is wrapping up his 12U baseball season, and I’ve had the privilege of leading his team in devotionals throughout the year since he was 8U. My younger son just started 8U this season, and we started the same with his team with them finishing last week. Using a devotional from The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the main theme of the season was around playing for God’s glory, rather than your own. We could have easily used 2 Corinthians 10:11 for part of our content. As Paul defends his ministry and the work they are doing to spread the Gospel, he says the following..
Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
2 Corinthians 10:11
I have to admit..this can be tough. We naturally want to be proud of our accomplishments or the accomplishments of our children. We want to post on social media and tell others. That’s not bad, and yet Paul is also helping us recognize that nothing we do happens without the power of God and His will in it. James 1:17 also reminds us that “Every good and perfect gift comes from above..” It is really Him through us that good things are done.
It is also human nature to want self-fulfillment or the approval of others, but Paul also reminds us in the next verse we should have an audience of One. He’s the only one we should really seek an “Atta Boy!” or “Atta Girl!” from.
For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one who the Lord commends.
2 Corinthians 10:12
If you follow baseball at all, and especially the Chicago Cubs this year, you may be familiar with centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. He has taken the league by storm in his 2nd year with his electrifying speed and fielding, along with his surprisingly fast development at the plate hitting for average and power. Some are calling him “MVPete” already at just close to the halfway point of the season. Even with all the praise he’s getting from some, I looked at the comments on social media of a post showing an amazing diving catch he had on the 4th of July against the St. Louis Cardinals and most all of what I saw was negative and some downright hateful comments about him and saying this was just another normal diving catch. These comments coming from many who probably never even played baseball when some baseball metrics sites later said the ball had a 0-5% chance of being caught!
Why am I sharing this? Because like we discussed with our 8 year old team, no matter how good we are or how well we do something, if we seek most the approval of other humans (even family..let alone fans, coaches and bosses), we will be left feeling empty. Even the greatest athletes, actors, and business people will always have naysayers which often leads them to being depressed. It’s sad really. But, it is also a good reminder of the truth of these verses that we should only do what we do for His glory and seek His approval. And they go hand in hand really, we will only have His approval if we do it for His glory.
I will end this post as our 8U team broke our devotional huddles this season..
“1…2…3…Whose glory?!!”
“God’s glory!!!”
