Daily Devotion with Pastor Tong Liu: Today's Passage

1 Corinthians 14:20-21

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written: "Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord.

In this passage, Paul talked about the principles in exercising the spiritual gifts. The first principle is maturity. Paul said that we need to "stop thinking like children" and instead in our thinking be adults. Children are by nature self-centered and are only concerned about their own satisfaction. Also, children cannot make accurate assessment on value; if you ask some children to pick either ten dollars or a small sticker, most of them will probably choose the sticker, because they don't know what's truly valuable. Third, they don't have self-control, as we often see children play will they are exhausted, then they collapse and fall asleep. It is the nature of children to whine, cry and lose control.

Sometimes those in the Charismatic movement may also fall into self-centeredness. We want to satisfied and healed, and have everything provided for by God. We also may not be able to distinguish what's truly valuable; we value outward experience, but may neglect the real inner life. We must beware of these symptoms, but yet we can't be afraid of work of the Holy Spirit because of them. Won't you continue to love your children even if they are self-centered and they lack discernment and self-control? Even if our children are filled with problems, we still expect them to grow up, so we will never give up on them. Similarly, when we are exercising the spiritual gifts, there might be some undesirable phenomena because people are immature, but we need to help them to become more mature. May the Lord help us to distinguish between work of the Holy Spirit, work of the devil and work of our own spirit by following God's principles while serving Him. Let acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, and we will only have true freedom when we are in Christ.

It is easy to serve God, but it's hard to follow His will, and we need a long time of practice to become better at it. It's the same in exercising spiritual gifts, because often our flesh and blood are involved. May God help us and discipline us to become more mature, so that our ministry may truly satisfy His will.

Pray with Pastor Tong

Lord, please examine our hearts. If we are serving you with our flesh and blood, we ask for your forgiveness. Enlighten us so that we can see how we are not pleasing you, and help us to remove all interference from our flesh and blood. Let us serve you in spirit and truth, and help us to grow up and become more mature. I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!