May 10

1 Samuel 8:1-9:27, John 6:22-42, Psalm 106:32-48, Proverbs 14:34-35

Pray: “We want to be like [them]” is the refrain of the people of God in 1 Samuel 8:20. It’s easy to get caught up in that kind of thinking. We see posts, tweets, and pics online and think to ourselves, “Must be nice to be them.” Study after study shows that the leading cause of depression and jealousy today is social media. It’s also a rising cause of suicide, especially among teenagers. It seems when we are constantly looking at others’ lives, we are constantly finding fault with our own. As you pray today, ask the Lord to help you be content. Find contentment with your job, your house, your car, your church, your family, etc. When you’re content, you won’t want to be like “them.”

Read: If only this…if only that. The world will tell us things to keep us down: “You’ll never be able to do that…it won’t work.” We even tell ourselves things like, “If that hadn’t happened in my life, then…if I were thinner, prettier, smarter, etc., then…” It’s simple proof of our finite minds. Saul was walking around looking for donkeys when a prophet of the Lord had a conversation with him. You hear the excuses Saul gives. He’s from a tribe that’s unimportant. His family is not prominent. Sounds like something we might say or think of ourselves. Yet, Saul is about to be named King of Israel. I’m grateful for a limitless God who still speaks to people, with quite limited minds, like me.

Edify: Personality worship happens when we begin to ascribe what the Lord is doing to an individual. It happens rather frequently with a pastor, where we worship him/her instead of the God he/she represents (good preacher, great at visitation, etc.). It happens with worship leaders, too (great voice, spirit-filled). Because of their giftedness and ability to lead music, we begin to worship that person rather than the one who put them in the position to begin with: the Lord. The people in Scripture were guilty as well. They attributed God’s provision of bread from Heaven to an individual leader, Moses. Jesus is quick to correct them, telling them it was His Father who gave the people bread. It is easy to drift to personality worship if we’re not careful. Have you ever been guilty of personality worship?

Practice: Why do we make things more difficult than they have to be? We’ve been doing that for centuries. Jesus encountered this in John 6 when the people said, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” (v28). Then, when Jesus tells them the only thing they need to do is to believe, what do they do? Do they celebrate? Do they breathe a sigh of relief? Nope. They demand that Jesus perform a miracle in order for them to believe in Him. The height of arrogance is demanding God do anything for a fallen, rebellious humanity. Yet, that’s what they did. This passage causes me to take a pause and ask myself, “What demands am I placing on God? What does my “this-is-what-a-Christian-looks-like” list contain?” Jesus says, “Believe in the one [the Father] has sent.” Maybe we could stand to simplify things.