September 9

Isaiah 3:1-5:30, 2 Corinthians 11:1-15, Psalm 53:1-6, Proverbs 22:28-29 

Pray: Lord, help me not to lean on my own understanding but in everything acknowledge You so that You can direct my words, thoughts and actions. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Read: Paul confronts the false teaching that was going on in and around Corinth because it put the work and the ministry of the church in jeopardy. Paul didn’t want the Corinthians to lose their single-minded love for Christ. The same is true for us today… keeping Christ first in our lives can be difficult when we have so many distractions threatening to sidetrack our faith. It can be easy to lose focus. when we lose focus, we lose momentum. When we lose momentum, we stop taking ground for Christ. Paul was worried about the potential loss of momentum and decided to address it head on.  

Edify: Have you ever heard someone say something that made you ask yourself, “Is that really true?” It is this very kind of thing that Paul is talking about. There is a saying that is heard throughout pastoral gatherings and along the halls of seminaries that goes, “Within every heresy is a seed of the truth.” That is the difficult thing about discerning truth from untruth… sometimes there is a little bit of truth within the lie. Our culture is teaching some of these things every day. The media is plastering it across our television and computer screens. It is our job to make sure that we are vigilant with all that we hear and when necessary filter information through the lens of Scripture to determine its validity. Be cautious out there with what you take at face value!

Practice: Pray for discernment when it comes to the things of this world. We are inundated with more information than we can manage and it is within this information dump that we may get ourselves in trouble by making choices without the proper information. Don’t rush to a decision, rather, take time in prayer and discernment before committing to anything.