Quail Lake Community Church

Daily Devotional #1,460

Studying Greek in Seminary wasn’t an easy task for me. I had a great introductory professor and I remember preparing for one of our exams. I was working part time as a youth pastor and had a number of things I had to do for my job once I was finished with the test that day. So, to make sure I didn’t forget any my tasks I wrote down each one of them on my left hand so that when I got back into the car I could start working on my list. I had studied hard, and I was confident that I’d done pretty well on the test and so when I finished, I marched up to the professor’s desk and handed him my test with…my left hand. And all over the palm was blue ink writing. I don’t know if he even saw what was there, but I was mortified. It looked like I had cheat notes right there on my hand! So, as he took the test from me, I made a big deal about keeping my hand in front of him and going “Ok, now I need to go back to church and get ready for youth group tonight…” and so on. I held my hand out so he could see it too, so that there was no doubt as to what was written on it. He just smiled and took my test. I never did that again! But I thought about how, as followers of this Jesus of the Bible we do the same kind of thing. We all sin and we all make mistakes…but as believers, we ought to be able to live in such a way that we don’t cause others to stumble because of us and our life choices. The Devil has used the mistakes of the followers of Jesus to discourage numerous folks who were on the edge of committing to Christ or were very new in their faith. So, work to keep your behavior in check first because of your love and regard for this Jesus of the Bible, also because people are watching you to see what following Jesus looks like. And should it happen that you make a serious mistake, let them see how a believer comes back from that with God’s forgiveness and grace. And if you need to keep notes…use a piece of paper!

Here’s our Bible verse for today…

2 Corinthians 6:3 NLT We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry.

Remember I’m praying for you…
With love, PJ