Sunflower Faith

My Daily Bible Reading

Today’s Life Journal Reading is from:

Job 37,38; 1 Corinthians 12

Scripture:

 ¹ Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: ² You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. ³ Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

⁴ There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵ There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. ⁶ And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

 ⁷ But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: ⁸ for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, ¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

¹¹ But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.   

¹² For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. ¹³ For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. ¹⁴ For in fact the body is not one member but many.

¹⁵ If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?

 ¹⁸ But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. ¹⁹ And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

 

²⁰ But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. ²¹ And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

 ²³ And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, ²⁴ but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, ²⁵ that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. ²⁶ And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. ²⁸ And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? (1 Corinthians 12, New King James Version)

 

Observation:

We are EACH blessed with our own unique gifts. You and I. We may not be a Beth Moore or a Chuck Swindoll or C.H. Spurgeon, but that doesn’t lessen our worth and what we have to offer to the ultimate person it does matter to, our Father in Heaven.

He is the ONLY person who cares and the only person, we should care about pleasing. Not your mom or dad, or your best friend, or your husband, or your kids or yourself.

Him.

People are going to judge and be fickle but the truth is, that God He knows what you can and knows that if you do it whole heartly because you want to seek Him, be of service to Him and to worship Him, He is going to bless you for that.

Don’t try to be someone you are not or what someone else wants you to be. You can’t.

As believers and followers, we have our own uniqueness, our own style of writing and talking and believing and ultimately as long as we are going to the same goal, based not on what someone else decides but based on HIS WORD and HIS WORD alone, it is our differences that make us special to Him.

As I read, 1 Corinthians 12:23-26,” ²³ And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, ²⁴ but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, ²⁵ that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. ²⁶ And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

We are all part of the same body and it doesn’t help if the body is attacking itself. It’s like the hand telling the foot what it should do based on what the hand is doing and the ear is telling the thumb, it needs to hear like the ear does, otherwise it’s not really part of the body, even though it’s a thumb and God is using the thumb for something different than He is using the ear doing, but yet,when you put the body all together, it functions for the same thing.

When I work full time, long time ago, the way things work, to get a project done, was that we all had one common goal, get the project done, but we didn’t do it by working on the same parts together.

Different parts of the project was assigned to different people and though the people approached , their own assignments in different ways, the end goal was to get the project done on time, together.

Application:

Appreciation. This passage taught me appreciation that we may vary in how we see things, but it’s not a reason to cause division. It’s not a reason for me to judge and that the focus should be on are we getting to the same goal together and stop nit picking on how we get to it.

If we share the same core beliefs and we are seeking the same goal, we should be focus on pleasing our Father in Heaven and not trying to please each other.

During bible study, one of the members brought up an interesting analogy.

Sandpaper.

Feel how rough sandpaper is?

Sometimes there are people in our lives that may feel like that, but have you stop to think what sandpaper does?

It smooths.

Maybe, sometimes, its not about them, but about us.

Maybe we are the ones that need to be smoothed and not to be conformed,but it’s God’s way of saying, hey…maybe you need to work on issues of acceptance, or patience or being dependent a little more and not trying to have it your way all the time or even have the time, but learn to work together, in cohesion not competition.

We serve an Amazing Father don’t we?

Prayer:

Lord, Thank You for being an awesome Father and I pray and hope that You keep challenging and encouraging me and others in Your word. Lord, teach us compassion, acceptance, self-control, patience, temperance, working together, not being judgemental, Lord the list is endless.

In Matthews 9:12-13; You remind us that You sent Your Son, NOT to heal the healthy but the sick; Our focus should be on those who are sick and in need of Your word.  Your Son walked about prostitutes, and thieves and tax payers, you used a murderer (Saul) to write a good portion of Your word; Help soften our words and our hearts.  You desire mercy, not sacrifice and I pray and hope we remember that.

Help us avoid walking the road of the Pharisees, who even when Christ walked among them, they did not see Him for who He is but tried to make Him into who they were.

Don’t let us fall into that trap.

It’s not about us.

It’s about You.

In Your Name I pray, Amen

****Purpose of this post****

Gentle Readers, There are days that I will read a verse or passage and just feel pulled to share here, but there are days when I will read something and just feel, I need to spend the day, in personal contemplation of what is being convey and may just post via Twitter, what passages I have read that day and post nothing on here.

That is what bible reading is about; It’s not about having to write something down everyday; There maybe days when you are reading say, Numbers and it’s just lineages, but other days, you may find yourself dealing with a “powerhouse verse” of the moment and have to just go “WOW” and seek God in personal time and prayer to understand what He is sharing.

I will try to post daily, but particularly on weekends, if I’m sick or I’m just completely in awe of what I’m reading or maybe I am trying to understand what I am reading, I may not post here, I may just write in my Life Journal (hardcopy), because I will find myself having to seek His Word and/or the Commentary and just seek in prayer to understand what our Father in  Heaven is seeking to reveal.

Either way.

Reading His Word, is about getting to know Him better and developing your Christian growth and maturity. Do what is right and good for you.

If you do use the Life Journal and participate in the daily readings, I would like to hear from you and your perspective on each day’s reading, when I do have a post up, or feel free to comment on a previous “Daily Bible Reading post” or send me a quick email.

Please feel free to join in the linky that I post below, so others too, who uses the Life Journal/or SOAP method to read the bible can participate.

Don’t feel obligate to have to blog about each passage to be read, but if anything, feel free to share those passages that have the most impact on you that day.

There maybe some days that you may read your daily reading and find nothing to jot down in your journal or on your blog and that’s okay, but there maybe other days, that you will find yourself inspire.

This is about you being encouraged to have a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father, and spending each day with Him, You and Him.

It is my prayer and hope that this will be an encouragement to establish a personal daily reading as well.

To find out more about using the S.O.A.P. method, here’s a link to an ehow article and here’s the link to the Life Journal to find out more what it is, and how you can use it for your own daily bible readings. If you don’t want to order the journal or if it’s not available through your local church, another method is simply, buy a journal or notebook or even blog about your life journal readings.

Disclaimer: I am not personally affiliated with the church that the link goes to, but merely share it as a resource of what the Life Journal is, how to order it.

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