It Stinks To Be Me!

There was a lady I knew in a church in which I served who would get so hurt because it seemed that others always walked all over people, while she was constantly being walked on. She would say, “Why do I always have to be the servant that gets stepped on? Why don’t they ever have to humble themselves? When is it my turn to be served?”

I found this this morning: “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign- and that without us! How I wish that you had really begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectale to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world- right up to this moment.” (1 Corinthians 4:8-13, TNIV)

Wow! Do you think Paul was happy? Was he pleased with the way others were treating themselves while he endured the worst?

I think that what we see here is Paul, who knew what it meant to follow Jesus in the worst of times, warning the church at Corinth not to settle as a follower of Christ; not that they may not be blessed by God, but that they should remember that everyone’s burden is different. Not better or worse, just different. And glorying in their status rather than the Cross of Christ is dangerous business.

Lord, help me remember today the burdens of others before my own. Help me to walk and live only “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)