I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
1 Corinthians 3:6,7
God Is in Charge
Daily Devotion – July 19, 2023
Devotion based on 1 Corinthians 3:6,7
See series: Devotions
“God asks us to be faithful, but he’s in charge of the results.” This phrase is a good one for us to keep in mind as Christ’s witnesses in the world. We can be faithful in getting into God’s harvest field. We can put ourselves in situations where we get to let our lights shine out to others by our words and our actions. We can take the opportunities God gives us to reach out to neighbors with Christ’s love or to invite a family member to worship with us. But we must always remember that God is the one in charge of the results. It is God who makes faith sprout or grow in a person’s heart. He is the sunshine and the rain. We can’t control those things, but God can.
If we try to take the results of building God’s kingdom into our own hands, we will be disappointed and quickly realize we can’t achieve anything if it were left up to us. But since God is in charge of the results, since he is the one who has the power to change hearts, we can take that overwhelming pressure off ourselves. If our labor in the Lord ever seems in vain, we remember that God has the results in hand.
Since God is in charge of the results, we want to work faithfully in his service. He’s taken all the pressure off of us. We are nothing, and he is everything. And that is just the way we want it to be.
Prayer:
Gracious Lord, give me many opportunities to plant and water seeds of faith in others. Then help me entrust the results of my work to you. Amen.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
