The AMI QT Devotionals from May 15-21 are provided by Pastor Barry Kang, who heads Symphony Church in Boston. Barry, a graduate of Stanford University and Fuller Theological Seminary (M.Div.), is married to Sunny (an amazing worship leader, chef and math wizard). They are the proud parents of Caleb and Micah.
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FOR TODAY
Beginning and Ending in Grace
2 Corinthians 13:14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Paul began his letter to the Corinthians with a benediction (literally means “a good word”) of grace: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:2); and now ends with a benediction of grace. His message begins with grace, the middle is full of grace, and again ends with grace.
Before he met Jesus, Paul was not a man known for grace. He was known for his zeal for God and his knowledge of the Scriptures. He was also known for persecuting the sect of Jewish believers known as Christ followers. But after he met Christ, he became a man full of grace. Grace was the most important thing he had received and the most important thing he had to offer.
As we follow Jesus, many of us begin with grace, but at some point, we can be tempted to replace the grace of God with our human works. But the thing is, we never graduate from the Gospel of grace. Our Christian lives begin with grace, sustained by grace, and end with the grace of God.
Paul had many reasons to be angry with the church in Corinth, but he never forgot grace. His pain and anger was tempered by love, and he ends with a sincere blessing over them. I pray that we would never forget grace, and that it would overflow in our lives.
Prayer: Father, I thank You for Your amazing grace. Your grace saved me, forgave my sins, brought me into a relationship with you, sustains me and leads me into holiness. Forgive me for any ways that I’ve been trying to earn Your love or any ways that I’ve sought a righteousness of our own. Help me to never forget grace. May Your grace, love and fellowship sustain and lead me throughout my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Deuteronomy 13
The AMI QT Devotionals from May 15-21 are provided by Pastor Barry Kang, who heads Symphony Church in Boston. Barry, a graduate of Stanford University and Fuller Theological Seminary (M.Div.), is married to Sunny (an amazing worship leader, chef and math wizard). They are the proud parents of Caleb and Micah.
One of my seminary professors refused to give exams in his class because he had been scarred by all exams and tests he’d endured in his own education. Even though I did fairly well with exams, his class was still one of my favorites in the seminary! Few of us like the idea of exams: We delay going to the doctor; we dread what we will hear from our auto mechanics. There is even a school of thought in education that wants to eliminate high-stakes testing (i.e. state wide exams) in our public schools. But we know that—even if we don’t like it—exams at some level are necessary. They are necessary because sometimes we get off-course (even if we don’t want to acknowledge it). That’s why we need to check where we are and figure out where to go from there.
Humble yourself and God will exalt you (James 4:10); the first shall be last (Matthew 20:16); free from sin, slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18); live through dying (John 12:24); lose life to find it (Matthew 10:39); when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10)—the New Testament has many seeming paradoxes. Culturally and societally speaking, they don’t always make sense, but spiritually—they make all the sense in the world.
Everybody has a thorn. Your thorn is that place in your life where you feel most vulnerable or broken or defeated. You don’t want to talk about it; you’d like to pretend it’s not there. Paul says that he pleaded with God three times to take his thorn away. This was not a casual request. Paul poured his heart out before God, but the heavens were silent. We’ve all been there.
Let’s begin this morning by making sure that we not miss Paul’s main point: he is not trying to inform the Corinthian church about how much he has suffered for the gospel. Rather, he is using ironic rhetoric to demonstrate the absurdity of boasting. In verses 30-33, he will cap this remarkable litany of sufferings with a boast of how he once ran away from potential persecution!
“There is no such things as a free lunch,” my high school economics teacher loved to tell us. Many of us, over the years, have learned to become skeptical of anyone who will offer to give us something for free. “What’s the catch?” we wonder. The Corinthians, under the influence of “super-apostles,” were wondering why Paul labored as a tent-maker if this message he had was so valuable. If what is being offered is truly valuable, then it ought to cost something to the receiver.
Early in our marriage, Sunny would sometimes forget to wear her wedding ring. One time, she was in a grocery store shopping for groceries, when a good looking man approached her saying, “Excuse me, you look like you know how to cook.” She realized that this was a very sweet but clumsy pick-up line. As she told me this story afterwards, we laughed about the incident. I could laugh because Sunny had given me little reason to actually be jealous. I also sternly told her to wear her wedding ring from that time on!
If you have been following the NBA (National Basketball Association), there has been a notorious character flooding the sports news – Lavar Ball, the father of UCLA freshman Lonzo Ball. He has been making outrageous claims that his son, without being drafted onto a NBA team, is already better than Stephen Curry and Michael Jordan. More recently, BBB (Big Baller Brand), Lavar Ball’s apparel company, released Lonzo’s shoe to be valued at $500. To give readers some context of the situation, only NBA super stars release their own shoes, not undrafted college players. Even when NBA super stars release their shoes, they are at most $300—not $500!
If you have ever run a race at a track meet, you know that you are confined to your lane, which means you are not allowed to step outside of the lane assigned to you. If you do, you get disqualified. These lanes are there to keep you from hindering other people from running their race as well as to keep you safe.
Tennis has always been a large part of my life. I started learning how to play when I was 7 years old and spent majority of my time training for tournaments. I became obsessed with the game and would spend hours watching professionals play. One thing I noticed is that professionals in the top 30 are equal in skill: they all can hit serves at amazing speeds, have great footwork, and their forehand and backhand are fluid. However, what separates the top 5 from the rest is—their mental game. The reason why Roger Federer was able to hold his no. 1 position for years was because he had a strong mental game. Yes, he would get frustrated, but losing a game wouldn’t hinder him from finding a solution to beat his opponent. At the core of it, tennis is a mental game.