Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Let’s face it—you and I are glory seekers. Whether we’ll admit or not, we all want glory for yourselves, although some may work harder for it than others. But the fact remains that we all crave glory—we crave it from our bosses, we crave it from our spouses, and we especially crave it on social media. Many of us can’t help but to chase those “likes” on those parts of our lives that we curate and publish for others to see.

Yet, one of the hardest parts of the Christian life is coming to the understanding that our glory-seeking ways have to be reformed in light of who we are now in Christ. In Christ, we’ve been given a new identity. Our identity is no longer defined by things like our education, our achievements, our career, our socio-economic status, our marital status, our gender or sexual orientation, or even our race and ethnicity. Our identity is wrapped up in Christ. Our identity is defined by Christ’s perfect sacrifice, and all that we are now are people who’ve been saved, forgiven, and redeemed. If there’s any glory to be gotten in our lives, it’s only the glory that’s reserved for the one who died and was raised on our behalf—that our lives would point to him.

It’s not that we shouldn’t seek to fulfill our unique callings with excellence, but we always need to stop and consider the question: whose glory am I seeking—Christ’s or my own? After all, Jesus doesn’t need my best to make himself look good; he could just as easily use rocks and donkeys more effectively (cf. Num. 22:28; Luke 19:40). Start re-directing your glory-seeking ways to the one who deserves it.