1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Friend, if you don’t read your Bible every day asking God to speak to you, then expecting to hear His voice, you are missing out.

A few months ago I found a devotional book of short excerpts from AW Tozer sermons, compiled by Gerald B. Smith and published by Moody Publishers, 2008, called Mornings With Tozer. Today, August 20, there was a line that caught my attention and prepared my heart to hear from God as I turned to 1 Corinthians 15. In fact, I not only heard what God wanted me to know, I got a gentle hug from my Lord, too.

So Paul is talking about our resurrected bodies. It’s natural to wonder what we will look like in our new and improved bodies. I see me as a size 0 with long flowing blond hair and perfect skin. I digress.

Paul says the body I am wearing will die like a seed dies in the ground and comes forth as something totally different. This body won’t be the same when Jesus comes for the harvest. It will be changed into something incorruptible and immortal in the twinkling of an eye. (I get chills just thinking about that. Jesus is coming again!)

But, and this comes from the “therefore” in verse 58, until that eye-twinkle I am to be “steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

I hear God say, “Don’t spend so much time trying to figure out things the details of which I didn’t think were important for you to know. Get to work.” My spiritual body will be what God intends my spiritual body to be and until I receive that spiritual body, it’s pointless to dwell on the possibilities. There are too many things to do before I get there.

I was prompted to take an inventory of my “labor in the Lord.” I am a Sunday School teacher, a ladies’ Bible Study teacher, the head of a children’s ministry, I sit on a long range planning committee at church, and am on a team that serves our Wednesday dinners. I attend church every Sunday, followed by Sunday School, I go to our Wednesday night prayer and Bible study. I spend many hours each week preparing for the various lessons I teach, and I start each day with a quiet time in God’s Word. I will tell you, sometimes I get weary.

So I read Paul’s charge to be “steadfast, immovable, excellent,” and my whole body aches. All the things I do are good things, I love doing them, and it’s my privilege to serve God this way. But none of that is the most important thing.

Here’s what Tozer said that got my attention: “Of things religious we may become tired, even prayer may weary us, but God never!”

I’ve come to realize it’s when I’m doing religious stuff, when I’m intent on the task at hand, wanting to do well, giving it my all, that’s when I become the weariest. But when my gaze is on Jesus, when I am in-tune to His voice and relying on His direction and strength, He makes me steadfast, immovable, and excellent.

I said I felt a hug from God this morning. I hear Him tell me to quit trying so hard. It’s not that any of what I do is wrong, or that the time I put in is futile, or that I shouldn’t want what I do to be excellent. But none of that can come in place of my relationship with Jesus. My first priority is to my Savior.

When we, God and I, work together the labor is not in vain. When my focus is on Jesus, the work gets done with excellence. I’m glad God has given me some religious stuff to do, but the stuff isn’t my religion.

Jesus is.