1 Corinthians 4: 4-6 The Faithful Manager
A person should consider us in this way: as servants of Christ and managers of God’s mysteries. In this regard, it is expected of managers that each one of them be found faithful. It is of little importance to me that I should be evaluated by you or by any human court. In fact, I don’t even evaluate myself. For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. The One who evaluates me is the Lord. Therefore don’t judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God. Holman Christian Standard Bible
What an amazing verse, I glean so much from it starting with being a manager of mysteries, to God being my personal heart manager. I do realize that I am a manager of God’s mysteries, but I realize first, that I am a servant of Jesus Christ, so that keeps me pretty humbled. People are mysterious because this is the way God has made them. We have many God mysteries that happen in our lives, we just can’t explain, nor can we dare to even begin to think we can understand other people and their ways. But God calls us the managers of His mysteries and in Him, we do all things with excellence, even faithfully managing His mysteries. It is a Great God adventure being His and we are learning and growing from every moment into every choice we make.
“Success is when I add value to myself. Significance is when I add value to others.” Author~John Maxwell
Flip The Coin Value Side Up
I believe this means that we add value to everyone in our life path by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with them in our words, actions and deeds. We are managing God’s mysteries by keeping them flipped on the side of value, letting people see the extreme value, the eternal significance of God’s mysteries and the impact of these on our lives. We keep the coin flipped on the side of value. We do not devalue people, places or things. We add value just like God has done and will keep doing with us in that special, eternal way of His.
Psalm 90:8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. ESV
Vital-Vertical Evaluation
When I am in a personal relationship with God, in that vital-vertical kind of way, I am letting God evaluate me. He brings those hidden things in my soul to His Light and He reveals the true intentions of my heart. Therefore, I am careful when someone offers me their opinions of what my life needs to look like. I go to God first, I am accountable to God first, He knows me best, He fixes me most.
“None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don’t know we can’t do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we’re told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.” Author― Brennan Manning
Manage Yourself First, Before You Evaluate Others
Aren’t people quite the God mystery? Can you ever truly figure them out? I don’t think so. God created people in that unique way of His and He is the only One, Who can manage them correctly. When it comes to people and relationships with them, we so need God’s direction and discernment. We need to lean into a followship of God’s Holy Spirit, before we speak out any opinion of someone else, in fact we should never speak out of personal opinion, only truth. To manage well the mysteries of God, we must first manage our vital-vertical relationship with Him and bear our heart wide open to the light of His life. Our hearts are desperately in need of God first, before we think we can fix or manage someone else. A faithful manager for God, manages himself and his vital-vertical relationship with God first, before trying to fix other people.
Psalm 139:13-14 For You shaped me, inside and out. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath. I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe. You have approached even the smallest details with excellence; Your works are wonderful; I carry this knowledge deep within my soul. The Voice
How Can They Truly Know My Shape? Only God Does!
People have their opinions on how they think I should act, what they think I should think, speak or sound like. My shape and the giftedness God has designed in me, they make people uncomfortable, therefore people form opinions of me and my life that are not even close to being true. They don’t live in the skin God has made for me, they don’t live out of the personality God shaped in my soul and they don’t live out of the talents God handcrafted my life with. How can they know better what I should be, look like, say or do than God knows? I have been deeply hurt at times in my life, by human beings sharing their opinions about me with me, especially when they have no clue what my heart is shaped by God to be or what God has called me to and is working in me to accomplish this calling. They don’t know me like God does. They don’t know my heart, they don’t know my motives, they don’t know the level of obedience I have to what God asks me to do. They truly don’t know me.
“As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their “right” place.” Author― Henri J.M. Nouwen
Seriously, No Way! God Knows Me Best!
I very rarely take seriously the opinions people offer me on how I can change to make them feel more comfortable, because they very rarely are rightly judging me. They can’t know my heart or my true intentions of my every action, only God can. I am accountable to God first and the way I can protect myself from running off course with the opinions of others, is to stay on course in a vital-vertical relationship with God. God is speaking to me every single day and when I listen up, I hear the truth about myself from the perfect revealer, Jesus Christ and I make the adjustments asked of by His Holy Spirit, so I can be holy-wholly aligned with the heart of God and be on mission with what He wills and not what I want.
God Knows My Heart
When someone comes to you with their opinions of what you should be thinking, saying or doing differently, don’t react to their suggestions, respond to God. God knows you best and He will direct you to “eat the meat and spit out the bones” of people’s evaluations of you. Human beings are very rarely totally correct in their assessments of others and their opinion is never truth, just an opinion. No one can see your heart like God can, no one can know your true intentions like God can. Therefore, take what they said to God first, don’t react until You have laid it out before God, and then respond with His truth and His love. This wisdom works with every relational aspect of living with people. Don’t react, “flesh out”, go to God first and then respond with His truth He has “truthed into” your spirit.
Romans 8:1 Escape from Bondage. Therefore there is now no condemnation [no guilty verdict, no punishment] for those who are in Christ Jesus [who believe in Him as personal Lord and Savior]. Amplified Bible
Has Someone’s Opinion Of You Made You Feel Condemnation
When you are in a vital-vertical relationship with God, you know God’s voice and when He speaks through someone else, you will know it. But if someone offers you an opinion and all you feel afterwards is condemnation and guilt, shake it off, because it is not from God. God does not condemn us or make us feel guilty, God adds value to us. We should be the same as God is, we should always add value to others. We should not speak unless directed by God to speak, because the Holy Spirit will never asked us to say or do something that does not add value to others lives, it is against the nature and mission of God. We take it upon ourselves to fix others and we do so very poorly, because it is out of our worldly viewpoint and we hurt others instead of heal others. We are supposed to be a hospital for sinners and very often we look like a battlefield of wounded warriors, because we think we know better than and more than God does.
“The Lord intends us to be powerful people-mighty in optimism and hopeful of spirit, powerful in evangelistic zeal, potent in influence, sturdy in moral fiber and purity. We can be powerhouses in prayer and preaching.”Author ~ David Jeremiah
Don’t Say It First, Pray It First
The best thing to do is if you don’t know, don’t say it, pray it. Everything you don’t absolutely know to be true is an assumption, opinion or presumption and in none of these forms of communication is there any shred of truth. These are purely lies. See them as they are. They are not truth. The enemy uses assumption, opinion, presumption and rationalization as his main weapons to devalue others. Truth adds value, and truth is something we can’t fully know about someone else without the power and direction of the Holy Spirit. Pray it, don’t say it. Pray it through first and whatever is left after you spend time in prayer with God, fleshing out and taking His truth in, this is directed by His Holy Spirit, this is the way, walk in it. After you thoroughly pray for someone, lifting them up to God, praying the Word for them, your heart is the one that will be changed towards fixing them and you will step out and add value to their lives.
Keep God First ~ His Kingdom Perspective Forefront
In closing, I want to say that negative opinions lead to dead ended relationships. Opinions spoken in haste without the fullness of truth tend to lean into devaluing others instead of adding value to their lives. Opinions are best left unsaid and prayed up, letting the light of God diffuse the human viewpoint and transform them into a Kingdom Perspective. Be so. A person who walks in the fullness of God’s truth, discernment and love. Add value to others. Pray first before you say first. React second and respond first to God. Keep God as your first in the all of your everything. God bless you much and may God’s opinion of you be the one you seek and the one you receive joyfully.
Thoughts come and go, but when the Holy Spirit speaks, they are highlighted by our human senses and they are the beginning of a transformation of our soul, that paints a God characteristic on our spirit that remains forever. Pay attention to the bites of God Thoughts that come in your Miraculous Musings with God, they are simply-significantly purposeful. I hope you are forever changed by this little bite of God revelation that is now more than Just A Thought to your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Check out more of The Bridegroom’s Cafe and be blessed by AWE-GOD….MUCH! KimberlyMac