Praise

DEVOITON

1 CORINTHIANS

PRAISE

1 Cor 11:2

2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.

NIV

We should not get too carried away with being praised for holding to the teachings, considering what is to follow, but for now maybe we could just wallow in the praise. It may not be a good thing to look for the praise from other people, but if it is given freely and without coercion why should be refuse it? But then as in this case maybe it is just a prelude to being corrected for some error in our ways. There is a certain danger in accepting the praise of men, for it can lead to pride and pride is an awful thing for it comes before the fall. We have to be very careful to always refer any praise from others directly to God. If it were not for God we would not do anything which is worthy of praise. Surely left to our own actions we would not have anything to be praised about. All that we are, all that we say, all that we do, are, or should be, a direct result of God working in our lives. How can we hold to the teachings of Christ without the help of the Holy Spirit? So then why should we be praised for the work of the Holy Spirit? Now true it is our free will which allows the Spirit to do the work, and perhaps for that we should accept a little praise because we have decided to follow Jesus. We could have made a far worse choice and refused to accept Christ in our lives, and then for sure we would not have anything anyone could praise us for. But we do see men giving praise to other men all the time for acts of humanity. When we sit and listen to a concert or a great theatrical performance we stand and praise those involved by applauding, and rightly so, they were brilliant in their performing arts. We even applaud a great orator after they have delivered a convincing speech on a topic of human interest. But do we stand and praise through applause the man of God who has just poured his heart out opening the Word of God to us, in an effort to help us grow spiritually? Is there something wrong with that picture? Yes, we should praise each other, for it is a form of encouragement to continue on the journey with God, but at the same time we need to be careful not to allow that praise to overshadow the work of God in all our lives.