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Key Bible Verse: For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God Colossians 3:3. Bonus Reading: John 5:41, 44

Scenario 1. I go to a concert hall full of myself, thinking only of what people will think of me. I have everything to lose since all that I am is riding on the success of the upcoming moment. As I begin to perform, the songs flow at first, but then as I play along, my mind starts to wander. "What are they thinking about me?" I say to myself. Just then I learn the painful equation: Thinking of yourself equals messing up.

Scenario 2. As I go into my concert, I have a pretty good feel for my ability. I may not be the best musician in the world, but neither am I the worst. What does it matter anyway, since whatever gifts I have were given to me in the first place and aren't really mine? So I can't lose.

As I begin to play, my energy isn't wasted on thinking of myself. The point of my playing is to present the message of the song, to "wash the feet" of the people or even God by faithfully playing my best with the ability I've been given. Now I become the beneficiary of another equation: To forget yourself equals the best possible performance. To be free from pointing continually to oneself and instead to point only to Christ, is [as today's Key Bible verse says] to be hidden in Him.

—Michael Card in Scribbling in the Sand

My Response: I'll thank God for what He's given me to shoulder—and acknowledge that He is the gift giver.

Thought to Apply: God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.—DWIGHT L. MOODY (evangelist)

Adapted from Scribbling in the Sand (InterVarsity, 2002) by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Lord, grant me a clearer view of myself that includes both giftedness and fallenness.

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