Ephesians 5:21

“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Being that I'm working on this IBS immediately after our men's study I have this verse in my head from our study together. Philippians 2:4 ESV “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Something that Austin pointed out from this verse is that this verse doesn't say “don't look to his own interests” but rather “not only to his own interests”. How often does Christ want us to focus on ourselves so that we can build up our relationship with him? This isn't because he just wants us to be better people for our sakes, but so that we can be better servants in his kingdom. That by bettering our walks with him first, we will later be able to better people in their walks. So that means there are times in our lives when we will have to have the discernment to determine when we need to focus on our interests or rather the interests of others. Do we focus on our opinions and our desires? Or do we focus on the opinions and desires of others? The answer is which ever is going to be more edifying to the body of Christ. Throughout life there are going to be times when what we want isn't what Christ wants. There are times when we are going to be working with others and Christ isn't going to want to use the ideas that you have or allow your desires to come to focus. He's going to want to use the desires and ideas of another to further His kingdom. And if we let our pride get in the way of Christ’s plans, it could hurt the progress of his kingdom. We may keep people from being used by God and cause trouble in or even halt the Lord’s progress. Therefore, we must be willing to not only allow God to use us, but to allow Him to also use others for the betterment of His kingdom. I am not the only vessel that Christ can use in this world and therefore should've ever think that I am the only person he can use in any given situation. Tomorrow when team Uganda meets up to work on our assignments for this week and I'm going to ask if I can prayer us into our task and pray that we would all realize that we are all separate vessels that the Lord can use while spending our time together and ask Him that he use ones that he truly wants to use.

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