Thursday, September 4, 2025

SEPTEMBER 4, 2025

  “Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it.” 


20My son, keep your father’s command
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
21Bind them always on your heart;
fasten them around your neck.
22When you walk, they will guide you;
when you sleep, they will watch over you;
when you awake, they will speak to you.
23For this command is a lamp,
this teaching is a light,
and correction and instruction
are the way to life (6:20-23)

1 CORINTHIANS 14:1-20

1Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit...

JOURNAL 

This truth pierces through the fog of comparison and self-doubt. In a world where we are constantly tempted to measure our value by productivity, approval, or possessions, Manning reminds us that our significance flows from God’s love and His deliberate design of our lives.

Paul puts it simply in 1 Corinthians 14:1“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit…” To follow love is to follow God Himself, and to desire the gifts of His Spirit is to acknowledge that He has already woven something unique and irreplaceable into who we are.

Solomon echoes this in Proverbs 6:20–23, urging us to bind the teachings of our parents and the ways of wisdom around our hearts. They guide, watch, and instruct us because God designed life to be lived with purpose, every small act shining as a lamp along our path.

And Jesus, when asked about the greatest commandment, left no ambiguity: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:29–31). These aren’t just lofty ideals; they are the framework through which our daily choices, whether seen or unseen, take on eternal weight.

When I choose God, I choose life. I choose to direct my gifts, however great or small they may appear, toward Him. If I fail to choose Him, I will inevitably choose something else—status, security, pleasure and those false gods will only poison my soul and ripple harm into the lives of those around me. But in choosing Him, I find my mission, my power, and my passion.

And here’s the staggering truth: I was created to be an agent of God in a way no one else can. Science itself confirms this. no one else on earth shares my exact DNA. Out of billions of people, my genetic code is singular. That uniqueness is not an accident; it is a divine fingerprint. The very strands of my being testify to the fact that no one else can love, serve, or walk with God in the exact way I can.

So when I am tempted to believe my life is small, I remember: nothing done in love is ever insignificant. Each act of obedience, each unseen prayer, each sacrifice of service, carries weight in eternity because it was mine to give. God designed me with a mission stitched into the very double helix of my DNA.

To live out that mission, choosing God, owning my gifts, and walking in my calling, is to live fully alive.


28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.e 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’f 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’g There is no commandment greater than these.”

MARK 12:28-31

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