Today, as you step into September 13, pause and sit with Paul’s call in Romans 12:3. Right after urging us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, he gets very practical: how you think about yourself matters to God. He warns against thinking more highly of ourselves than we should, and calls us to a clear, honest, faith-filled self-assessment. Your identity, your sense of worth, your place in the body of Christ—none of it rests on ego, comparison, or insecurity, but on the grace and “measure of faith” God Himself has given you.

Grace-Shaped Thinking

Paul begins, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you…” He is an apostle, yet he speaks only on the basis of grace. Even his authority is not self-made; it’s received. That sets the tone: the way you think about yourself should be shaped by grace, not by pride, fear, or what the world applauds. God is not asking you to shrink back in false humility or puff yourself up in self-confidence. He is calling you to Christ-confidence—a way of thinking that starts with what He has done, not what you have done. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Grace removes boasting and excuses at the same time. You can’t boast because everything that truly matters is a gift. You also can’t say you are useless, because God does not waste His gifts. Paul asks, “For who makes you superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). A grace-shaped mind looks in the mirror and says, “Everything good in me is from God, and He intends it for His glory, not my ego.”

The Danger of Overestimating—and Underestimating—Yourself

Romans 12:3 warns “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought.” Pride is not just an ugly character flaw; it is spiritual rebellion. James writes, “But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (James 4:6). To overestimate yourself is to silently say, “I don’t really need God. I’ve got this.” But God actively resists that posture. It is the mindset of the Pharisee in Luke 18 who compared himself to others and went home unjustified. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

Yet there is another subtle danger: underestimating yourself in a way that sounds humble but actually contradicts God’s Word. When you say, “I’m nothing, God could never use me,” you are not agreeing with God; you’re disagreeing with Him. He has placed you in the body of Christ on purpose. Philippians 2:3 calls you to humility—“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves”—but that humility is anchored in the truth that you are in Christ, redeemed and gifted. Real humility does not deny what God has given you; it simply refuses to make it about you.

Living Within the Measure God Has Given

Paul says we should “think of ourselves with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given us” (Romans 12:3). Sober judgment means clear-headed realism. It’s asking honestly: How has God wired me? Where has He placed me? What opportunities, gifts, and responsibilities has He entrusted to me right now? This “measure of faith” is not a contest; it’s a calling. You are not responsible for someone else’s measure, only your own. As Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Your measure is discovered not by comparison, but by abiding.

Living within your God-given measure means leaning into what He has assigned and letting go of what He hasn’t. It’s knowing you are part of a body, not the whole body (see Romans 12:4–5). It frees you to celebrate others’ gifts instead of competing with them. It also calls you to show up fully where you are: in your family, your church, your school, your work. “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). Today, step into your measure by faith—owning what God has given and offering it all back to Him.

Lord, thank You for the grace that saves me and the measure of faith You have given me. Help me today to think with humble, sober judgment and to use what You’ve entrusted to me fully for Your glory.

About 300 B.C. a Greek king named Pyrrhus fought a battle with the Romans at Heraclea. Pyrrhus won the battle but in doing so he suffered such appalling losses as to more than offset his gains.

Thus a victory that costs too much is often called a Pyrrhic victory.

. . .

For years I have watched misled Christians in their unholy effort to make friends with the enemy and to render the cross socially acceptable. A few prophets have written and preached against this outrageous sellout, but their words have gone unheeded. The leadership of the popular Christian movements has been and still is in the hands of persons who are blind to the meaning of the cross. That darkness and light cannot mingle never so much as occurs to them. They are busily engaged copying the world and trying to be like it as far as they dare. To be a Christian one need only "accept" Christ. That brings "peace of mind" and assurance of heaven. After that the cross has no meaning and Christ no authority. Compromise and collaboration are now the distinguishing marks of religion. To be relaxed and well adjusted to society is more important than to keep the commandments of Christ. The fawning, ingratiating spirit is the modern badge of saintliness. Between the world and the Christian there is no longer any great difference. And that not by accident. They planned it that way.

Yes, we have won a victory over the atheists. They no longer cause us any trouble. But subsequent developments will show that our triumph has cost us too much. It is a Pyrrhic victory.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. - Hebrews 11:13

THE great roll-call of heroes of faith in this chapter (Heb. 11) goes upon the supposition that the living spirit of religion was the same in Old and in New Testament times. In both it was faith which knit men to God. It has often been alleged that that great word faith has a different signification in this Epistle from that which it has in the other New Testament writings. The allegation is largely true; in so far as the things believed are concerned they are extremely different, but it is not true in so far as the person trusted or in so far as the act of trusting are concerned, - these are identical. It was no mere temporal and earthly promise on which the faith of these patriarchs was builded. They looked indeed for the land, but in looking for the land they looked "for the City which hath foundations "; and their future hopes had the same dim haze of ignorance, and the same questions unresolved about perspective and relative distances which our future hopes have; and their faith, whatever were its contents, was fundamentally the same out of a soul casting itself upon God which is the essence of our faith in the Divine Son in whom God is made manifest. So with surface difference there is a deep-lying, absolute oneness in the faith of the Old Testament and ours, in their essential nature, in the Object which they grasp, and in their practical effects upon life. Therefore these words, describing what faith did for the world’s grey forefathers, have a more immediate bearing upon us than at first sight may appear, and may suggest for us some thoughts about the proper, practical issues of Christian faith in our daily lives.

Observe that the words, "And were persuaded of them," in our Old Version are a gloss, - no part of the original text. Observe, further, that the adverb "afar off " is intended to apply to both the clauses: "Having seen them" and "embraced them." And that, consequently, "embraced" must necessarily be an inadequate representation of the writer’s idea; for you cannot embrace a thing that is "afar off"; and to "embrace the promises " was the very thing that these men did not do. The meaning of the word is, here, not embraced, but saluted, or greeted; and the figure that lies in it is a very beautiful one. As some traveller topping the water-shed may see far off the white porch of his home, and wave a greeting to it, though it be distant, while his heart goes out over all the intervening, weary leagues; or as some homeward-bound crew catch, away yonder on the horizon, the tremulous low line that is home, and welcome it with a shout of joy, though many a billow dash and break between them and it, these men looked across the weary waste, and saw far away; and as they saw, their hearts went out towards the things that were promised, because they "judged Him faithful that had promised." And that is the attitude and the act which all true faith in God ought to operate in us.