Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus)

“If you can do anything else and be at peace with God—do that.” These are the words from our elders/mentors as we told them of our call to minister in Jesus Name, leaving our old life behind.  We were public school teachers.  We had worked hard to achieve education to teach, but then God called us out of teaching elementary students to teaching/preaching His Good News to everyone who would listen.  To be sure of the calling of God upon our lives, we were also told, “if you feel compelled and cannot think of doing anything but this, then obey the call.”  “May God be with you.”

No one accepts the call to full time service to God’s work without deep contemplation; praying to discern if the call is from God.  No one drops everything to follow without first seeking advice of spiritual mentors asking if they see what God sees in us.  And above all, no one says yes to this vocation for life without God initiating the call while preparing our hearts for service.  This requires many hours of asking God what He wants while immersing ourselves in being still to listen.  God will put specific people in our lives to affirm us and lead us while caring for our needs as He prepares us.  He did it for us, God does it for all who will answer His call and follow His direction and guidance.  Let go, and let God do what He does best. 

No one accepts the call of God through Jesus without passionate surrender to God.  Paul is one example of many.  What a great legacy for us!

1 Corinthians 9, The Message

^1-2 And don’t tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I’m perfectly free to do this—isn’t that obvious? Haven’t I been given a job to do? Wasn’t I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren’t you yourselves proof of the good work that I’ve done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can’t deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!

^3-7 I’m not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don’t seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master’s brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don’t dairy farmers get to drink their fill from the pail?

^8-12 I’m not just sounding off because I’m irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, “Don’t muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it’s threshing.” Do you think Moses’ primary concern was the care of farm animals? Don’t you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don’t we who have never demanded deserve even more?

^12-14 But we’re not going to start demanding now what we’ve always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ. All I’m concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.

^15-18 Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or question my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!

^19-23 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

^24-25 You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.

^26-27 I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No lazy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Daily surrender.  “Place Your Life Before God” 

^“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”—Paul, Romans 12:1-2, MSG

God calls us to specific ministry as we give all we are to all He is in surrender.  “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 NLT  He will be our wisdom and strength.

God calls.  God equips.  God sends.  God guides. God provides.  All for the glory of God while bringing out His best in us.  God never fails.  His love is unchanging. 

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!” Ephesians 3:20, MSG

All believers are called no matter what your vocation to help people know, believe, and follow Jesus!  We were created to praise Him and tell others His redemption story for His glory!

“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.”  2 Corinthians 5:11

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, NIV

Trust God.  Tell the story of Jesus so they will know and believe.

Lord,

There are many thoughts but our primary thought is to love more than enough so others will see and know your love that save us for eternity. I surrender all. Give us wisdom, insight and understanding to be, love, serve, and tell in your Name for your glory!  Thank you, Lord!

In Jesus Name, Amen

“Just because you can; doesn’t mean you should.”  I heard this from a legacy of believers in Jesus over my lifetime.  It wasn’t until I began facing more adult situations that demanded a response from me that I began to pause and consider the outcomes of my choices.  Would what I am about to say or do confuse a young believer who is watching my life?  Am I responsible for the lives of others as well as my own life with Jesus as I walk with Him? 

The more I study Paul’s letter to the churches who were struggling to pull away from the behaviors of the world while trying to growing in the ways of God, I’m beginning to understood even more.  Yes, Jesus sets us free from our sins and our former way of life that held us in bondage.  Yes, Jesus leads us to enjoying a life free from the entanglements of evil—the one who loves to wrap us up in again in his control so we will be a slave to sin once more.  Yes, it is true that Jesus leads us to Life everlasting.  It is also true that Evil leads us to death forever. 

Jesus gave His life for ours.  Evil gives us nothing but heartache, pain with certain and death. 

Who then shall we choose?  Do our choices matter to others?  Yes, they do.

1 Corinthians 8, The Message

^1-3 The question keeps coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend meals where such meat is served, or not? We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.

^4-6 Some people say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, that there’s nothing to them, that there is no God other than our one God, that no matter how many of these so-called gods are named and worshiped they still don’t add up to anything but a tall story. They say—again, quite rightly—that there is only one God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live for him. Also, they say that there is only one Master—Jesus the Messiah—and that everything is for his sake, including us. Yes. It’s true.

⁷ In strict logic, then, nothing happened to the meat when it was offered up to an idol. It’s just like any other meat. I know that, and you know that. But knowing isn’t everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls who treat others as know-nothings. Real knowledge isn’t that insensitive.

We need to be sensitive to the fact that we’re not all at the same level of understanding in this. Some of you have spent your entire lives eating “idol meat,” and are sure that there’s something bad in the meat that then becomes something bad inside of you. An imagination and conscience shaped under those conditions isn’t going to change overnight.

^8-9 But fortunately God doesn’t grade us on our diet. We’re neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it. But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a fellow believer still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track.

¹⁰ For instance, say you flaunt your freedom by going to a banquet thrown in honor of idols, where the main course is meat sacrificed to idols. Isn’t there great danger if someone still struggling over this issue, someone who looks up to you as knowledgeable and mature, sees you go into that banquet? The danger is that he will become terribly confused—maybe even to the point of getting mixed up himself in what his conscience tells him is wrong.

^11-13 Christ gave up his life for that person. Wouldn’t you at least be willing to give up going to dinner for him—because, as you say, it doesn’t really make any difference? But it does make a difference if you hurt your friend terribly, risking his eternal ruin! When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ. A free meal here and there isn’t worth it at the cost of even one of these “weak ones.” So, never go to these idol-tainted meals if there’s any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

To Paul, nothing was more important than spreading the gospel, so giving up his rights was a worthwhile sacrifice.  Paul will reiterate this truth later in his letter—

“Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ. When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law. Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law. When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law,^[a] I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ.

When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.” 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, NLT

One of our top priorities should be enabling others to understand the gospel.  Our behavior should be guided by the example of Jesus who came to earth to seek and to save the lost. Only Jesus saves us.  But we are His beloved who point the Way to Jesus!  Though God has given us many blessings and rights, we should be willing to give them up if it would help someone to know Christ.  Read that again.  You can protect your reputation or protect His. You have a choice.

As Paul took his “cue” from God’s Holy Spirit and the example of Jesus, we can and should as well.  Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:7–8).

Max Lucado writes;

“Christ abandoned his reputation. No one in Nazareth saluted him as the Son of God. He did not stand out in his elementary-classroom photograph, demanded no glossy page in his high-school annual. Friends knew him as a woodworker, not a star hanger. His looks turned no heads; his position earned him no credit. In the great stoop we call Christmas, Jesus abandoned heavenly privileges and aproned earthly pains. ‘He gave up his place with God and made himself nothing.’”  (Read all of Philippians 2)

As God used Paul, He also uses us who are fully committed to Him to deliver the gospel of peace through salvation in Jesus to the His beloved world who needs Him.  We needed Jesus when we found Him and He delivered us.  Why wouldn’t we want others to know Him and be filled with joy and peace while discovering a love that has no bounds?!

Our culture encourages us to stand up for ourselves and demand our rights, even at the expense of others. Yet Jesus and the New Testament writers repeatedly point to the joy we receive from humility and self-sacrifice. “Consider it pure joy when we suffer trials…” says James.  Our response to the world can bring people to Christ or push them away!  We have freedom, yes, but with this freedom is the responsibility to help others know Jesus and be set free, too!

Paul uses the example of idol meat—should we eat it or not.  Probably the most powerful words in this passage are; “When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ.”  Our response matters.  It matters to God.  It matters to all those who are watching our lives in hopes of seeing Christ in us.

Lord,

Give us your extreme, powerful, decision-making wisdom for all the situations we face on our journey here.  We realize now the hefty responsibility we have to help others know, believe, and follow you, too.  Lead and guide us all day long and into the night.  Help us avoid unwholesome talk, jealousy and envy that leads to judgement of others, sarcastic remarks and other responses and actions that might hurt someone else and hinder their walk with you.  Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls with your new mercies for today, and continually restore the joy and peace of you in us and us in you.  Oh Lord, lead us.  I trust you.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

Since the residents of Corinth were renowned for godlessness, Paul explained how to honor God in Christian relationships, specifically sexual relations. Paul’s teaching contrasted with the majority opinion in Corinth—kind of like today!  It has been said, if Paul lived in our day we’d be getting a letter!

Whether single or married, we must live devoted to the Lord. God’s design for marriage is to glorify Him and the two who become one under His care.  Paul also points out advantages of being unmarried.  That is all.  To glorify God with all that we are while seeking His purposes and walking in His ways that honor God is what Paul is teaching.  God—above all and in all—nothing less. 

Paul is speaking to a very sinful society in Corinth who treats sex as amusement for merely self-satisfaction.  This lifestyle was abusive and degrading.  God created sex for our pleasure and for procreation within a certain context of marriage. Part of the “two becoming one” is in the intimacy of our sexual relationship with our spouse that consummates our devotion and commitment to leaving the old life with our mom and dad while becoming a new family beginning with two.  To have a relationship that honors God and each other who have given themselves in marriage—“the two becoming one”—is God’s plan for our best. 

Paul explains that singleness can also honor God.  To be married or single with each having benefits all their own is not the point, the point is to commit first to God by repenting of all our sins to Jesus.  Allow God’s Holy Spirit to guide us to what is best for us as God knows what we need most.

1 Corinthians 7, The Message

To Be Married, to Be Single . . .

7 Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?

^2-6 Certainly—but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it’s for the purposes of prayer and fasting—but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it. I’m not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence—only providing my best counsel if you should choose them.

⁷ Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me—a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.

^8-9 I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. But if they can’t manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single.

^10-11 And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master’s command, not mine. If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife.

^12-14 For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages—Christian married to non-Christian—we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her. If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him. The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God.

^15-16 On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse walks out, you’ve got to let him or her go. You don’t have to hold on desperately. God has called us to make the best of it, as peacefully as we can. You never know, wife: The way you handle this might bring your husband not only back to you but to God. You never know, husband: The way you handle this might bring your wife not only back to you but to God.

¹⁷ And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your marital status, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.

^18-19 Were you Jewish at the time God called you? Don’t try to remove the evidence. Were you non-Jewish at the time of your call? Don’t become a Jew. Being Jewish isn’t the point. The really important thing is obeying God’s call, following his commands.

^20-22 Stay where you were when God called your name. Were you a slave? Slavery is no roadblock to obeying and believing. I don’t mean you’re stuck and can’t leave. If you have a chance at freedom, go ahead and take it. I’m simply trying to point out that under your new Master you’re going to experience a marvelous freedom you would never have dreamed of. On the other hand, if you were free when Christ called you, you’ll experience a delightful “enslavement to God” you would never have dreamed of.

^23-24 All of you, slave and free both, were once held hostage in a sinful society. Then a huge sum was paid out for your ransom. So please don’t, out of old habit, slip back into being or doing what everyone else tells you. Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side.

^25-28 The Master did not give explicit direction regarding virgins, but as one much experienced in the mercy of the Master and loyal to him all the way, you can trust my counsel. Because of the current pressures on us from all sides, I think it would probably be best to stay just as you are. Are you married? Stay married. Are you unmarried? Don’t get married. But there’s certainly no sin in getting married, whether you’re a virgin or not. All I am saying is that when you marry, you take on additional stress in an already stressful time, and I want to spare you if possible.

^29-31 I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple—in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is fading away.

^32-35 I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions.

^36-38 If a man has a woman friend to whom he is loyal but never intended to marry, having decided to serve God as a “single,” and then changes his mind, deciding he should marry her, he should go ahead and marry. It’s no sin; it’s not even a “step down” from celibacy, as some say. On the other hand, if a man is comfortable in his decision for a single life in service to God and it’s entirely his own conviction and not imposed on him by others, he ought to stick with it. Marriage is spiritually and morally right and not inferior to singleness in any way, although as I indicated earlier, because of the times we live in, I do have pastoral reasons for encouraging singleness.

^39-40 A wife must stay with her husband as long as he lives. If he dies, she is free to marry anyone she chooses. She will, of course, want to marry a believer and have the blessing of the Master. By now you know that I think she’ll be better off staying single. The Master, in my opinion, thinks so, too.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Whether to be single or to be married, the goal is to honor God with your very lives by believing in Jesus as Savior and obeying Him as Lord of our lives.

As in all things, the spiritual must govern the physical; for our bodies are God’s temples. Paul is encouraging Christian partners to be “in tune” with each other in matters both spiritual and physical.

Not only did the church ask about celibacy, but they also asked Paul about divorce. Since Jesus had dealt with this question, Paul cited his teaching: Husbands and wives are not to divorce each other. If divorce does occur, the parties should remain unmarried or seek reconciliation.

Scripture does not teach that the unsaved partner is saved because of the believing mate, since each person must individually decide for Christ. Rather, it means that the believer exerts a spiritual influence in the home that can lead to the salvation of the lost partner.

The principle that Paul laid down was this: Even though Christians are all one in Christ, each believer should remain in the same calling he was in when the Lord saved him.  We are prone to think that a change in circumstances is always the answer to a problem. But the problem is usually within us and not around us. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.

Unmarried believers who feel a call to serve God should examine their own hearts to see if marriage will help or hinder their ministry. They must also be careful to marry spouses who feel a similar call to serve God. Each person has his own gifts and calling from God and must be obedient to His Word.

God designed marriage to be for life. For this reason, marriage must be built on something sturdier than good looks, money, romantic excitement, and social acceptance. There must be Christian commitment, character, and maturity. There must be a willingness to grow, to learn from each other, to forgive and forget, to minister to one another. The kind of love Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13 is what is needed to cement two lives together.

Lord,

Whether single or married, our commitment for life must first begin with you.  With you all things come together for good for only you are good.  Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls with your new mercies, and restore the joy and peace of you in us and us in you.  When we realize the depth of love you have for us, we love each other more deeply—by your design.  Thank you, Lord.

In Jesus Name, Amen

“You have heard it said, but I say to you…”  Jesus began many statements of Truth in this manner to a world of people who had lost their way.  Many were confused by the pompous, arrogant elite religious leaders who had allowed all things of the world to be included in their lives of faith.  These leaders’ faith was found to be shallow at best because they no longer had a relationship with God.  They wanted power over people in a Roman world of oppression.  They “played to the Romans” and oppressed their own brothers and sisters in God’s family!

These leaders used God as a stepping stone to higher positions in the community. In a sense, the sought to be God and we know how that attitude is dealt with by God!  Satan was thrown out of heaven because of his goal to be God!  This same attitude led these arrogant leaders to assume being “in charge” of the behaviors of God’s people, setting themselves up as judge and jury.  God’s Law was meant to protect people from each other in a peace filled environment so that God’s love could be reciprocated. Love God, Love each other.  Jesus said all other laws of God pertained to and were built upon love for God and for each other!

But the religious elite didn’t agree and had the audacity to create many addendums to the law with one purpose in mind—to control God’s people with heavy burdens with fines and punishments in order to line their pockets.  After all, doesn’t money bring power and position? 

Jesus demonstrated to the world God’s Kingdom thinking that turned the world upside down and inside out! Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, to heal and forgive, and to help people understand the compassion, love, mercy, and grace of God who seeks an intimate growing relationship with His people once more.  Jesus is Truth who demonstrated authentic faith by living the real Way God intended for His people to live.

Paul, who has turned from the sins of being one of those religious elites, to being a believer and follower of Jesus has been sent by Him to clarify again the ways of God that produces in us what money cannot buy—redemption and forgiveness of sins by Jesus’ work on the cross—the pure grace of God.  God paid the high price for our souls by giving us Jesus, His Son, who sacrificed His life for ours.

Who are we to turn down the gift of Life eternal?  Who turns down a forever, unchanging love of God?  Who wants to be free from the world while living in the world?  And who are we to abuse our bodies given to God, His temple, in which He resides?

Yes, Paul has hit a nerve with Truth.

1 Corinthians 6, The Message

^1-4 And how dare you take each other to court! When you think you have been wronged, does it make any sense to go before a court that knows nothing of God’s ways instead of a family of Christians? The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of followers of Jesus. If someday you are going to rule on the world’s fate, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases? Why, we’re even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs? As these disagreements and wrongs surface, why would you ever entrust them to the judgment of people you don’t trust in any other way?

^5-6 I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you’re doing. Is it possible that there isn’t one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don’t believe it. And here you are taking each other to court before people who don’t even believe in God! How can they render justice if they don’t believe in the God of justice?

^7-8 These court cases are a black eye on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.

^9-11 Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.

¹² Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

¹³ You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

^14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

^16-20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

Lord,

You don’t just want part of me, you want all of me.  My being is your sacred dwelling place!  My mind, heart, body and soul is your instrument of your love, mercy, and grace for others to see so they may believe, be saved and begin a glorious, intimate relationship of love that money cannot buy and humans have yet to duplicate.  You saved us by your blood spilled in sacrifice for our sins.  You laid down your life for mine.  You are all I need and all I want.  Jesus you are everything to me. God you are Healer, Protector, and Provider.  Holy Spirit, you are encourager, the guide to Truth with directions at each step on my journey here before going there.  Yes, I’m yours.  All of me for all of you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen

“Don’t judge, lest you be judge with the same measure.”  Jesus said it and we believe it.  But when we see our beloved believer live a life that is contrary God and what He says, as along with evidence that their lives are hurting them and others; it breaks our hearts and we cannot ignore it. There is a fine line between judging each other and caring enough to confront each other. 

The love of God in us has everything to do with knowing how to confront prayerfully and carefully.  We must pray for God’s wisdom in all of life but especially for His words to say to a brother or sister who are doing things that are hurtful.  It is not the goal to hinder another person’s faith but to help by come alongside beside them so they may thrive. God does the growing, but as Paul said earlier in his letter to the church in Corinth, we are His fieldhands who till the soil and waters the seedlings.

I am grateful for the loving people in my life who confronted me at pivotal times in my growing faith with God. Without them, I would have taken different paths and struggled longer and harder on my journey.  God put people in my life at just the right time to help me because I knew they loved me with the love of God.  They spoke God’s Truth in love.

So, The difference between judging and confronting has everything to do with our inner motives.

Judging is evaluating someone simply by how they appear to your first impression of them.  Thinking you have the right to judge because of position and rank is dangerous.  Coming to a conclusion about someone without reasonable evidence is judging.  Arrogantly setting people up to fail by your measuring stick of behavior, expecting others to be like you in all their ways, is judging.

Confronting is watching one you love walk to the edge of a dangerous cliff.  Your heart skips a beat in fear for them.  Your first thought and goal are to reach out to grab their hand before they slip and fall because you love them!  Confronting is loving and caring enough to help them see how much God loves them and wants His best for them.  Careful and prayerful confrontation, with God helping us, could save a brother or sister’s life!

1 Corinthians 5, The Message

The Mystery of Sex

^1-2 I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?

^3-5 I’ll tell you what I would do. Even though I’m not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what’s going on. I’m telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master. Assemble the community—I’ll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.

^6-8 Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious.

^9-13 I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with criminals, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

When God leads us to confront a brother or sister in Christ, we can be sure His Holy Spirit will give us the tender words of compassionate correction delivered in His love in the Name of Jesus.  But prayer comes first.  Pray for wisdom. Pray for opportunity. Pray diligently for the person you are about to confront to be receptive to the love you have for them. Pray for our motivations to be “simple, genuine, unpretentious” wanting only what God wants in this person’s life—His best!

Judge less—love more.  Confront more with love and care, ignore less. 

I am reminded of my teaching days. I cared greatly for each child in my classroom and prayed for them daily.  My desire was for each child to succeed at their rate of learning in the best way possible.  My work as their teacher was to provide a safe, loving, accepting, and caring environment for learning and maturing to happen.  But what if I never confronted or corrected them when that environment was threatened by their behaviors?  What if I never helped them with what I was taught through some of the tests of life they would endure?

TESTS—we all have them.  Caring people will help us learn from them.  And God cares the most!

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

EXAMPLE: Consider the spelling lesson.  As students we all had the weekly list of words to learn to spell with the phonics and grammar lessons that accompanied each word, right?  What if the teacher put the list on the screen and said, “Well, here’s some more words that will help you learn about life.  Study them however you want in whatever way you want.  Do that this week, but not to worry, I have decided that there will be no test on Friday.

Question:  How many of us as students would be disciplined enough to bother to study what we needed to know—knowing there would never be anyone who cared enough to evaluate, confront, and correct our learning? Mm…not many.

Be simple, genuine, unpretentious.  Trials and tests grow our faith.  Evaluation of our behaviors through confrontation by others who have already been tested and have learned well and love greatly are a must!

Paul is one who cares enough to confront because of His love for God and His church.  Paul never permitted sexually immoral behavior in the church. The environment for learning and growing in Christ as His Body was threatened and no longer safe. Yet he remained compassionate when dealing with people.  Our bodies are God’s instruments, intended for his work and for his glory.  The Corinthian Christians had serious trouble with this. When it came to the body, they insisted, “I have the right to do anything.” Their philosophy conveniently separated flesh from spirit. Have fun with the flesh. Honor God with the spirit. Wild Saturdays. Worshipful Sundays. You can have it all.

Paul disagreed because this was not of God. He cared enough to confront and reminded his brothers and sisters that God interwove body with soul, elevating them to equal status. Your body is no toy. Quite the contrary. Your body is a tool. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?”

Greater still, Jesus lives in you and me. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you” (1Corinthinas 6:19). Paul wrote these words to counter the Corinthian sex obsession. “Flee from sexual immorality,” reads the prior sentence. “All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”  What a salmon Scripture! No message swims more upstream than this one. You know the sexual anthem of our day: “I’ll do what I want. It’s my body.”

God’s firm response? “No, it’s not. It’s mine.”

Lord,

You are my God and I am your beloved.  What a pure, holy relationship that you have provided by paying the price to redeem us from the world and give us Life forever.  You gave us a life attached to you.  You are the One to cling to on this journey of tests and trials along with the gifts of joy and peace!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen

Who would you rather work for and alongside? People who care enough about you to confront you when you do things that will cause you to crash or those who never tell you when you get it right and say you’re fine.  Would you listen to caring people who want God’s best for you and speak truth to you because of their passionate love for you?  What traits are found to be helpful in nurturing others to be all God created them to be? 

In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul walks through the accountability of church leadership, the mark of suffering in the lives of followers of Jesus, and his desire for the Corinthians to imitate his faith. We learn through this passage that God’s call for his servants is not success, honor, or status, but faithfulness alone.  Imitate Christ, Paul preaches.  His letter to the Philippians bears his motivation for all to know and believe Jesus, but to also do what Jesus did when he walked the earth to love and serve for no other reason but to save the world of their sins and reconcile them to God, the Father. (See Philippians 2)

We learn that the empowered life we seek comes from a relentless faith in God that never quits.  “God’s Way is not a matter of mere talk; it’s an empowered life.”  It is God who gives us the power to live life to the full.

1 Corinthians 4, The Message

^1-4 Don’t imagine us leaders to be something we aren’t. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God’s divine secrets, not security guards posted to protect them. The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge. It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don’t even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless. I’m not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn’t mean much. The Master makes that judgment.

⁵ So don’t get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the “Well done!” of God.

⁶ All I’m doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It’s important to look at things from God’s point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.

^7-8 For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you’re sitting on top of the world—at least God’s world—and we’re right there, sitting alongside you!

^9-13 It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We’re something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We’re the Messiah’s misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we’re mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don’t have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, “God bless you.” When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We’re treated like garbage, the leftovers that nobody wants. And it’s not getting any better.

^14-16 I’m not writing all this as a neighborhood scold to shame you. I’m writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled. There are a lot of people around who can’t wait to tell you what you’ve done wrong, but there aren’t many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God’s Message to you that I became your father. I’m not, you know, asking you to do anything I’m not already doing myself.

¹⁷ This is why I sent Timothy to you earlier. He is also my dear son, and true to the Master. He will refresh your memory on the instructions I regularly give all the churches on the way of Christ.

^18-20 I know there are some among you who are so full of themselves they never listen to anyone, let alone me. They don’t think I’ll ever show up in person. But I’ll be there sooner than you think, God willing, and then we’ll see if they’re full of anything but hot air. God’s Way is not a matter of mere talk; it’s an empowered life.

²¹ So how should I prepare to come to you? As a severe disciplinarian who makes you walk the line? Or as a good friend and counselor who wants to share heart-to-heart with you? You decide.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Messiah’s misfits.  We no longer conform to the ways of the world but to the ways of Christ who came to earth NOT to be served but to serve with the love of God leading Him.  If we find ourselves “fitting in” then we need to evaluate our motivations!  What Master are we giving ourselves to and serving alongside?  Is our goal to give God glory in all things?  Do we seek God first each morning knowing that being with Him seeking His direction is more important than our doing? 

Being guides our doing!  We should guide others to be the same.  Jesus “got away to a secluded, quiet place” often to be with the Father to get his direction and guidance before doing anything of significance for the Father.  Who are we to think we do not need to do what Jesus, Son of God, King of kings, and Lord of lords, did?

The last thing you should worry about is being a nuisance to God. All you need to concentrate on is doing what he tells you to do—just like Jesus!

Do all for the glory of God!  Paul hoped church leaders in Corinth would regard him and other apostles as fellow servants of God. Paul sought to correct the church, not abandon or demean it. Paul said that ministers were servants accountable to God. Their faithful service would bring praise from God.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

“Do what He says.”  Consider the miracle Jesus provided at the wedding feast of turning water into wine.  (John 2)  Imagine you are one of the servants at the wedding.  You know what is missing—the good wine.  You watch as Jesus prays over jugs of water you helped to fill at His direction.  You wonder what will happen next.  Then Jesus turns to you and tells you to take some of the “water” to the guests for wine tasting.  What do you do?

Max Lucado helps us understand this scenario of trust and obey:

“What if the servants had refused? What if they had said, “No way”? Or, to bring the point closer to home, what if you refuse? What if you identify the problem, take it to Jesus, and then refuse to do what he says?  That’s possible. After all, God is asking you to take some pretty gutsy steps. Money is tight, but he still asks you to give. You’ve been offended, but he asks you to forgive your offender. Someone else blew the assignment, but he still asks you to be patient. You can’t see God’s face, but he still asks you to pray.

Not commands for the faint of faith. But then again, he wouldn’t ask you to do it if he thought you couldn’t. So go ahead.

Evaluate your service for God. Are you a faithful steward? Are you using your spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ? God’s first call to you, no matter what you do, is to display faithfulness and obedience to him.” –Lucado, Encouraging Word Bible

You decide, carefully and prayerfully…

Lord,

I give you back me—all of me, complete with my imperfections.  Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, refresh my soul, and restore the joy and peace of you in me and me in you. Speak to my heart for I’m listening.  I am your servant.  May your desires be my desires, your leading be my way to trust and obey what you say.

In Jesus Name, Amen

In our lifetime, Randy and I have been in a position of receiving guidance from pastors who cared for our lives.  As we grew in our faith we became the “helpers” as pastors and mentors of others.  So, we get it, Paul.  We see, feel, and remember those frustrating times when trying to help believers build their foundation of faith in Jesus.  We sighed heavily when believers, both old and young in age, pursued things of the world by keeping one foot in the world.  They demanded their own way—like a baby who wants his pacifier and wants it now!  To love and serve others alluded some of people for they would tell us that we were hired to serve them.  Ouch.

We apologize now to all the pastors/mentors/teachers who lovingly and patiently worked with us through our childish ways and foolish thinking.  As mature adults, we still haven’t arrived and still need work for God is not finished with us yet.  We currently have a pastor in this season of our lives who feeds our souls with God’s Truth pulled from the Wisdom of God in His Word.  We appreciate our pastor who not only knows the Word, he lives Jesus.  He is not perfect but he knows who is and follows Jesus as the One to trust.

Paul reminds all believers of Jesus to avoid demanding our own way while nursing our feelings that come and go like the wind and rain.  This life of Jesus living in us, His Holy Spirit guiding us, while God grows us is indeed a distinct privilege!  We must not muddy the waters with our foolish “know-it-all” thinking.  Allow God to grow us into all He created us to be…and then do.

1 Corinthians 3, The Message

^1-4 But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally childish?

^5-9 Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.

^9-15 Or, to put it another way, you are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.

^16-17 You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.

^18-20 Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being relevant. Be God’s fool—that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture,

He exposes the hype of the hipsters.
The Master sees through the smoke screens
    of the know-it-alls.

^21-23 I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Be grateful for those whom God calls to pastor us while being one of us in the “herd” of sheep.  Thank God for Jesus who is at the center as Lord and Shepherd of the flock.  “The Lord is my Shepard, I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23:1)  “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” –Jesus, John 10:27-28

Pastor Paul wrote to a church that was young and immature who were listening to their own voices. He corrected some misunderstandings in the Corinthian church and outlined how the people should act, live, and relate.  We will continue in this teaching in the next few chapters to the church. But for now…Paul teaches that mature Christian practices love and seeks to get along with others.

Children like to disagree and fuss. And children like to identify with heroes, whether sports heroes or Hollywood heroes. The “babes” in Corinth were fighting over which preacher was the greatest—Paul, Apollos, or Peter.  When in fact, it is Jesus who is at the Center, the Cornerstone that holds us together, as well as the Foundation whom God builds our lives upon.

God’s ministry “farm” is explained by Paul:

First, diversity of ministry. One laborer plows the soil, another sows the seed, a third waters the seed. As time passes, the plants grow, the fruit appears, and other laborers enjoy reaping the harvest. This emphasis on diversity will also show up when Paul compares the church to a body with many different parts.  (We’re coming to that soon!)

Second, unity of purpose. No matter what work a person is doing for the Lord, that person is still a part of the harvest. Paul, Apollos, and Peter were not competing with each other. Rather, each was doing his assigned task under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Even though the church has diversity of ministry, it should have unity of purpose and unity of spirit.

Third, humility of spirit. The human laborers do not produce the harvest—the Lord of the harvest does. God is the one who makes all things grow! The Corinthians were proud of their church, and various groups in the assembly were proud of their leaders. But this attitude of being puffed up was dividing the church, because God was not receiving the glory.  Jesus expressed the same idea as recorded in John 4:34–38. The sower and the reaper not only work together, but one day they shall rejoice together and receive their own rewards.

Finally, we must always evaluate our motivations.  The world depends on promotion, prestige, and the influence of money and important people. The church depends on prayer, the power of the Spirit, humility, sacrifice, and service.  We are His people, the sheep of His pasture, the church who are people coming together to tell the story of Jesus’s redemption while providing an environment where God can do His best work in and through us as we grow in His love.  Allowing God to do in us what He wants changes everything about us.  Our growth by God begins to yield His character traits, bearing the “fruits of His Holy Spirit listed in Galatians 5:

“…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”  Galatians 5:22-23

Lord,

I know you are not finished with me yet, for I have not arrived at perfection.  However, I’m not where I was.  You are patiently growing me to be all you created me to be in ways that give you glory, honor, and praise.  I am so grateful, so humbly grateful.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving, cleansing, restoring, refreshing, and renewing me daily.  You are at the center of my life.  Thank you for not giving up on me.

In Jesus Name, Amen

It was Visitation Night.  The “saved young people” were paired with mature believers. We first gathered as a group to pray for those we would visit to have open hearts and willing minds to hear our testimony of who Jesus is and what He does for us.  We then prayed for our words to be understandably clear to the hearers that night. This is how I grew up in the church through the sixties as a teen.  I was taught to tell the story of Jesus. 

As teens, of course we were scared to death and nervous at first until we realized that God’s Spirit would give us the words.  I remember the night we visited my next-door neighbor as if it were yesterday.  I can still see us sitting in their living room even now. I knew their son well as we played together in our yards since early childhood.  His mom babysat my brother and I when my grandparents weren’t available. 

But this was the first time to tell them what I truly, personally believed about Jesus.  I took a deep breath and words came from my lips that I did not expect or plan.  I remember using the phrase, “Jesus is my Friend,” often when telling how personal Jesus was to me.  I was never one to memorize a program or recite the “Roman Road”—I simply told them who Jesus is and how He became my Savior and Friend for life.  After that, my friend was allowed to go with us to church each Sunday after the “visit.”  Later in life, as a public school teacher, I would enrolled my friend’s son in my first grade class! I still enjoy this friendship on social media of the whole family.

Tell me the story of Jesus…write on my heart every word…

It is in the telling that our testimony and knowledge of Jesus who saved us grows stronger!  Remember God’s Holy Spirit power and wisdom does all the work—God’s way for His purposes!

1 Corinthians 2, The Message

^1-2 You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s sheer genius, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.

^3-5 I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it—and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.

^6-10 We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text:

No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.

But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.

^10-13 The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.

^14-16 The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Tell the story of Jesus—simply Jesus—at the center of our telling. 

We have the authority given to us by God through His Son: 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Jesus, Matthew 28:18-20, NIV

We have help—God’s Holy Spirit—who tells us how and what to say!  “God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.” –Paul, verses 3-5

We have full access to God’s wisdom! “God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes.”  When we ask for wisdom, God generously gives what we need— “God’s determined way of bringing out His best in us”!

Live what we say we believe.  “Your life of faith is our response to God’s power.”  God’s Holy Spirit living in us makes all the difference!  Truth is told through our lips by Truth living in us!  Jesus is Truth.

Lord,

Thank you for reminding me that telling your story began long ago as a young teen who was scared and felt very inadequate until YOU took over and told your story through me.  Thank you for adults who nurtured me as you grew their faith!  Thank you for using us to continue to tell you story for your glory so others may know and believe!  We live to tell your story!

In Jesus Name, Amen

Only Jesus who was without sin could be the sacrifice for all the sins of the world.  Only Jesus makes us right with God while demonstrating the extent of His love for us by allowing himself to be crucified, taking the punishment we all deserve.  Only Jesus can give us this gift of salvation and hope of eternal life!  Only Jesus saves us.  We cannot save ourselves or anyone else.  All praise to God, all gratitude to Jesus, and thanks be to His Holy Spirit who comes to live in us to help us each day as we turn our lives over to Him as an offering of devotion and love.  May His Kingdom dwell in us and be seen all around us.  May His will be done in every detail of our lives here as we prepare for life forever there with Him.  Yes, Only Jesus saves us.

1 Corinthians 1, The Message

The Cross: The Irony of God’s Wisdom

¹⁰ I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.

^11-12 I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”

^13-16 I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.)

¹⁷ God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.

^18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things! —to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

^22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

^26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We still do this today—fight among ourselves, vying for position and rank while God looks down over his children and shakes his head.  But with God is Jesus who advocates for us.  I can almost hear Jesus say, “Give them a bit more time, they’ll eventually get it.”  “As they mature in our love, they will understand the futility of this behavior.”

Listen to the trumpet of Jesus!  Ask God what HE wants.  Pause to listen to Him speak to our yielded hearts who have a desire to trust and obey Him.  When we do, it might look silly to others but it is not “others” we follow with all our hearts, minds, and souls!  It is only Jesus who is the Way, Truth, and Life! Then join the band of believers who blow the horn of God through living in His ways, demonstrating His love, telling HIS story of redemption for others to hear and believe! Blowing the horn of God warns those who have not yet heard or believe that Life, real Life, can be theirs, too!

Jesus at the center!  Most people want Jesus and want to be like Him once they hear the Truth.  But surveys of the church today show that many do not attend because His authentic love is not demonstrated.  Many still love Jesus but are not seeing His love displayed in His church.  It is the infighting, jealous actions, taking sides, hidden financial reporting, or being told to follow certain people and make them look good instead of God, the only One good, that keeps them from coming to learn and grow in His love.  If the church gathering as lost her first love—Jesus—then these are some of the consequences.  See Revelation 2:4-5.

Legend of the Boy and the Snake

(As told by Max Lucado)

An old Cherokee legend tells of a boy who was walking up a mountain when he heard a voice. “Carry me with you,” the voice requested.

The boy turned and saw a rattlesnake. He refused. “If I carry you up the mountain, you will bite me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” the snake assured. “All I need is some help. I am slow and you are fast; please be kind and carry me to the top of the mountain.”

It was against his better judgment, but the boy agreed. He picked up the snake, put him in his shirt, and resumed the journey. When they reached the top, he reached in his shirt to remove the snake and got bit.

He fell to the ground, and the snake slithered away.

“You lied!” the boy cried, “You said you wouldn’t bite me.”

The snake stopped and looked back, “I didn’t lie. You knew who I was when you picked me up.”

We hear the legend and shake our heads. He should have known better, we bemoan. And it’s true. He should have.

And so should we. But don’t we do the same? Don’t we believe the lies of the snake? Don’t we pick up what we should leave alone?

The Corinthian Christians did. One snake after another had hissed his lies in their ears, and they had believed it. How many lies did they believe?  How much time do you have?

The list is long and ugly: sectarianism, disunity, sexual immorality. And that is only the first six chapters.

But 1 Corinthians is more than a list of sins; it is an epistle of patience. Paul initiates the letter by calling these Christians “saints.” He could have called them heretics or hypocrites (and in so many words he does), but not before he calls them saints.

He patiently teaches them about worship, unity, the role of women, and the Lord’s Supper. He writes as if he can see them face-to-face. He is disturbed but not despondent. Angry but not desperate. His driving passion is love. And his treatise on love in chapter 13 remains the greatest essay ever penned.

The letter, however personal, is not just for Corinth. It is for all who have heard the whisper and felt the fangs.

We, like the boy, should have known better. We, like the Corinthians, sometimes need a second chance.

Fortunately, our God, because of Jesus, is the God of second chances.  It is not God’s desire that anyone perish but have life forever with Him! 

Pause, reflect, prayer, and give thanks for all God has provided through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Lord,

Thank you.  I know the words cannot begin to describe my grateful heart, but thank you is a place to begin.  Forgive me when I choose what bites over what is your best.  Help me to love like you love.

In Jesus Name, Amen

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1Corinthians 13:1).

Everyone Paul meets gets a letter of encouragement afterwards.  Paul is so passionate and confident in all that God will provide to trusting believers in Jesus, that He must remind all of the benefits of knowing, trusting, and obeying God in Jesus Name!  We are leaving the letters to the Romans, filled with joy, learning simply that we must daily offer our whole being to God while thanking Him for Jesus who set us free to love like He loves us.  We will now glean from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians!

We will learn even more from Paul’s letters sent back to the church Corinth about the challenges that face any group called church who attempt to live for Jesus while also living in the world.  This one foot in the Light while the other foot remains in darkness does not work.  Because of the love of God in Paul driven by the passion of His Son, Jesus, he writes letters to warn them so they will not fall for evil but turn to God.

Paul begins with who he is in Jesus with what God has called him to do—remind the church who have been cleaned up and restored by Jesus to live set apart for a God-filled, adventurous life.  He begins with “I thank God for you…”  Paul begins all his letters with this greeting of sincere love for people because he wants God’s best, Jesus, for everyone he meets. 

1 Corinthians 1, The Message

^1-2 I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God’s plan, along with my friend Sosthenes. I send this letter to you in God’s church at Corinth, believers cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He’s their Master as well as ours!

³ May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.

^4-6 Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.

^7-9 Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! All God’s gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale. And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We learn from Paul how greet people in love, thanking God for them.  When we pray for people, love all people, and thank God for each life; we begin to see people from God’s perspective—even our “enemies.”  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  (John 3:16-17)  And this same God who created “our innermost being” will not give up on us!

To love like God loves us begins by believing and repenting to Jesus who takes away our sins.  God’s Holy Spirit immediately comes to live in us to do the work of forming and shaping this love as our relationship with God grows more intimate each day. 

May God do this work of love in all of us so we will judge less and love more!

I thank God for all who are reading this right now!  You are so loved by God and by me!

Lord,

May the “evidence of Christ” be seen in all of us today!  May our love for you be contagious to the world who is broken and in need of a Savior.  Help us to make the most of every opportunity to tell your story for your glory as we point the way to salvation to you.  We don’t need a thing when we have you!  God of all, in all, and over all…who saved us from our selfish sins and renewed our lives!  We have it all!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen!

Holding back from you is so ironic
You made me so you know when I pretend
Your faithfulness resolves my indecision
So I choose to yield myself over again
And I’ll do it every chance that I get

You can have it all
You can have it all
Lord, You can have it all
You can have it all

(North Point Worship & Clay Finnesand Lyrics)