In the Word 3-16-2020
I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he
has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus. 5 Through
him, God has enriched your church in every way—with all of your eloquent words
and all of your knowledge. 6 This confirms that what I told you about Christ is true. 7 Now
you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of
our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free
from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. 9 God
will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you
into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:4-9
What does it mean to be blameless and true? What
does it mean to belong to Christ? We read here is Paul’s words to the
Corinthian church. He is encouraging them about their walk with Christ. To be
blameless they need to walk according to Christ, but knowing that all that sin
we do, or did, was done away with when Christ died. God the Father knew we
humans were destined to sin, thus He made a way for us still to get to heaven;
if we believe. Yet there are still those who won’t make it, they will be choked
out by the tares of this world. Like the parable Jesus told in Matthew 13,
where the weeds choked out the wheat in the world.
The Christians in our world live in dirt, and
chaos in a dying world. Yet for some reason we look to God to help us stay
cleaned up and organized. We know that God loves us and sometimes we even feel
that love as we love on others trying to give them what they need we in turn receive
that love from God through them. To be blameless is to be saved. Believing
that God tool it all even though we did not and do not deserve to be saved, to
be loved, to be cared for, to be blessed with goodness and mercy all the days
of our lives… blamelessness comes only through Christ’s death on the cross.
The simple truth is that He took our
blame, and truth is we need His direction and we need His love, and His Word;
without Him we are and have and will be, nothing. It can be an eye opener the
first time we realize this.
Even though I can remember when I wrote
that as a paper in Bible College I remember the revelation that I really had
not a thing, no place to live, no friends, no family, no job, not church even.
My God literally directed me to my place that I was living, in a really funny
way. Step by step the past four years of my life then was orchestrated only by
God. I came to be baptized by a pastor who invited me to check out the church service
on Wednesday night. I went and I was what I called then “at home”. I had never
felt such love! People who did not even know me gave me a hug and curiously
asked who I was, and listened to me talk! I got to hear a preacher share the
Word, I got to hear the hymns sung and follow along in a book of them! I felt
God in that place!
It was a new realization when I thought
to thank God that I had followed the lead of my Savior and chose to stay with
my church going activity when I was called out by a family member for my ignorance
in answering a question. Had I not kept going to that church I would not have been
homeless as of the day that my then pastor asked if I needed a place to live
and told me of this nice lady who needed to rent out a room to help make ends
meet. She is now my mother in law!
I could fill in the blanks, but it takes
me over 2 hours to tell my full story, because God has done a lot in my life. Some
things that He kept from happening in my life I still cannot talk about; it
brings tears just to think of how great my God is and has been to me. Even
before I knew Him!
Take a moment today to think on the
things He has done to make you who you are today. He will show you that you
should not have been blameless, when you caused your brother or sister to
stumble because of your pride, but He forgave you anyway. He will show you when
you thought you should have been punished for being such a jerk before you knew
Him, but He wiped all that away and it's no longer on the whiteboard of your
life.
What does God ask for us to do for His
creating in us a clean heart? How can we repay Him?
Just that we go and do likewise! Tell
others what God has done in our lives, that they can recognize what God has
done in their lives! That we walk worthy of our calling, whatever it is, and
that we love Him and love others for Him.
He has given us gifts, talents, experiences
that will help build up other people in our path of life, to use it for His
glory. We need to remind ourselves that nothing we go through is for our glory,
but for Christ’s glory. For Christ we can rejoice, we can suffer, we can live! It
is not about us; its all about Jesus. So, I ask you; what has Jesus done in
your life? What are you going to do about it?
What is God going to do with it?
Heavenly Father, thank you for all you
have orchestrated in my life! Thank you that you pushed me and nudged me to get
me in line sometimes. Thank you for showing me the purpose in what I have been
through and help me to use it for Your Glory, n Jesus’ name, amen.
Suggested reading this week—1 Corinthians
1: all of it! And Matthew 12-13.