Series: Paul’s Letters
1 Corinthians 1:9 ESV
1 Corinthians 2:7-9 ESV
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 ESV
1 Corinthians 4:10 ESV
1 Corinthians 5:6-8 J. B. Phillips
1 Corinthians 6:19b-20 ESV
I’m not sure when it happened or how it happened, but the day I realized that life (my life) isn’t about my ability to be faithful, everything changed.
Understand that I’d gone to church all my life. I tried to do everything like God would have me do it. I read my Bible. I prayed. I tried to help others. I really really tried to be kind to others.
The problem was that sometimes I wasn’t able to do everything like I was supposed to do it. I would forget, or I was tired.
I missed the mark.
1 Corinthians 1:9 tells us, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
That verse changed everything. I started studying and asking questions about what faithfulness really means.
It took time but I learned that God knows I am not capable of being faithful every second of every day,
What God wants from he is to rely on his faithfulness. God wants me to turn and to lean in and relax in His arms. God wants me to surrender and love Papa.
It changed everything.
In 1 Corinthians 2:7-9, Paul wrote “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him”
About the time I started to really understand that God is faithful. God loves. God is patient…
God is faithful.
Then it hit me. I am human.
God KNOWS who I am.
In much the same way as understanding faithfulness. It took time for me to understand that by trusting God, I am not alone.
I relied on God and I wanted Jesus to be part of my life.
Further down the road I came to realize that God is with me and will never leave me.
In 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Paul wrote “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
Because humans are finite we tend to think that God is finite.
But, God is infinite.
1 Corinthians 4:10 says, “We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.”
I am not perpetually strong. God is.
In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Paul wrote, “Your pride in your church is lamentably out of place. Don’t you know how a little yeast can permeate the whole lump? Clear out every bit of the old yeast that you may be new unleavened bread! We Christians have had a Passover lamb sacrificed for us—none other than Christ himself! So let us “keep the feast” with no trace of the yeast of the old life, nor the yeast of vice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of unadulterated truth!”
Christ died for me. His truth became my truth. I had to stop thinking and learn to surrender.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20 Paul wrote don’t you know,“your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
I learned that my body, mind, and soul are the temple of God.
Surrender.
Let God be God.
Spiritual Practice: Surrender
Embrace Christ IN you.
In God, Deborah
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