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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for collecting daily manna), make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Friday, September 15, 2017
Today's Passage : Today's Passage: Subject:Divisions in the Church Bible Verse:1 Corinthians 3:1-9 (ESV) "But I, brothers and sisters, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. " Message:
Paul returns to hammer home a point he made in Chapter 1: Christian teachers and ministers are servants of God, not elevated figures to lead factions and divisions. Factionalism has no place in a Christian church. For a Christian leader to take credit and pride in the size of his flock is a self contradiction, for it bespeaks the same sinful pride as comes to an atheist who has achieved something in the material world.
Our pride in our achievements is always tempered by the fact that we are not responsible for the means to create and sustain anything. We may plant a seed and tend to the plant, but the tomato we grow is not nearly so much our achievement as God’s. Paul actually says that we have not achieved anything, and it is easy to see his point, for just as we did not create the soil or the sun or the water, we did not create our own arm that plants the seed.
And so, Paul tells us, people who accept Christ but continue to look to other men as the source of their faith are like babies, for they have not fully grasped or accepted the nature of God’s will. People are attached to the flesh and it is hard to break bad habits; so Paul might act important, to a degree, while converts are still nursing. But for those who say they follow a certain human being and engage in dividing themselves into groups, they are still acting our of human, not spiritual, motives.
Imagine Paul’s dismay if he could have watched historical Christianity unfold over the next 2000 years. The people of Corinth were a minuscule forewarning of the religious strife, and the secularization of the church, that has characterized Christianity to this day.
It has become so entrenched in society that an Army dog tag will not identify a solider as Christian, but rather as Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. Paul reviles this attitude. “Neither he who plants nor he who waters” — meaning the person who converts and the person who leads others in the love and worship of Christ — “is anything.” Only God saves souls, and it is only to God that we must give our allegiance.
Meditation : Prayer : Oh Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you”; I pray that I and your whole church, the body of all faithful people, will know your peace, and live in harmony and unity, one with another, in accordance with your wishes. This I pray to you, who lives and reigns forever.... Amen |
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