Count On This

Friday, ‎August 18, ‎2023

Good morning, Lord

Verse of the Day: Psalm 126:5-6

5 Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.

6 Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow,

will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Memory verse: Philippians 4:8 ►Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Today's reading: PSALM 100-102 1 CORINTHIANS 1

Count On This

Ephesians 4:3 ►Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Paul knows what can happen when people come together. Whether they are organized or not, problems will occur when personal agendas are foremost.

The first chapter of Corinthians gives us an idea of what was going on in the church there. He starts out by saying that all of us believers have been given the spiritual gifts to achieve anything that God has for them to do. Then, he immediately gets into the problem-egos. They are arguing about whose leader is the best-Peter, Paul, Apollos. This horrifies Paul. Why?

The enemy tries anything to disrupt. The ego is the first place to strike and the person who brought you into the faith or the teacher you follow is the greatest, right? Wrong.

Everyone who is in Christ is there because of Christ-He is God.

Paul then goes into how simple God has made the gospel. We would say, "This is not rocket science".

Paul mentions those who were considered clever in that day: lawyers and philosphers. God did not use the lofty wisdom of these. He used simplicity. Simplicity that the world cannot accept. It just cannot be that easy, they think.

But it is that simple. This is not hard. This is not rocket science. It is not science at all. It is very simply but profoundly, God.

God cannot be explained by quantum physics but by simple faith and Paul wants us to stop trying to make it complex-because it is not. God cannot be explained-only accepted in faith.

1 Corinthians 1:26 Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 And God chose what the world thinks is not important—what the world hates and thinks is nothing. He chose these to destroy what the world thinks is important. 29 God did this so that no one can stand before him and boast about anything. 30 It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin.

So get rid of the egos! Lose your faith in self to build the kingdom of God. God uses us-we cannot use God. Faith cannot be explained and so cannot be taught, but it must be learned.

The world will accept only that which can be explained by factual data. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:

23 But we tell a different story. We proclaim a crucified Jesus, God’s Anointed. For Jews this is scandalous, for outsiders this is moronic, 24 but for those of us living out God’s call—regardless of our Jewish or Greek heritage—we know the Anointed embodies God’s dynamic power and God’s deep wisdom.(The Voice translation)

Faith is not, to the world, factual. To the believer, our faith is based on our belief in the facts: God is real-fact. Jesus died for our sins-fact. God raised Him from the dead defeating death for us-fact. Jesus is Lord.

Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 1:

25 You can count on this: God’s foolishness will always be wiser than mere human wisdom, and God’s weakness will always be stronger than mere human strength.

Our faith is fact. Count on this...

We must make every effort to keep our eyes on our facts-God Himself-and off of self and worldy wisdom-to live in peace in the Body of Christ.

Anything other than total faith in God in Christ Jesus is not peace.

He is our God of peace. He is Lord of all.

...because He loves us...

Father in Heaven,

Forgive me for letting my ego rule my thoughts. Give me a burning desire to live in Your peace within the family of God.

God of peace and mercy,

In the name of Christ Jesus,

Amen