impinged

I studied and re-read this chapter for 6 days. There is so much here and so much to understand. I’m not even going to try and attempt to cover it all. However, there is one thing that has special meaning to me. Paul talks about planting a seed - that he planted a seed, Apollos watered it but ultimately God made it grow. That was a hard lesson for me to learn. And I learned it the hard way. As I volunteer my time with the youth, I often talk with kids who don’t believe in God or just choose to screw up. They think that partying is just more fun and they have all the time in the world when they are adults to “live right”. I’ve wanted so bad, as I’ve poured out my time, experiences, and my heart to them to see some of them, even just one, turn their life around and come to Christ, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve been disappointed. I’ve felt like a failure. I was defeated because I couldn’t share the love and transforming power of God in a way that was meaningful and tangible to them, or so I thought. Finally, through these words of Paul, shared with me by a friend, I realized I’m not responsible for their salvation. That is God’s job. I am only a planter and a waterer and I may never see harvest here on earth. It is up to God to make the seed grow (3:6). I hope to see the harvest but even if I don’t, I know I will be rewarded for my heartache and labor.

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Why did Christ die to save us? So that we may avoid death and live for eternity in the presence of God. And God, being perfect, wants no unclean thing in his presence, therefore we needed to be cleansed and made righteous in his presence. Those of us who follow Jesus have been made righteous and we understand that we will enter the kingdom of heaven. Though we’ve never seen heaven, or talked to someone who has been there, we understand it. In us is a deep desire to be there.

How do we understand heaven? Because we have the spirit of God in us revealing his wisdom. The wisdom is that God has prepared a place for those who love him (Isaiah 64:4). Only those who have God’s spirit, which is the mind of Christ, can truly understand heaven and hell. This is why those who don’t know Jesus think heaven and hell are foolish ideas. Because the wisdom of God has been hidden from them.

So it might be true that if a non-believer understands heaven and hell that God’s spirit may be with them and they may be close to coming to a saving knowledge and these may be the people we need to look for.

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Paul quotes Isaiah 29:11

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent

He calls the message of the cross foolishness. It took me days of mauling this over before it made sense. In a conversation Trina and I had at dinner on Friday night, all of the sudden this verse came to me and made perfect sense. As Christ followers there are things we do that logically make no sense - like tithing and loving others. For those of us who tithe we know the power of sacrificial giving. We give in faith hoping that a God we cannot see will provide for our needs as we believe he promised. And he does! And we find out that our God is a generous God and that no one can out give God.

Or take love for example - the world says that in order to love others you must first love yourself. Most Christians even believe this because of poor biblical teaching that misinterprets the second greatest commandment that says to love others as yourself. Our sin nature has a hard time interpreting that command so we wrongly put the emphasis on the fact that the command says to love ourself. The truth is we are to forget ourself to love others. When our focus is taken off of ourself and we love others we find ourselves living in a never ending well of love. Don’t believe me? Ever heard of Mother Theresa? She was a selfless lady and do you think she lived without love? No way, the entire world loved her. Want more examples? Read a book on martyrs or look at the perfect example of love - Jesus Christ. He wasn’t consumed with loving himself so that he could love others. He loved us first and now, 2000 years later, millions still love him with all of their heart. It makes no sense, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us being saved it is the power of God.

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Seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
- quoted from Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

These final verses are our marching orders. They give us the confidence to live out the above statement. We are free to live a life of adventure without fear. It isn’t a license to be foolish; however, it is a license to claim God’s promises to protect us. He promises to honor us, give us long life and salvation.

But wait, that sounds good but I know we’ve all gone through hard times and seen God honoring people die way too young. So how can this be? We need to remember God looks at us from an eternal perspective. His promises are eternal. This also gives us great confidence because we can trust that he knows what he is doing even when we can’t see what it is ourself.

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If we walk with God he will provide protection. He protects us as his chosen ones. He sends his angels to protect us. How awesome is that? If we cry out to him for help he will be with us in our troubles and rescue us. As I think about this though, God requires more than a passing glance or a panicked shout for help. He is asking us here to put our lives in his hands. Make him your refuge - living your life in him. Just like you physically dwell in a house, mentally and spiritually dwell with him. I think we often cry out to God in our pain wondering why he hasn’t protected us, but we have it all wrong. We spend much of our lives living on our own thinking we can do it ourselves and only seeking God when that stops working. If we live all our lives in desperate pursuit of Him, he becomes our shelter.

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