Corinthians, Day 13 We don’t have the complete picture. Read 1 Corinthians 13. This chapter is so famously referred to as being love chapter. And rightfully so, so many pieces about love are explained in detail here and we get a fully complete picture of what it means to truly love. Part of truly loving is knowing and understanding someone. God loves us in a way that we cannot fathom or understand. As a result, God fully knows us completely, wholly, in every way. We don’t have to wonder about whether or not God understands what we are going through or if God understands what we feel. There is absolutely…

Corinthians, Day 12 The gifts of the Holy Spirit are topics of great debate among believers. Read 1 Corinthians 12. The Holy Spirit is given to each one of us who have believed in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. As a result of that, the Holy Spirit can be seen working through our lives in different ways for each person. The way He works and moves can be different from person to person. Throughout the years there has been much debate among believers as to who has what gift of the Holy Spirit. However, sometimes we miss the bigger picture and the more crucial point which is why…

Corinthians, Day 11 Do we follow the example of Christ? Read 1 Corinthians 11. Paul continues to remind the people of various practices and important procedures that they need to keep in mind as they are coming together to worship. Paul wants them to be an encouragement to each other and to build each other up, not to be a distraction or to result in division among them. He continues to remind them to follow Christ’s example. Sometimes when people tell us to follow and be like Christ, that can feel overwhelming and seem like it’s much too hard for any of us to be able to do. That’s actually…

Corinthians, Day 10 Do everything for God’s glory. Read 1 Corinthians 10. Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand they cannot just use their own criteria of determining what is good to do and what is not good to do. They are still subject to Christ in everything that they do. As a result, everything they do should be done in such a way that it glorifies God. Even the little things. Eating, drinking, conversations… all of them must be done in such a way as to glorify God. When we look at our life and all the things that we do, are we doing these things in a way to…

Corinthians, Day 9 Are we running to win? What is our goal and focus as we go through each and every day? Paul gives us some ideas as we read 1 Corinthians 9. Paul had worked very hard to establish credibility with the people he was they’re speaking with. And he had it! Paul could explain why he was given the authority to say the things that he was saying. And then he issues this challenge: run the race in such a way that you will win. Paul is referring to the race of the Christian life. Every day we get up and we make progress down the path that…

Corinthians, Day 8 What freedoms do we take that others don’t understand? Paul tackles the difficult topic of our freedom in Christ. Read 1 Corinthians 8. The people in that day had a system set up where they would sacrifice meat to idols and then sell it fir people to eat. Paul, and many other believers understood that idols are completely false and so there is nothing specisl or wrong with using that meat. However, the younger believers didn’t understand that completely and when they saw more mature believers doing what appeared to be participating in worship of idols by eating that meat, they became confused and potentially stumbled in…

Corinthians, Day 7 Marriage relationships. These can be beautiful and rewarding, but also difficult and challenging. Read 1 Corinthians 7. As Paul is sharing with the people he is dealing with a direct issue that has come up in the church. The issue of marriage and who should be married. Interestingly, Paul gives a lot of specific advice, and he often states that he is giving his own opinion. So when it comes to marriage, what if you are in a situation where you believe in Christ, but your spouse doesn’t? Paul indicates that we should stay in the relationship because we never know if we might be a witness…

Corinthians, Day 5 Lost people are going to act like lost people. Paul reminds the church of this in 1 Corinthians 5. Paul is a dressing a very specific issue that has come up in the church. There is a member of the church who claims to be a Christian who is acting in a way that is not Christ like at all. Paul is condemning that person for their actions. But Paul makes a very large distinction here. People who are outside of the church and who don’t know Christ, they’re going to act like people who don’t know Christ. We’re not to judge those people for those actions.…

Corinthians, Day 4 Imitate me. Those seem like amazingly bold words that Paul speaks here, but are there really? Read 1 Corinthians 4. As Paul speaks here, we see him explaining more about the attitude of following Christ. Paul is sharing with the people the importance of following him every single day and then Paul issues this amazingly bold statement. Paul tells them that if they will follow and imitate Paul then by doing so, they will be following and imitating Christ. Could we make such a bold statement ourselves? Discipleship is not about perfection but it is about progress. Are we progressing down the path to be more and…