1 Corinthians 7

17 And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there.

Love this verse.  In the context of marriage, job, kids, whatever.  Its a great mindset to have peace and know you are exactly where God wants you.  Don't spend time worrying about what you're going to do next, or where you are going to go.  Spend time in praise about where he has you right now.

tp

1 Corinthians 6

3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

Seems strange to me, so did some checking.  People say that judge in Greek also means to rule over or govern.  So its not that we will be judging between right and wrong, God will handle that duty.  But it may indicate a higher level relationship to God than the angels.  chalk that up to something I don't get.

18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 

Sex is great but also very dangerous.  While the sin itself is no worse than any other sin (i think all are equal, right?), the risk I see is that sexually sins are a behavior that can infect and spread causing a downward spiral.  It is visible all over our society.

knut

1 Corinthians 5

Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.”

I feel like a broken record here....but no great insights today.

I do like the verse above as it talks about bread/yeast.  It then talks about Christ paid for our sins.  The connection to the bread and wine of communion is pretty obvious.

Big picture insight.  There are 2 things that can get us "humans" off track faster than anything else.  Money and Sex.  2 great things that can be twisted quickly and take us down a bad path.

tp

1 Corinthians 4

3 It is not the most important thing to me what you or any other people think of me. Even what I think of myself does not mean much.

No great take today.  I just found the freedom that Paul is writing about here, to be attractive.  To not care about what anyone thinks about you....to the point that you don't even care about what you think of yourself, and you only get your identity through Christ.  WOW!  That's amazing.  That's all in.

tp

1 Corinthians 3

13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.

What I took from today was that what we do with our life matters.  If we believe we have already been saved, so its not that we will end up in hell.  But at the same time God is asking us to use our lives and the gifts he has given us to build on the foundation of Christ that has been laid for us.  Make sure my actions are high quality additions to his foundation.  What will I do today that can be counted as a high quality add?

knut

1 Corinthians 2

  14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  

The ways of the world today illustrate the collective lack of Spirit within our culture.  It seems there is little acceptance of what we are told via the Bible.  Worse than not accepting, in some cases we are considered fools.  

knut

1 Corinthians 1

10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,[a] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 

I used to struggle with division that we had within our church.  When I was on Governing Board I wondered out loud why if we all believe in Jesus and we are all seeking his will why would we have such different opinions on the vision/mission for our church?  Why would we differ on social issues like gay marriage?  God doesn't have multiple wills.  He doesn't have multiple opinions on social issues, there is a right and wrong in his mind.

But in the end all I could come up with is that we are imperfect humans.  We have differences because we are not all perfectly connected to God, we have gaps in our understanding.  I think Paul was addressing this in the early church, but its obvious that even so close to the time of Jesus humans were far from having a complete understanding.

So its not to say give up trying, but I guess just to recognize that we probably will not ever be perfectly aligned in our understanding of God until we are with him.  But don't let our differences in understanding be so black and white that we lose our direction and stop loving God and loving others.

knut

Romans 16

17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

I was going to talk about greetings since its mentioned 27 times in this chapter, but I wasn't sure what to say other than it must be good to say greetings to other believers.

Its apparently been true for all the time since Jesus that there are those out there that are creating division and good at it.  There seems to be a lot of it going on today and they have powerful media tools to spread their views.  

I don't feel dumb, but sometimes I'm not quick enough on my feet.   Someone may promote an idea with smooth words that just feels wrong in my gut, against God's ways but I am not able to verbalize how the idea is dangerous.  I think that is one reason why it is important to study God's word so his teachings are all throughout my brain and readily accessible to use to discern his way from evil ways.

this time in the morning is good, but really not near enough.

knut

Romans 15

2 Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.

The theme I took away today was stop focusing on myself.  Focus on bringing glory to God by working together with others who are different than me but also built in God's image.  We should have one voice together driven by the same ultimate goal of spreading God's Word.

knut

Romans 14

22-23 Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don’t impose it on others. You’re fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you’re not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe—some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them—then you know that you’re out of line. If the way you live isn’t consistent with what you believe, then it’s wrong.

So don't be a hypocrite is the moral from this story.  Since I'm likely fail due to my sinful nature at always acting as I believe, its best I don't spend to much time trying to tell others how to behave.  I have plenty to work on without trying to fix other people in my image.

knut