1. Message:  In Galatians 3 Paul was really coming down hard on the church in his continued argument about the purity of the gospel. He called them “foolish” and asked them who blinded their eyes as he explained again that the law had a place and a purpose before Jesus came to fulfill it. He further explained something that I hadn’t really thought much about. The promise of God had been given to Abraham 450 years before the law existed so trying to receive the promise by observing the law after Jesus fulfilled it was pointless. Paul explained here that the law was intended to be a “guardian” to the people until Jesus came. It was the temporary plan to hold them accountable and aware of sin until the promised Messiah came. In a past devotional I used abstinence before marriage as an example of this. We understand that abstinence is an important season of life that we are supposed to honor as we wait for the promise of marriage. Once we are married we don’t continue in abstinence because that wouldn’t make any sense. Just as abstinence is intended to act as a “guardian” to protect us before we are married, the law was intended to do this for the Jews before the coming of the Messiah. Unfortunately, many Jews struggled with this and influenced the church to add parts of it to the gospel. It would be like someone telling us to continue (or strive for) abstinence during marriage. This would hinder our marriage relationship and stop the process of growing families. It was not what was intended for the promise. This may seem like an old problem since we didn’t grow up wit the law, but instead we as Christians have added on plenty of the other things that were taught to us. We have adapted to our own “law” of things that were on the “do not” list in order to be a Christian. We have to examine our adherence to some of these things and decide whether these are personal convictions that we have developed, or whether we have somehow attached these things to the gospel and pushed them on other believers.

1. Message: In Galatians 2 Paul continued to defend the original gospel first by meeting the leaders privately and eventually calling out Peter for his hypocrisy. Peter had been given a vision from God to eat the foods that were once marked as unclean by the law and to meet with Gentiles in their homes to share the gospel. These were both things that were against the Jewish law but God was showing Peter his new freedom that had come after the resurrection. While Peter was receptive to it initially, he seemed to have reverted back to the Jewish ways after influences came in and convinced them all that they couldn’t be saved unless they accepted Jesus but still followed the Mosaic law and were circumcised. They were so convincing that even Barnabus followed this. Paul was not having it and he was seeing how this was changing the gospel into something else. As I read this I can think of lots of things that we as modern day Christians have tried to add or require to being a Christian. Political affiliation is definitely one of those things but it’s certainly not the only one. As I read this I feel cautioned to examine some of my convictions and make sure they are not things that were added on by influence or guilt. I think convictions are important but just like in the church of Galatia, some of these things tie up the freedom we were intended to have and they leave us empty with religious requirements instead of a real life-changing relationship. I also see how important it is to make sure I’m not tying to push other ideas on other people that hinder their freedom and growth. Personal convictions may be good for us, but they are never to be added to the gospel.

1. Message:  Galatians 1 begins with a typical “grace and peace” greeting from the apostle Paul, but this letter got to the point pretty quick when he told them he was “amazed” that they were quickly turning from the gospel to another gospel. He qualified this statement immediately by acknowledging that there isn’t actually another gospel, but people had come in and distorted the purity of the gospel with other ideas. Paul very bluntly made sure there was no room for entertaining this when he said “cursed is the one” who would preach anything other than the original gospel. This wasn’t up for debate and Paul challenged them by asking if the intent was to please people or to please God. As I read this I thought about all of the challenges in our world today and how we are so tempted to morph the gospel into something that neatly fits the approval of people. I see people using scripture to back their political ideas and social justice beliefs as our society polarizes itself. This raises questions within my own heart when I think about this because I wonder what my real motives my be. When we believe something, it becomes a part of our identity. When our beliefs are challenged, we take it personally because we have identified so deeply with our beliefs that any assault against our ideas becomes an assault against us personally. Since we don’t like being rejected, we have a tendency to start interpreting parts of the gospel in a way that we believe may be more palatable to people. We might even believe we are defending the gospel when we do this, but we may just be defending ourselves so that we can hold onto the gospel and to the approval of people at the same time. If I’m honest, there are parts of the bible that make me incredibly uncomfortable. That is to be expected since I am human and I don’t have the mind of God. I think we get into trouble when we attempt to explain away the uncomfortable, instead of accept the discomfort for our growth. When we do this we are really just altering the gospel to fit our comfort and console ourselves from rejection. This really challenged me and I pray that I would brave enough to allow God to use the gospel to change me instead of trying to change the meaning of the gospel.

1. Message:  Today is another day of interesting parallels between our reading in the old and new testaments. In 2 Corinthians, Paul was giving a final warning to the church at Corinth to repent. This was his third time bringing these accusations and he quoted back to them a verse from Deuteronomy 19 “Every fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” He intended to come back again in person and planned to use his apostolic authority given to him by God if they didn’t repent by the reading of his letter. Similarly, our reading in Deuteronomy 9 was Moses giving final warnings to the people of Israel. They were getting ready to cross over to take possession of the promised land. Moses was prepping them and reminding them that the people were giants and were strong and powerful, but God was going to go ahead of them and give them over. This was going to be a powerful defeat so this is where Moses’s words become sobering. He warned them not to go through this victory with the attitude and belief that this promise was because of their righteousness. He began to remind them of all of their rebellion and continued sin and he repeated this at least 3 or more times that this victory was not due to their righteousness because they were “stiff necked” people. They were stubborn and rebellious but God had made a promise and the people they were about to devour were wicked.
2. Command: Repentance and change is a constant and ongoing process.
3. Promise: Repentance brings change, and change brings growth.
4. Warning:  If we are not in a constant place of self-examination we will get comfortable with our sinful conditions and take for granted the grace we are living in. When we are comfortable we are not changing, When we are not changing we are not growing.
5. Application:  Both of these chapters are sobering and it’s easy to see from our outside view that both the Israelites and the church at Corinth were trying a very patient God. The Israelites seemed to take for granted that they were God’s chosen people so they didn’t seem to fear his wrath. They had a huge promise coming to them and they lived in the favor and constant provision of God because of that promise. They had used Moses as a mediator between them and God in order to not have to deal with seeing his wrath so while they enjoyed all of that provision, they also stubbornly followed their sin. The church at Corinth were believers discipled under the covering and leadership of the apostle Paul and they also were enjoying the benefits of grace and salvation but seemed to be blind to their own sin. In both cases they were being warned to repent and understand that the patience of God and the favor of God was not because of their righteousness, but out of God’s promise. As new testament believers we tend to love riding on the grace of God and testing the limits of that grace. We talk about his grace in our imperfection and use it almost like a pass, while at the same time following our own desires and resisting change. What I see in this is the warning that we can’t sit back and resist change. We have to be constantly pressing for God to show us what is next on the list for change. We can’t grow without change and we can’t change without constant examination and repentance. When we are not in a mindset of repentance, we tend to take an attitude of pride and we forget just how patient God is with us all. I get scared when I go to prayer and I can’t think of anything specific that God is currently working on in my heart. When I am unaware of the current condition of my own heart, I am not growing. Holy Spirit, please show me what I need to see in my own heart.

1. Message: In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul was still responding to the church in defense of himself after the false apostles had influenced the church with their smooth talk. They had gotten themselves “letters of recommendation” and were good at public speaking, so they used this fake status to discredit Paul and talk themselves up. Paul brought up all the things they were bragging about and then in comparison he mentioned all of the things he could brag about but wouldn’t. One of those things he mentioned was a heavenly encounter where he saw and heard things too amazing to share. He used that as proof that he had legitimate things to brag about, but was choosing not to. He told them that instead he would brag about his weakness because that is what makes God power known. He also mentioned a thorn in his side that God sent through satan to keep him humble. He asked God to take it away at three different times and God told him that his grace was sufficient because his strength is made perfect in our weakness. There are so many speculations about what that thorn in his flesh was. Scholars suggest it could have been a physical ailment, a speech impediment or a medical condition. My own speculation is that the thorn in his side was his own insecurity that he battled as people like these false apostles continuously came against him. To me it makes the most sense in the flow of what he was talking about. As he continued venting he still seemed really frustrated and passionate about it. To me it seemed he was trying to talk himself through doing the right thing. He mentioned at the end that they had brought the foolishness out of him. Then he finally let out his frustration that they should have endorsed him because he was not inferior to the false apostles and that the only “sin” he had committed to them was his choice to not financially burden them. If I’m not mistaken here it seems like Paul was really hurt and offended. After all, he was human and he had started this church and now he had been discredited and outdone by some imposters! This is just my opinion speaking here, but it seemed to me like Paul was fighting his emotions and talking himself into doing the right thing. I found this comforting that even the apostle went through emotions like this and battled to say and do the right thing in the middle of it all. I often fail this internally even if I appear to be holding it together. Our emotions and our insecurities can be so powerful, but as Paul stated here, God’s strength is perfected in our weakness.

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul was appealing to the church because they had been heavily influenced by outside people that were against Paul and trying to hijack the gospel message into something else. He started off the first verse by saying “I wish you would put up with a little foolishness from me.” This sounds odd but I think what he was trying to say was that they were listening to a one-sided argument and allowing other voices to discredit him, but were not listening to his arguments because their minds were already made up . He continued on to qualify his own personal experiences and expose and dispel some of the arguments that were used to disqualify him. One of the biggest arguments was that he was not a legitimate apostle. We read in previous chapters how the false prophets had come up with letters of certification to credit themselves and Paul said he didn’t need that because his work in ministry spoke for itself in the response and change of the people. They used his humility against him to disqualify him and his decision to work for his own living in order to keep from burdening them with the responsibility of supporting him financially. Does any of this sound familiar right now?
2. Command:  Don’t subscribe to one-sided arguments or one-sided views! Seek truth by inviting in the Holy Spirit to reveal it.
3. Promise: We will find truth when we put down our own emotions, speculations, personal ideas and desires and listen for the Holy Spirit to reveal it.
4. Warning:  When we refuse to acknowledge truth in an opposing view we are living in cognitive dissonance and this keeps us in a state of denial. We cannot grow there and truth will remain hidden.
5. Application:  One of the strongest ploys I see being used to keep truth from being exposed, is the same trick that was used against Paul. The trick of selectively disqualifying people from having a voice. If we don’t like what someone has to say we discredit and disqualify the person instead of challenging the argument being made. This is wrong and it is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to our learning and growth. It not only harms ourselves, but it also harms those we infect. Cognitive dissonance is a psych term used to explain what we do mentally when we see a reality or truth that doesn’t agree with what we want, think or feel, or with the package we are trying to sell. Often times if the characters of a story are turned around we would see the same truth supporting our own view. If we have to intentionally mute truth or facts brought to light in order to believe or continue to feed something we want to be true, we are living in cognitive dissonance. This is a common behavior in addicts and is what fuels denial to continue the addiction in spite of the evident pain and damage. We have all seen other people living in denial, but if we are not willing to confront our own cognitive dissonance, we ourselves are also living in denial. There is no growth or learning in denial. One-sided arguments come in packages and they manipulate people to accept an entire list of things as a full package deal. If you do not accept the entire package as is, you are discredited and called a fool or worse. This is why politics are so divisive and is also why political manipulators latch on to real emotional events in order to manipulate people into blindly promoting their particular package. In Paul’s case, this was done by false prophets who had an agenda of dismantling the gospel into something else. To be clear: I am not making a parallel between Paul and the false prophets, and the political left and right. I am using all politics as an example because both sides manipulate and discredit people to push agendas. Most of us feel like we are “woke” to another agenda that we see and are really trying to do the right thing. Most of us believe we are being diplomatic in our views, but we have to be very careful to watch for and identify the cognitive dissonance in our own beliefs. For each of us it is something different and the only way out of this kind of denial is to humble ourselves before God and ask him to reveal those things to us. We have to genuinely want to see truth and we have to be willing to break away from one-sided ideas, manipulative people, familiar trusted people and even people we love and have learned from in order to think for ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth. That is literally what he is here for!

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians 10 Paul seemed to be making the equivalent of a parent threat “don’t make me come in there!”. He talked about how bold and harsh his letters were, but when he was in person he tended to be a lot less eloquent in speech. So much so that people have accused him of being bold in the letters, but weak in person. I know some other people who are very bold in writing, but weak in person. The timing of this is interesting because we are in the middle of a crisis and everyone is doing a lot of talking and most of it is in the form of writing. Paul was not shy about his intent to challenge people who thought he was behaving in an unspiritual way. He was reminding them the even though we live in the body, we don’t wage war on in an unspiritual way because our weapons are not “carnal” or worldly but powerful through God to tear down strongholds. In this analogy I see how we are trying to fight a spiritual battle with words and violent behavior. It’s no coincidence that the next verse talks about demolishing arguments and every high-minded idea that comes against the knowledge of Christ. Taking every thought captive to obey Christ. I have heard and read this passage so many times. I usually think of it as my life thought life. This is completely true, but our thought life is what feeds the things we say and controls what we do.
2. Command: Stop trying to win a spiritual battle with verbal thoughts and ideas.
3. Promise:  God will speak to us and through us if we ask him.
4. Warning: It’s tempting and foolish to spew out an argument to shut someone else down instead of seeking to understand.
5. Application: This passage is encouraging us to stop operating in our own ideas and ask God what he wants to do. To stop arguing with people in order to fight a spiritual battle. Right now people are posting and commenting their own ideas and thoughts as if it were gospel truth, and attacking those who won’t align. This is not the way to fight a battle. My challenge to myself and anyone else who wants to receive it, is to pray before engaging in any conversation at this time. Don’t be so quit to share our own ideas as “truth”. Instead of pretending we have the answers  we need to be seeking God before we answer anything.

1. Message:  In Deuteronomy 5 Moses was going over the commandments again and reminded them of how these commands were given. He described how God had spoken the commands to them audibly through the fire, cloud and thick darkness on the mountain. The people were fearful and didn’t want to hear God speak to them. It was scary so they told Moses to talk to God without them and just bring them the commands. God heard them and told Moses “I have heard the words that these people have spoken to you. Everything they have said is right. If only they had such a heart to fear me and keep my commands always so that they and their children would prosper forever.” It seems God was acknowledging their fear of his voice, but pointing out that they were missing the fear that leads to obedience. I feel like we are the same way! We often don’t want to hear the voice of God ourselves, so we pick and choose pastors and songs to listen to in place of our own time with him. When we don’t spend time with him ourselves we harden our hearts and fall for all kind of things. We can’t do anything sustainable that way. We need the voice of God to lead us into truth. God we especially need you in times like these! I also found it interesting that after all that it said “Israel, return to your tents”. I’ve seen this all over the old testament and it hit me today that God is calling us to return to our homes and live out these commands. We’re in a world where everyone is instructing each other, but what we really need to do is return to our homes, listen to the voice of God and live this out!

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul wastrying to reconcile with the church after he had harshly corrected them. It seems there was a period of time where was a division because of this correction and the church was being influenced by false prophets. Paul is assuring them that he had done nothing to wrong, defraud or corrupt anyone. He let them know that even though he grieved the harshness of the letter, he didn’t regret it because it was necessary for their repentance.
2. Command:  Be willing to love people and be loved by people through conflict.
3. Promise:  Peace and joy come after conflict and repentance.
4. Warning:  We can’t confront without love and we can’t love without allowing healthy confrontation to come to us.
5. Application:  Although we are not always necessarily in a role of correction like Paul was doing with the church, we do have to have difficult conversations with people we care about. The most important part of that sentence is “people we care about.” Healthy relationships are marked with the ability to have tough conversations- whether it is us raising concern with a friend, or a friend raising concern with us. We have to be respectful and honoring when we have these conversations but sometimes there is a hurt or a division after we do. It may be temporary, or it may be permanent but we have to enter and exit these conversations with a heart to reconcile people first with God and then with ourselves. Conflict is hard and sometimes peace seeking kinds of people either avoid it or try to take it back for the sake of peace when the poop hits the fan. What I really saw in this story today was the grief Paul went through in this process. He cared about them. He grieved the pain it caused, and he missed their comfort and fellowship when their relationship was strained. He expressed both his grief in doing the hard things, and his joy in their repentance and reconciliation. It was worth the pain and the grief because things changed. We can look at this in large scale situations or small ones. We want peace, but sometimes we have to fight for it with hard love. The pain and the struggle is worth the fight for better things.

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians 6 Paul was telling the church not to receive God’s grace in vain. The footnotes in my bible clarify this to mean falling away from a profession of faith that was apparent, but not genuine. I feel like I have been in seasons like this where I was walking through the motions of being a Christian, but I was not pursuing, growing or changing. In the next few verses he gave a list of character traits that proved he had been open, genuine and true to them with no hidden agenda. He urged them to trust him like a father and to see that they were not limited by him, but that they were limited by their own affections (their own desires and ideas).  He seemed to use this as an example of why this was so important because he told them next to have no partnership with unbelievers. Most of us associate this verse with unbelieving friends (or maybe even family) but I was surprised when I noticed the notes in my bible described these particular unbelievers as false prophets. The false prophets were pulling their affections from Paul and ultimately from the truth of the gospel. They were lying to them about Paul and even though their lives did not show the same character that Paul described, somehow they were allowing them to lead them.
2. Command:  Don’t be led or influenced by voices that are not God.
3. Promise:  If we tune in to God’s voice he will lead us into truth.
4. Warning:  If we tune into the wrong voices we will led by our desires, ideas and motives and not the will of God.
5. Application:  As I read this I thought of all the things I had been pondering this week. Our country is in crisis and there is a great divide between people because most are listening to voices that should not be leading us as believers. Many people are fighting political battles being led by entities that are not for our unity, not for our good and have nothing to do with salvation. They take elements of truth and distort reality. Yet, somehow everyone believes they are on the side of truth because these influences know how to manipulate our emotions, beliefs and intellect to believe we are smarter or more intuitive than the average person. We fight with our pride, but act like puppets for an agenda that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, more than ever we need to abandon our political alignments and tune in hard to the voice of God. We need to stop trying to align God with our political views and social agendas and ask him to sincerely and honestly guide us into truth. I believe if we are sincere in laying down our ideas and ask God to show us truth, he will. And it probably won’t look the way we think it will.

1. Message: Deuteronomy 1 is a basic recap of Israel’s journey from captivity in Egypt to the promised land. An 11 day trip that was drawn out to 40 years because of their complaining, unbelief and refusal enter the promise God had for them. Through each problem they repeatedly told themselves and each other that it was better in Egypt and that Moses had led them out there to die. They were the enemy of their own progress because of what they believed and they continued to believe it because they continuously spoke it.
2. Command: Speak an inner narrative that empowers. Not one that sets us back to familiar ways.
3. Promise: God has good plans in store for us.
4. Warning: If we repeat a negative and familiar narrative, we will believe it and God will hold us accountable for it.
5. Application:  For Israel, familiarity was their comfort. We are not much different. There is comfort in predictability even when that predictability is bondage. If we don’t know what to expect we fear the unknown. The unknown can be so terrifying that we are willing to suffer with what we do know because we have a narrative that we have literally spoken to ourselves over and over again.  We have spoken it so many times that we believe it. Imagine what could have been if they had changed that spoken narrative! My challenge to myself today is to identify the things I believe God has promised, and then examine my inner thoughts to see if they contradict.

1. Message:  I’ve readProverbs 4 over and over since we go through the book each month. Today I found it to be the most refreshing thing I read. Verse 6 says “Don’t abandon wisdom and she will watch over you. Love her and she will guard you.” The end of verse 7 says “and whatever else you get, get understanding.” As we go through more growing pains and hard lessons in our country everyone is on social media just blasting each other and demanding a certain standard and agreement. I have been so saddened to see people that I have seen in relationship just attack each other over differing views. It’s truly as heartbreaking as the deaths and losses. We are fighting a civil war of words and it seems nobody is winning. While I have plenty of opinions of my own and it’s tempting to jump into internet arguments I hear this word in Proverbs calling me back to wisdom. Back in Romans Paul said he had determined not to know anything else but Christ crucified. I don’t believe Paul was calling for ignorance but as believers we have got to step back and see the bigger picture at stake. We need to be diligent learners and less eager to set someone else straight. None of us as it all together and we all have something to bring. If we would ask God for wisdom in our encounters and strive to gain understanding before inserting our opinions we would actually provoke each other to be better. If we truly care about social justice we have to accomplish this by caring about the relationships around us and stop trying to persuade strangers or acquaintances on the internet. When we value each other even in our disagreements and strive to understand instead of dismissing and disqualifying people we will gain the trust to influence people, and we will be in a much better position to do that.

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians chapter 3 Paul was challenging the idea of letters of recommendation. False apostles had been obtaining these letters in an attempt to authenticate themselves. Paul argued why anyone would need a letter like that when the fruit of ministry is obvious through the change in people. I think in our world we would be tempted to see this letter of authenticity as a pastor’s license. Though I agree that a pastor’s license is not what makes someone a pastor I think this can go much deeper than this. Many Christians look at ministry as something done by clergy, so it somehow excuses the rest of us from doing ministry. Paul uses the veil of Moses in comparison. Moses wore a veil to cover his face after spending time with God because he was the mediator to the children of Israel and they could not handle the glory of God shining on his face. We no longer have a mediator between us and God because Jesus provided us with a face to face encounter and this represents the responsibility that comes with meeting God face to face. We are no longer able to pin our responsibilities on a mediator or a pastor. Paul also made another comparison to the Jews as being veiled and unable to see the truth. God himself veiled their faces for a season. They can’t see the truth and therefore can’t share the truth. In contrast, we are called to spend time with God face to face so that our illuminated faces will be a light to the world.
2. Command: Spend time with God face to face and share the gospel.
3. Promise: When we spend time with God our lives are illuminates like Moses’s face was after he spent time with God.
4. Warning: If we think that the responsibility of spreading the gospel belongs to pastors and clergy, we won’tmeet with God face to face ourselves.  We will we not be illuminated without the sunlight (sonlight) so we will not  grow. If we are not growing we will not help anyone else grow either.
5. Application: This really made me think about how many of us won’t start leading unless we are given a position of leadership in the church. I remember a friend of mine who was very upset with the church because she saw a need for helping in a particular situation and it wasn’t being done. She clearly had vision and some great ideas to implement something, so I cheered her on and encouraged her to organize it and let us all help her make it happen. She didn’t like that answer. She wanted me to tell the church leadership so the church would do it. We don’t need a position or title in order to be the church. We are all called to work the ministry, and most importantly, we are all called to spend time with God every day so that it shows on us visibly. People should be able to tell by looking at our lives that we spend time with Jesus. Those of us who read every day need to make sure that we are also praying every day and not just going through the motions and being religious. My challenge to myself today is to evaluate how much of Jesus is showing in my life. Do I read my bible and then go to work acting as negatively as everyone else or does my time with Jesus show up in my attitude and my work ethic? How are my responses to adversity or irritation? Am I hesitant to share Jesus because my life is a contradiction? Am I sharing Jesus while living a contradictory life and causing a stumbling block to onlookers?

1. Message:  In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul was talking about a painful letter he wrote and painful visit he had with the church at Corinth. He spoke out of grief from the turmoil and it seemed he wanted a break from it and wanted to experience joy between himself and the church again. The footnotes in my bible speculate about which painful topics Paul is referring to but as I recall my reading and writing through each chapter of 1 Corinthians it seemed like every day we were reading and talking about things Paul was calling them out on. He spoke a lot about their immaturity, their choosing of sides and their pride in not judging a man who was part of their church while openly living in incest. If they were in fact immature and caught up in superficial things they probably were deeply offended by Paul’s letter and they may have had a strained relationship with Paul. In chapter 2 of 2 Corinthians Paul was expressing his anguish of writing these things to them. He told them he was in tears and wanted to share joy and encouragement with them again. This wasn’t out of regret. It was out of a desire for restoration. Any parent who has ever had to discipline a child understands how it feels to correct your child who desperately needs the correction and wait for them to come around to the understanding that you care. Depending on the age, the severity of the violation and the state of the child’s maturity this coming around process could take minutes, hours, days, months or years. Many of us have also had these kind of moments with adult friends or family. Where we probably don’t have authority over another adult, we have definitely had to have some hard conversations that may have taken time to heal. We have probably been on the receiving end as well.
2. Command: Relationship is absolutely necessary in correction.
3. Promise:  If we correct with love and humility we will help people grow, and if we receive correction with love and humility we ourselves will grow.
4. Warning:  If love is not the motive behind our correction, we will not help anyone and we will be a stumbling block instead. If we don’t humble ourselves when we are being corrected, we will not grow.
5. Application:  What I took from this is the importance of having hard conversations, but doing it with graciousness and a heart to restore. We’re seeing some difficult times in our country right now and while many people are just voicing opinions, many others are having difficult conversations. If my approach is to shut someone else down, I will not reach them and will probably damage the legitimacy of my point. If my intent is to learn and to provoke others to a better way my speech has to be in the attitude of restoration. You can’t tear someone down as an approach to get them to change their minds. It has to be done with a spirit of empowerment. On the contrary, we also have to be willing to hear another view and consider it without immediately discarding what we don’t feel aligned with. Paul was in a position of authority with the church. He was teaching them the truth of the gospel but we are all learning together. The most important part of learning is in relationship. This is what Paul was trying to restore with the church in order to continue in their growth. This is what we need to pursue hard after in our growth process. We do this in relationship. If we correct with love and humility we will help people grow, and if we receive correction with love and humility we ourselves will grow.

Message:  With all of the unrest going on right now I really zoned in on 1 scripture in Proverbs 1 verse 5 “A wise man will listen and increase his learning and a discerning man will obtain guidance.”  This really stuck out to me as a word for today because right now we are all trying to make sense of a broken and hurting world. There is division at every level and everyone seems to be fighting for a narrative they have grasped onto. One that makes the most sense to each individual and their personal biases and belief systems. We’re not new to these problems. They just seem to exist in the background and flare up in waves. This time around our family has done some listening to people with completely different lives and viewpoints. We are changed by what we have learned and yet I’m feeling overwhelmed knowing there are so many factors involved that I couldn’t possibly unravel the many layers and depths to understand what we’re really dealing with. I’ve decided that the most important thing I can do today is leave my opinion out and do my best to listen before I make up my mind to understand anything, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide me and reveal what he wants me to see.

1. Message:  Proverbs 31 is often thought of as a chapter written to teach godly women how to act. It is actually the writing of King Lemuel sharing what his mother taught him about being a king, what kind of woman to find, and how her virtuous behavior reflects well on him. Verses 8 and 9 popped out like bold letters on the page because of the current flare up of division occurring in our country after we all saw video capturing the death of an innocent black man under the knee of a police officer. “Speak up for those who have no voice, for the justice of those who are dispossessed (vanishing). Speak up, judge righteously and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy”. As I read this I realized that those who have no voice are often not weak, but ignored. Those who are needy are not necessarily lacking finances, but are in need of support. I recently commented on a Facebook post expressing that in the past I had seen acts of injustice and mourned for the tragedy, but never realized how personally this injustice impacted friends of mine who saw their own lives or the lives of their family members in that very place. Though I grieved the loss and injustice, I saw it as something terrible that happened to someone far away. I didn’t see the personal connection that was felt by my friends, so I didn’t know they needed my voice to support them, comfort them and approve of them in those moments. I have always believed in speaking up for those who are oppressed and unable. I have done this in situations where I was present and witness to things, and my husband and I raised our kids that way also. I know some strong, powerful people and since I don’t see them as weak or powerless in any way, I didn’t realize they needed my voice or my support. I heard them, so I didn’t realize how much their voices were being ignored and invalidated by others. I didn’t realize how much they needed to know they are heard, that they are valued and that they are supported. I relate this to someone who has been the victim of a narcissist or an abuser. Narcissists have an interesting pattern of doing blatant outrageous things and then denying it and making the victim look and feel crazy. Other people are unaware of the narc’s behavior so when the victim cries out, the narc masterfully spins out an explanation that sounds pretty logical. The victim feels invalidated and the people assume the narc is just a very nice person who was misunderstood. The narc continues the same behavior so many times that the victim feels both crazy and invisible. The narc thrives over this emotional control and uses both devastating things and very trivial things to wind up the victim until the victim reaches a breaking point and reacts over one of the trivial things. Other people see the reaction, evaluate the trivial act which the narc explains away, and now everyone else believes the victim is crazy. The victim has now lost credibility and feels crazy, invisible, powerless and alone. This pattern continues on and on and silences the victim. If the victim doesn’t get out of the situation the pattern will continue for years and drive the victim to hopelessness. All it takes is for someone else to see through the narc’s behavior and tell the victim that they see it. The outsider can’t necessarily fix the narc, but the narc loses power by someone simply telling the victim that they see it. This validates them and removes the layers of crazy and invisible. It empowers the victim to stand strong and take action with the support of others who see it and will back them up. Please don’t read this as a metaphoric way of labeling people or leaders in the role of the narcissist. That only fuels things and diverts the attention from the behavior. Let’s label the situation as a whole as the narc because this is bigger and far more complicated than a leader, a political party or a people group. Let’s stop hunting for a villain to blame. You can’t fix a narcissist any easier than we can narrow down and fix a broken and complex system. You can set boundaries with a narc but you can’t change their mind or behavior. The most powerful way to disarm a narc is to empower the victim. Let them know that you see the behavior, that you support them and stand with them. The most powerful way you can do this is by saying “I believe you.”

1. Message:  In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul was talking about the resurrection of Jesus and all of the people whom he appeared to after his resurrection. There were many of them that because of their Greek culture, did not believe in resurrection of any kind so they didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Paul completely dismantled the faith using this belief to show them that without the resurrection, the whole thing crumbles. Without the resurrection, Jesus was just a good prophet who taught people. This made me think of the Muslim religion. Many Christians are surprised to learn that Muslims believe in Jesus. They view him very respectfully and are even very careful to say his name in a respectful manner. They acknowledge him as a prophet of God but they don’t see him as God. They believe he died, but they don’t believe he resurrected. This changes everything! For many of us, we may not struggle with the idea of resurrection, but we struggle with the full grasp that his death and resurrection took our sin because we still struggle with the temptation of sin. Paul was urging the church of Corinth to stop walking in sin because they carried a mindset that if the resurrection wasn’t real then there was no afterlife. If there was no afterlife it didn’t matter what they did. This is the argument of many atheists, but for some reason many Christians live as if this were our truth too. We accept most of the gospel but live with pieces missing. We academically accept that Jesus died and resurrected and wiped out sin and it’s power, but we don’t always accept it on a personal level. We may either dismiss sin issues, or go the opposite and struggle to accept grace as we fight to be perfect. Either extreme misses the point and there should always be a tension between the two. Without the resurrection power, what is the point?

1. Message/Application:  I Corinthians 14 is all about church order. It may seem like such a dramatic shift that we read about love as the foundation of spiritual gifts and then went straight into order. As I read this I realized how important love also is as the foundation of order and discipline. Chapter 13 gave us a proper understanding of what love is and yesterday we talked about what love isn’t. If we live this way we also won’t misuse the spiritual gifts to manipulate people, and if we follow order using what we understand about love we will see real ministry happen without the ego or manipulation of anyone behind it. I thought about how important this is because during ministry of spiritual gifts things are revealed by the Holy Spirit. If people are not credible and walking in love the gift they share will not be received well and this is where people start to think these things are hokey. We also read back a few chapters that if we aren’t fully surrendered, we will not hear the Holy Spirit. This means that anyone sharing spiritual gifts has to be authentic in every way. Not perfect, but fully surrendered. There is no room for faking it and if people try, there is also a gift called the discerning of spirits that someone who is fully surrendered and in tune with the Holy Spirit will detect. This chapter also talks about having several people discuss and judge the credibility of prophecies spoken in church. This is an extra layer of security because anything that is spoken prophetically has to be aligned with the word of God. The people responsible for judging the prophetic word are to make sure it aligns. In verse 34 there is also a directive that women are not to speak in church during these discussions over the prophetic word. They were directed to wait to ask their questions at home with their husbands. I read the footnotes in my bible because this topic has been taken so many ways. The footnotes gave some background that this was a directive specifically to the women at the church of Corinth to keep order. I have read other things that suggested these particular women were known to be disruptive and take things off track in the group setting. This was more about keeping order than it was being a woman. My footnotes suggest that seeing this prohibition of women speaking in church would contradict other things Paul has spoken about women and church ministry. The main point of all of this is order.
2. Command: Everything God does is orderly, so everything we do in his name should be orderly also.
3. Promise:  Order brings clarity and understanding.
4. Warning: If order brings clarity and understanding, then disorganization brings chaos and confusion and the message gets lost.

1. Message/Application:  I Corinthians 13 is known as “the love chapter”. It’s one of the most commonly known chapters of the bible because it is read at weddings so often. We all enjoy the beauty of those words being read. Especially when we are thinking about it in the context of being on the receiving end of love. We all want to be loved this way, and it seems like often we are waiting for someone else to love us this way before we will think about loving them this way in return.  I recently saw somebody post on Facebook that they were teaching their daughter to insert the name of the boy she liked in the place of “love” in 1 Corinthians 13 in order to test whether hearing his name there lined up with his behavior. I thought that was a clever idea for teaching her value, but I wondered if she first taught her daughter to insert her own name there to see if her own behavior was in line with what she heard. We love to hear about what love should look like coming from someone else, and we seem to live under the expectation that if someone else loves us well first, then they will be worthy of our love in return. We would never say that, but we do that and we teach that to our kids indirectly in our attempt to protect ourselves and our kids from getting into relationship with broken people. As I read this I realized that if we turn around the expectation and place responsibility on ourselves to love people this way first, we will naturally understand our own value and we won’t feel drawn to someone who doesn’t share that value. When we value honesty, we naturally expect other people to be honest as well. When we value patience, we will be drawn to other people who also value patience. When we value kindness and humility we won’t be attracted to rude and arrogant people. The problem is that we have all seen codependency on some level. We’re afraid of being abused or taken advantage of, and we’re afraid of this happening to our kids. This is because we carry an assumption that people who give in and cater to the emotions or the selfishness of other people are loving. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Love is not in bondage to the emotions and desires of another person, it doesn’t give in to our turn a blind eye to sinful or destructive behavior and it does not give in to the selfishness or manipulations of other people. That is called “people pleasing” and that is motivated by a broken need for acceptance and a fear of rejection. People pleasers may appear to be selfless but often times they carry a resentment buried underneath all of that giving or perceived acceptance because they themselves are broken, serving in slavery just hoping it will make them feel loved, appreciated and accepted. This is not love and when we understand the difference, we are free to love people unselfishly and without motives of our own. We will love people for who they are and not for what we hope to receive. 1 John 4:18 tells us there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. This means we don’t do things for people out of a fear of rejection. We do things out of a genuine desire for their good. We do things that are good for them because it is right and not as a way to stop them from being mad or disappointed. We aren’t responsible for their response and we aren’t emotionally dependent on them to make us feel love and accepted. When we love like this people feel free to love us this way in return because there is no guilt or manipulation involved. This is what pure love looks like and love goes first!!
2. Command:  Love unselfishly without guilt, manipulation, need or want.
3. Promise: When we learn how to love the right way, we will also learn how to receive love the right way.
4. Warning: Motives can sometimes be stealthy! We may think we are acting in love, but our emotions tell on us when we are actually acting in bondage out of manipulation or fear of rejection.