Focus
Turn off your cell phone, TV, or radio. Listen to the silence that is around you. Listen for God to speak to you.
Read
1 Corinthians 3:1-9 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
Reflect
A couple of days ago our eVotion scripture was Deuteronomy 30. Moses gave the Israelites the choice to live a life of prosperity or adversity. We have a choice on how to live, even in the church. There are people in the church who are weak and immature. The problem is that often times it can be the supposed leaders that are the very ones who are both immature and have enough power to frustrate the whole church and do so by doing keep the church from experiencing life and prosperity.
The spiritually weak in the church are fleshly, they are in the covenant community, but instead of living by the Spirit, they are living by the flesh and this, of course, leads to death and anxiety in both their spiritual lives and the life of the church.
The Church is a spiritual Promised Land just as the physical land of Canaan was to the Israelites. We can choose to live in prosperity by following God or we as Christians can choose to live in adversity by, as Paul writes, behaving according to human inclinations. If we choose to behave according to human inclinations then we will have a church of jealousy and constant quarreling.
Pray
God, give us humble hearts that desire more of you and less of ourselves. Amen
Go with God!
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