The Devotional - A Look at the Book #880

 

by Jesse Abel

Thoughts from Papa “J”

 

What will destroy your soul? Could it be the eye that seeks evil, or the hand that touches inappropriately, or what about the mind that thinks evil thoughts? All of these contribute to the health of a soul. Sour grapes and teeth set on edge. Proverbs 22:5-6 and Ezekiel 18:2

 

Good Morning

 

2 Corinthians 4:1-6 – We are not adequate to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ; even though we are ministers. Yet in this we do not lose heart because we have received MERCY. This is a bold statement of the apostle Paul in that there is a threshold that those who minister the gospel must cross; that being the experience of having received mercy.

 

We seek to renounce evil; we strive to avoid walking in the craftiness of deception and search to handle the Word of God truthfully. This reminds me of Psalm 1:1-6. If we fail in this, the failure is in the sight of God and in the conscious confines of one’s own heart; 1 Corinthians 4:4-5. There is then accountability to God and to man and there be many warnings in scripture regarding this.

 

We briefly looked at the veil of darkness that those in unbelief are focused on in our last time together. It is not as if the unbelieving world around us is blind and cannot physically see; it is that this blindness is spiritual sight that is diverted to see spiritual darkness rather than spiritual light. If we preach from an impure conscious then those who hear see only the impurity.

 

The light of the gospel is the glory of Christ (Messiah) or (Immanuel) the Holy One, God in the flesh; the Savior, the LORD; the Resurrection and the Life. However you see Jesus who is the image of God is that dividing truth for all who are in the Light and all who are in the darkness. Isaiah 7:10-17; 9:6-7 or John 11:25-26

 

So we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD and ourselves as servants to all who see darkness; servants also to those see the light for the preaching of Jesus in TRUTH to both. For it is God who commanded Light to shine out of darkness, revealed in our hearts to give that light to those around us who live in darkness, that through this light which belongs to God we can minister because we have received MERCY.