The Devotional - 1040 - Foot Steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

The Devotional – 1040 – Foot steps in First Corinthians, ongoing

It seems to me (I do not know how it seems to others) that I only have ONE serious intent in life and that is to be a good steward of the Word of God. But in this there is a huge problem, since I also seek to be light hearted even to the point of being silly or “slap happy” when around most everyone. I am outspoken and more often than not – obnoxious or unpleasant to be around so this makes me in short, selfish. Someone one recently said, “Thanks for sharing your sins with us in your devotionals! Now I do not believe they were talking about my daily and current walk with the LORD and if they are. They are much wiser than I since they see then more about me than I see in myself, but either way it was a timely statement. One can go along in life thinking they are something when it is just the opposite. I should then take heed to things lest I fall 1 Corinthians 10:12. Of course there have been other statements along the way and the pressure of the LORD is strong too, so now… if the LORD wills let’s move on.

CHALLENGES & COMMENTS – Various thoughts concerning Corinthians 7

As I mentioned in an earlier post, chapter seven of First Corinthians Seven is not a walk in the park to pray over, think about and speak or write about. I think the main reason is that for the most of us it is like standing on “home plate” in a baseball field and it is the bottom of the ninth, with 2 outs, and 2 strikes, with two on and the score is tied. In other words we are all effected by the words of Paul in this chapter in some “family way” and as the spectators watch the game unfold they see that the potential of failure is very clear for both teams

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The above activity within the church is ongoing and seen by most; wives and husbands fail each other and while most children will never grow out of love for their parents, they can be provoked as the apostle says in Ephesians 6:4 to wrath. I looked at this word “wrath” in the concordance and found that the apostle uses this word only ONCE and that this is the only time it is used in the New Testament. I thought that this must be important for us to know a little something about, so a little side step here.

Parorgizo – to provoke to anger is the best translation in the NKJV since the NIV compares this verse with Colossians 3:21 where the word erethizo – is used. For my thinking the two should be linked, but only to show that children follow the examples of their parents. The first word Parorgizo means that as a parent we are to be the compass to follow, or the anchor in a storm. When we fail as this word in Ephesians promotes we often cause children to go off on their own, too look for another “lighthouse”. They break away from traditional and religious family values and anchor in a harbor foreign to their upbringing. 

The second word erethizo – means to be the enticer and promoter of life within the family setting, in other words they are encouraged to grow up with the same values of the head of the household, or the same bias temperament, good or bad and in the Colossians epistle the discouragement is in that the child is told to do good while the parents visibly practices his or her traits of evil and the children decide to do likewise and the same good and evil festers up and grows strong in the children.

How important is this! Someone once said, “That the hardest task in life is to live as you have been called”. If being called is to live in a box, we desire to live outside the box. If we are called to live outside the box our desire is to live inside the box, get the picture. We as children of God are “all called to be saints” and we are not called to be saints “and this” or saints “and that”. 1 Corinthians 1:2. To the LORD whom we serve and the church where we serve, it means nothing to be anything other than a child of the King.

We are free from the entanglement of the world’s secular system. WHY are we free? 1 Corinthians 7:23 because we were bought with a price, we did not win a prize but we were given this expensive gift of God’s love that we might remain in His love by abiding in the LORD in that calling in which we were called. Being practical about this is victory and we can all use a little victory.