For we are God’s
fellow workers;
you are God’s field,
you are God’s
building….
For no other
foundation can
anyone lay than that
which
is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.
1Corinthians 3:9,11
Paul
having laid the foundation for his letter to the Corinthians and before he
begins his discourse in regards to those things that the Corinthians allowed to
be the part of their worship, those things that were in contradiction to what
he taught and to the will of God, I'm taking a moment to look back and remind
us that we are not only God's fellow workers and is field, we are also heirs to
the covenant. The covenant that I am
speaking of is not the covenant given through Moses rather they covenant given
to Abraham: "And he believed in the
LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness". "I will make you exceedingly fruitful;
and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you." "For what does the Scripture say?
‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness"
(Genesis 15: 6; 17: 5; Romans 4: 3).
This should bring great joy to your heart to know that God by giving
this covenant to Abraham many thousand years ago was a covenant everlasting for
you and me. A foundation of that is Jesus Christ and it brings even greater joy to our hearts to know
that God Himself took on human flesh through the incarnation. By the Second Person of the Trinity, His
Wisdom came to die upon the cross to pay the debt of sin that the justice of
God required and then applied that to all of God's children. This is the foundation which Paul laid
before the Corinthians and to other churches for he preached the same message
in all churches, and that foundation was the gospel and this is what we are to
be abandoned. So often, as has been
done and was being done in the Roman Church via the words we read in the book
of Romans, and in the Corinthian church, and other churches, was that the
Gospel became a gospel of works. Furthermore, much immorality was allowed to
come into the church and is being done in our churches today. This is done by excuses and reasons that
have the sound of goodness are nothing more than evil. Our salvation, as many think, simply a deliverance
from sin, but this is not true.
Salvation is not just merely a deliverance from sin nor is it the
experience of personal holiness. The
salvation by God promised by the covenant given to Abraham, even though this
given to even Adam after and Eve had sinned, that God is delivering us out of
ourselves and we are to become entirely in Union with Him. Salvation is not a matter of works, or
receiving some personal revelation through some voice that you only heard. That taught by such schools, as the Bethel
school of supernatural. Salvation means
that the spirit of God has brought you and me into with God's personality, and
this should bring great joy and a thrill to us to know that we are in union
with something infinitely greater than ourselves and this ought to make cause
for us to be totally abandoned to God.
So often, the teaching is that we are to go out and preach holiness and
sanctification and at a certain point this may not be all bad but it often side tracks us from what we are to do and that is to proclaim Jesus
Christ. When we are so involved in our
exercise through works that we have not been called to do or are scriptural
then be abandonment that we believe we have never produces what we have been
called to do, to bring the Gospel for the world. When we are totally abandoned we are not conscious of our
efforts, because our very being, our whole life is taken up with the One to
Whom we are abandoned. God shows to us
that He was completely abandoned to His purpose and will and this He did by
sending his only begotten Son to die on the cross for His children.
As
so often has happened in the Church of Jesus Christ works became more important
than the Gospel. It is not that the
Gospel is made part of the works, rather it holds a subordinate position as the
works have top priority. This is what
was occurring in the Corinthian church and Paul had need to address the
problems that were plaguing the Christians.
The elders of the church had written to him with these questions and in
need of help and now Paul through this letter was supplying the help
needed. That help that Paul gave to the
Corinthian church is also the help that we need in our lives and in our
congregations. It is not that programs
to give aid to people or not proper when they are put into their proper place
and that the message of the Gospel holds a high your position in our
teaching. Yes there are people who have
need because they are addicted to either drugs or alcohol, or they have need to
answer certain questions in regards to problems with them their marriage or
with their children. The question I must
ask, that same question that James forwarded: "Is anyone among you is suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone
cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church,
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord. And the prayer of faith will save
the sick, and the award will raise him up.
And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and
pray for one another, that you may be healed.
The affective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much"
(James 5: 13 -- 16). Many people
use this to say that their physical ailments are promised to be healed by the
Scripture. That is not true! The prayer of faith is that which will save,
the Greek word used here is not for healing or health for it is: σώσει, not ύγιανω, (where we get the word
hygiene). I added this at the last of
this blog to show you that when we are not true to Scripture than we allow
things to become as though it was Scripture when in fact it is not. Therefore, study to show yourself an
approved work of God. Do this and you
will have blessings now and eternally.
Praise God!
We have sinned with our fathers,
we
have committed iniquity,
we have done a wickedly...
Nevertheless
He saved them
for His name’s sake, that He might
make
His
mighty power known.
Psalm 106: 6, 8
Put your trust in the Lord
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