1 Corinthians 5

In chapter 5 of 1Corinthians,after warning the people of spiritual immaturity and the arrogance that comes with it,Paul tells the people that this immaturity & arrogance allows the “little leaven”(1Cor5:6) into our lives that infects the “whole lump”/our whole heart/life/mind to the point that we will eventually find sin of some kind becoming more and more a source of hardening our hearts for Christ!When Paul lists these sins n verse 11(“sexual immorality or greed,or is an idolater,reviled,drunkard,or swindler”),we must peel the onion back of these to glean the wisdom and discernment that God’s Spirit yearns for us to have relative to our own lives & our personal relationship with HIM.Yes,Paul is giving us these verses to protect the larger body of believers from those within the church that are hardened by sin.But there is another purpose of protecting us individually/personally from allowing the leaven of sin to knead itself into our own heart/mind/life.He is telling us to be aware of these things creeping into our heart/mind/life!A quick read of these things can leave me with a false sense of “being ok”.But when I dig into what these things mean when dissected to the core of what they describe,I can see “fine grains of leaven” these things can start out as in my heart/mind/life.In our times of the Internet,visual reality,virtual reality,etc.,what we allow our eyes & mind to “partake of” defines sexual immorality in ways that were unknown at the time Paul wrote,but can be as dangerous to our hearts/minds/lives as the actual physical act of sexual immorality!Maybe even more dangerous because of the way we can more easily “hide” this version of sexual immorality from the outside world,thereby enabling it’s virus to do more damage to our “whole lump”/whole life.The same thing is true for the other things in this list!We need to dig into the root of each of these,so we can see what other “unseen” viruses are waging war inside...those that we are covering up the same way the people in Corinth were-by going to church,Sunday school,tithing,teaching,pastoring,checking of the performance boxes...and still allowing their hearts/minds/lives to b contaminated with “a little leaven” of bits of greed/selfishness;arrogant reviling/criticizing in ways that make us feel better about ourselves;drunkenness on anything that numbs our heart/mind/life to TRUTH;&swindling/any kind of deception for personal gain.Dear Lord,when I dig deeper into what this list of sins really address as warning signs for my heart/mind/life,I realize how much more of Your HELP I need in being aware of these things in my life,and removing these grains of “leaven” from my heart/mind/life.Lord Jesus,help me with this...give me Your Courage for this...& may Your Spirit freely move in my life to remove the grains of “leaven” from my heart/mind/life.

1 Corinthians 4-5

One of the “byproducts” of spiritual immaturity(1Cor:2:6-7) is arrogance.Paul addresses this in a few different ways,including the use of irony & sarcasm in 1Cor:4&5,to describe actual attitudes and/or personal beliefs among the “churched” in Corinth.He actually addresses one of the initial “symptoms” of immaturity in chapters 1&2 when he calls the believers out for honoring teachers&preachers (what they say,teach,&write) above what God says in His Word,& above what Christ testified to via His Life,His Words,His Sufferings,His Resurrection,& His Ascension!So! The first “detour” away from spiritual maturity to be aware of,is giving more honor to what anyone may say or write,than the honor we give what The Lord says in His Word.In other words,we need to be prepared to “True Up” everything we hear/see/read/think,etc., with The Word of God & His Spirit that lives in the heart of every true believer(1Cor:4:6”....Do not go beyond what is written(God’s Word).Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.”&1Cor4:20,”For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power”-(The Holy Spirit guiding us through the Discernment&Wisdom in God’s Word).In 1Cor5:6-8 Paul gives us direct teaching on how to protect ourselves from this root of arrogance when he says,”Your boasting is not good(boasting about who they read/watch/follow other than The Lord). Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch-as you really are(The Blood of Christ washes us of all sin/leaven!)For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread(Jesus says in Matthew4:4,”...man does not live by bread alone,but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”(~unleavened bread/sustenance for life)).The bottom line is that our regular “diet” of God’s Word in our life is imperative for our spiritual wellbeing.Without this being the foundation on which we build every thought&action throughout our day,we run the risk of the kind of arrogance Paul talks about creeping into our lives,which leads us away from spiritual maturity!In fact,a telltale sing to look out for in our lives is when we begin to wane in our time with The Lord in His Word...an early sign of the kind of arrogance Paul is warning us about is when we don’t feel like it is imperative(not just important!)to spend time in God’s Word.Dear Lord,help me to know the “imperativeness” of a regular “diet” of Your Word in my life.And make me aware of the early signs of the kind of arrogance these verses describe...creeping into my life.

1 Corinthians 3

1Corinthians3:10-15 Paul is telling the church in Corinth the core reasons that they are not maturing as Followers of Christ; why they do not have hearts/minds/lives that are experiencing KNOWING GOD in their everyday lives; why they lack the discernment necessary to protect their hearts/minds/lives from the entanglements of untruths & deception.These people have been “going to church” and having their ears tickled by “good feeling spiritual stuff”,and are satisfied with the lack of challenging themselves to seek a deeper understanding of God’s Word(1Cor3:1-2 “Brothers,I could not address you as spiritual people,but as people of the flesh,as infants in Christ.I fed you milk,not solid food,for you were not ready for it.And now you are not ready.”-Hebrews5:12-14 says the same thing this way-“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”)The people Paul is addressing are not having their lives freshened and matured/grown/nourished by the breathing in and out of the Holy Spirit and the MEAT of God’s Word.They may be “going to Church;attending Sunday School and Bible Studies & small groups”,but they are not seeking to understand the life&heart&mind lessons that God’s Heart is yearning to have them apply in their lives....for their own GOOD!God’s desire as our Father is to have us grow up and mature as His sons & daughters... It grieves HIS heart for us to remain as infants,to never know the blessings of maturity->a maturing Faith that blesses us with the discernment & wisdom to see and know God’s Presence in & around our life,for our own GOOD. The picture in these verses is one of a physically full grown son or daughter that is still wearing a diaper and still nursing and unaware of the blessings outside their baby crib->the wonder of God’s Expressions of Love that only a maturing person can know!Thinking of this picture,it is no wonder that the people in Corinth had been caught up in the challenges Paul is about to address in the next chapters of 1Corinthians!They were still “infants” in grown up bodies that lacked the discernment & wisdom that The Lord yearns for them to have...so they could know and follow TRUTH,which is God’s Expression of HIS Awesome Love,& HIS Loving Guidance/HIS Ways of protecting HIS children as they grow up.Dear Lord,make me aware of the places in my life that I am still “wearing diapers”.And give me a desire for “meat” verses being satisfied with “milk” in these areas...may Your Spirit help me and lead me to mature in all parts of my heart/mind/life,according to Your Word/Your Truth!

1 Corinthians 2

A theme of 1Corinthians is a call for us 2 know God’s great desire for us to mature spiritually(1Cor2:6-7”Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom...secret and hidden wisdom of God,which God decreed before the ages of our glory.”) so that we may know God’s gifts&blessings that are UNimaginable(1Cor2:9”...What no eye has seen,nor ear heard,nor heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him.”),the primary ONE being to KNOW GOD PERSONALLY!When we turn our lives over to Christ for Him to be our Savior & Lord,He gives us the GIFT of His Spirit to live in us...so we can know the TRUTHS about God and about His Purposes for our Life(1Cor2:10-12,”these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.For The Spirit searches everything even the depths of God....Now we have received the Spirit who is from God,that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”).God desires for us to KNOW HIM-HE desires a personal relationship w us...for our BEST(Romans8:28”And we know that for those that love God,all things work together for good,for those who are called according to his purpose(Loving personal relationship relationship w God)”)!BUT, standing between us and this AWESOME LIVING VIBRANT RELATIONSHIP with GOD,are our own tendencies to be lured away by “the natural”-those things that tug our hearts/minds/bodies back to our old ways that are at odds with Spiritual Discernment(1Cor2:14”The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,for they are folly to him,&he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”).When we succumb to our “old natural ways”,we allow the natural person we once were(before turning to Christ for His Saving Mercy&Grace)to create an interference in our hearts/minds/lives that can confuse us and eventually lead us away from truly knowing God’s Personal Heart for us(“things of the Spirit of God”).This is why another major theme of 1Corinthians is to make us aware of the many different ways that our “old natural person” can creep back into our lives through sin and sin’s ways.Dear Lord,THANK YOU for the GIFT of Your Spirit! Dear Holy Spirit....please lead me;guide me;and give me YOUR strength/discipline/courage so my heart/mind/life may veer further and further away from my old natural ways and be ever truer to the ways of Your Spirit and Your Word.

1 Corinthians 1

In the 1Corinthians1,the church in Corinth has become divided because of a “distraction” in their faith.A “distraction” that the devil uses to distance us from knowing God’s True Voice in our lives!Even though true believers have Jesus’ Spirit living inside,we can become distracted/misled and “out of tune” with Jesus’ Spirit when we do not have God’s Word as “THE TUNING FORK” for our hearts/minds/lives.Just as an orchestra must have all instruments tuned to a single source before beginning a symphony,to prevent the unpleasing sound produced by a lot of out of tune instruments playing the same musical piece terribly out of tune,so our minds/hearts/lives must be tuned to a single source...or the body of believers does not have the beautiful resonance&purpose the Master Composer envisioned when HE created the Symphony!And even if all instruments are tuned to a single source,once the Symphony begins all instruments must follow the beat of THE Conductor! Can you imagine the audible mess if all the instruments played on different beats,following different “little conductors”?In essence the Church n Corinth had become out of tune and they were following different “little conductors”!The people in Corinth were tuning their hearts/minds/lives to what different church leaders were teaching,instead of first tuning their hearts/minds/lives to Christ (1Cor1:10-17).The people had become followers of men(“little conductors”rather than followers of Christ(THE Conductor)!And their effectiveness/impact for The Gospel of Christ suffered because of it.The same thing has happened in America today!We are inundated with messages from well meaning pastors,speakers,authors,etc.,to the point that we spend more time listening to,reading&watching their “stuff” than we do seeking the teaching of God’s Word and the Voice of Jesus’ Spirit in our lives!Our lives become tuned to all things other than God’s Word.And we in reality follow a myriad of “little conductors” instead of seeking to follow “THE Conductor” of LIFE!No wonder the Church in America is losing ground for The Gospel of Christ over the last several decades,in spite of the growing influence of mega churches and their pastors,& the exploding number of Christian books being read and taught by so many!It has been said that our Bibles impact our hearts/minds/lives less and less,while these other things have a growing impact on our hearts/minds/lives!The very thing that Paul is addressing in the 1st chapter of 1Corinthians!And why Paul is urging the church n Corinth to remember their “calling” to follow Christ and nothing nor anyone else!(1Cor1:28-31,”For consider your calling....and because of him(God’s Gift of Mercy&Grace) you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God(THE Conductor),righteousness and sanctification and redemption,so that as it is written,’Let the one who boasts,boast in the Lord’.”Dear God in Heaven,I have allowed my life to be tuned to so many sources other that Your Word/Your Truth,and I have followed many “little conductors”/many beats other that the Beat coming from Your Heart!Forgive me...and May Your Spirit help me and guide me to be tuned to the only Your Word,& follow only the Beat of Your Heart.