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Category: 1 Corinthians
Act Like Men: Stand Firm, Be Strong, Love Well – 1 Corinthians 16 – 2025 Day 251
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 39, 1 Corinthians 16
We hear 1 Corinthians 13 read at every wedding. Love is patient and kind. Love does envy or boast. Love is not proud or rude. Isn’t it beautiful?
But love is also steadfast and firm, immovable and strong. Love is a mother telling her toddler, “No,” a hundred times in the same day. Love is a grown daughter telling her alcoholic mom that she’s got a problem. Love is refusing to stand idly by while pornography tries to ruin your marriage or homosexuality tries to steal your teenager.
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith,
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 ESV
act like men, be strong.
Let all that you do be done in love.
Love takes guts. Love takes strength. Love takes the stamina of a thoroughbred racehorse and the patience of Job. Love requires you to be willing to get battle scars for the sake of another because you believe they’re worth the fight.
Ladies, sisters, friends, act like men. Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
Heavenly Father, Your Son, Jesus Christ, is the perfect manifestation of manhood and love. Strength and humility. Stamina and kindness. Make us more like Him. Teach us, show us, how to love like He loves, how to give up our lives for another, to be willing to suffer to save someone else. We need You, Father. We can’t do it on our own. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Lover of my Soul. Amen.
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Of First Importance: Share the Gospel – 1 Corinthians 15 – 2025 Day 250
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 38, 1 Corinthians 15
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 ESV
Dear friends, no one will be compelled to follow Christ by listening to you complain and criticize. Sharing haughty arguments and brilliant expositions on lofty theological ideas isn’t the way to bring lost sinners to the feet of Christ. It’s the gospel. It’s the good news of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, who died for our sins and who was raised triumphant from the dead, that draws people to faith. Share the gospel.
Ask questions. Listen thoughtfully to the answers.
Share transparently about the struggles and joys of your own life.
And share the gospel.
Jesus is who draws and saves. And Jesus is the Savior – not you. Friends, please, share the gospel.
Heavenly Father, thank You for the best news I’ve ever heard, the good news that the lost can be found and the dead can be raised through faith in Your Son, Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, who died in my place. I pray that You would send me where You want me to speak. Open my mouth to speak what You want me to say, and open my eyes to see the doors that You open for me. You are the One who saves. Make me a faithful steward of the gospel of Jesus Christ and of my testimony. For the glory of Your Name. Amen.
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TODAY’S PODCAST: Building up the Body – 1 Corinthians 14
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Building Up the Body – 1 Corinthians 14 – 2025 Day 249
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 37, 1 Corinthians 14
I remember many years ago when my oldest daughter was about five years old and playing on our town’s youth soccer team. My husband was the coach, and I was standing on the sidelines keeping one eye on our two-year-old son and one eye on the game. Midway through the game, the ‘soccer mom’ standing next to me struck up a conversation with me. Somehow she ended up asking me where I went to church and if my church was spirit-filled. I didn’t really understand what she meant, and I just replied with a brief, somewhat confused, ‘Yes, we were,’ because, well, we believe that people are filled with the Holy Spirit when they are born again by faith in Christ. After talking to her more, I came to understand that she was asking me if we spoke in tongues. Why, I wonder, has “Spirit-filled” come to mean, “Speaking in tongues”?
Maybe because of my background as an atheist, I have always really struggled with the pettiness of so many denominational differences, so I have really enjoyed studying Paul’s words on spiritual gifts here in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 – 14. 1 Corinthians 14:12 sums up my thoughts really well.
So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:12 ESV
Sadly, in my experience, including that day 20 years ago on the sidelines of a soccer field, the people who have talked to me about the gift of speaking in tongues have been more concerned with building up themselves than with building up the body. The scriptures are clear. If the Lord gives you a gift, it is to be used for building up others and glorifying God, not yourself. We ought to see ourselves as stewards of whatever it is that the Lord has given us, whether that’s time, treasure, talents, testimony, or a spiritual gift of speaking or serving.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who guides me and convicts me. Please help me to exercise the gifts You have given me for the building up of the body of Christ and for Your glory. Remind me that any good thing that I have is a gift from Your merciful hand, and any good thing I do is the fruit of Your work in my life. Keep me humble and grateful that Your light will shine such that people’s attention is drawn to You, the Gracious Giver of every good and perfect gift. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
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Today’s Podcast: The Love Chapter – 1 Corinthians 13
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The Love Chapter – 1 Corinthians 13 – 2025 Day 248
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 36, 1 Corinthians 13
If I choose all the strongest verbs and most descriptive adjectives and write the most compelling blog on the web, but have not love, I am no greater than a tabloid writer or paparazzi photographer.
If I study the Bible every single day and night and tell every person I meet on the street all about the good news of the gospel, but have not love, I am no greater than a Pharisee or prosperity preacher.
If I homeschool all my kids and feed them organic fruits and vegetables with every meal, but have not love, I am no greater than Elmo or the Jolly Green Giant.
If I teach preschoolers every Sunday morning and women every Wednesday night, but have not love, I gain nothing.
If I volunteer every Tuesday at my local food pantry and march every Friday morning at the abortion clinic, but have not love, it profits neither me nor my neighbor.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; Love does not envy or boast; It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; It is not irritable or resentful; It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away; As for tongues, they will cease; As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV
Heavenly Father, I love You, Lord, because You first loved me. You made the first move, the move of love. You pursued me while I hated You. Strengthen me to love others like that. Help me to love others as You loved me. Help me to love them while they are yet sinners, for that is how You loved me. You *are* love and all You *do* is loving. Make me more like You, for I am Your child. I want to live and move and have my being in You, that I might live and move and have my being in Love. To the glory and praise of Your Holy Name. Amen.
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TODAY’S PODCAST – Unity in the Church – 1 Corinthians 12
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Unity in the Church: A Symphony at Sunset – 1 Corinthians 12 – 2025 Day 247
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 35, 1 Corinthians 12
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
1 Corinthians 12:24b-26 ESV
God could’ve created mankind to reproduce like clones, each new being identical to the others, but He didn’t. Rather, every single one of the billions of human beings who have ever lived was created as a unique individual, each one formed in the likeness of his or her Creator. And when a person is born again by faith in Jesus Christ, God endows them through His Holy Spirit with special gifts and interests, so that His children might all fit together as one breathtaking sunset of magnificently varying colors.
As I wrote yesterday, conflict is sometimes needed to bring about peace, but let’s remember the goal of this conflict is peace, wholeness, and unity, not division.
God designed the members of His church to live together in harmony, in one accord, each a valuable player in His heavenly orchestra, playing a symphony like no other, as we each produce our unique notes under His guidance, working together for His glory.
Heavenly Father, You are the giver of every good gift, the writer of every perfect song. You are the conductor of this orchestra that has been designed by Your hand to fit perfectly together as a masterpiece that even Beethoven could never achieve. I pray that we would trust Your direction and follow Your lead. Things may look messy to our untrained eyes or sound out of place to our untrained ears, but in Your perfect hands, there is peace. Weave us together into a tapestry of Your glorious design for the glory of Your Name, we pray. Amen.
For more on this topic, I recommend a 2-part message titled, “UNIQUE AND UNITED,” that I shared at our church women’s retreat a few years ago.
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TODAY’S PODCAST: Division in the Church – 1 Corinthians 11
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Teach What is Good 
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