Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Foundry Publishing House of Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene for Tuesday, 19 September 2017 "A New Way Of Knowing" by Robert W. Smith - 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Foundry Publishing House of Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene for Tuesday, 19 September 2017 "A New Way Of Knowing" by Robert W. Smith - 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
1 Corinthians 2:6 Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of this world or of this world’s leaders, who are in the process of passing away. 7 On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory. 8 Not one of this world’s leaders has understood it; because if they had, they would not have executed the Lord from whom this glory flows. 9 But, as the Tanakh says,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard

and no one’s heart has imagined

all the things that God has prepared

for those who love him.”[1 Corinthians 2:9 Isaiah 64:3(4), 52:15]

10 It is to us, however, that God has revealed these things. How? Through the Spirit. For the Spirit probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God. 11 For who knows the inner workings of a person except the person’s own spirit inside him? So too no one knows the inner workings of God except God’s Spirit. 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us. 13 These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Spirit, by which we explain things of the Spirit to people who have the Spirit. 14 Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Spirit of God — to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the Spirit. 15 But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.

16 For who has known the mind of Adonai?

Who will counsel him?[1 Corinthians 2:16 Isaiah 40:13]

But we have the mind of the Messiah!

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A friend recently showed me his new smartphone. After describing its many features he said, “Now, someone needs to show me how to use it!” For Paul, the ministry of the Holy Spirit enables believers to understand the wonders God has accomplished for them through “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Clearly, “human wisdom” cannot comprehend what “God has freely given to us” because these gifts are “spiritually discerned” (v. 14). He concluded his thought by declaring that the ministry of the Holy Spirit gives to us “the mind of Christ” (v. 16).
Paul reminded believers that the proclamation of Christ crucified would sound like foolishness to those who were living according to the “wisdom of this age” (v. 6). He knew that other Christian preachers and teachers did not accept what the Spirit had taught him about what God had accomplished through Jesus Christ. Therefore, he urged the Corinthians to listen to the Spirit of God.
The apostolic gospel cannot be properly understood as the story of God’s reconciliation in Christ apart from the cross. This is "God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began" (verse 7).
Hymn for Today:

"Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart" by George Croly

1. Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart, 

wean it from sin, through all its pulses move. 

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as you are, 

and make me love you as I ought to love. 

2. I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, 

no sudden rending of the veil of clay, 

no angel visitant, no opening skies; 

but take the dimness of my soul away. 

3. Did you not bid us love you, God and King, 

love you with all our heart and strength and mind? 

I see the cross there teach my heart to cling. 

O let me seek you and O let me find! 

4. Teach me to feel that you are always nigh; 

teach me the struggles of the soul to bear, 

to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; 

teach me the patience of unceasing prayer. 

5. Teach me to love you as your angels love, 

one holy passion filling all my frame: 

the fullness of the heaven-descended Dove; 

my heart an altar, and your love the flame. 

Thought for Today:

Teach me to do your will,

because you are my God;

Let your good Spirit guide me

on ground that is level.(Psalm 143:10).

Please pray:
For The development of Christian leaders in Guiana.
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