A Different Direction

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

DIFFERENT DIRECTION

1 Cor 1:4-6
4 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way — in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— 6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.
NIV


First of all we have to come to terms with the concept of thanking God for other who are partaking in God’s grace. That would require our prays to be about more than ourselves, in fact, our prayers would certainly be about thanking God for others who have been saved. Do we thank God for the fact that others have been enriched in every way? Of course that would also mean that we have been enriched in every way as well, because those others are supposed to be thanking God for us alsol. Now that would also mean all the others as well as us have been enriched in all our speaking and our knowledge. If we explore the word enriched, the original language carries the concept of to make wealthy. So them we are wealthy in our words and knowledge about Christ Jesus. That is pretty awesome. Now we do have to ask ourselves if we in fact take full advantage of that wealth. Do we speak good words? That is to say, do we exhibit an enriched vocabulary from our enriched knowledge? Do we speak about Christ, or about the weather, celebrities, sports figures, and whatever other dribble that comes to our mind, which would include gossip? If we have been enriched in every way, we should speak as such. Our lives should be an example of someone who is wealthy in Christ. If we are in fact thanking God for others, we should also be telling them we are doing so, because they are saved. We should be letting them know they are enriched in their words and knowledge as well. We should be lifting them up, encouraging them in their walk with Christ, keeping them aware of the grace God has enriched them with. It would seem this is so importance that we should not have time to speak of anything else. It is hard to imagine Paul walking up to us and asking, “Did you see the game between the Romans and the Christians last night?” or “How about that weather, that wind was something else?” Oh sure, some small talk might be alright, but our calling here is to thank God for someone else, and tell them so. That might make the conversation take a whole different direction.