Embraced

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

EMBRACED

1 Cor 4:8-13

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings — and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you! 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.

NIV

It would seem that there is some difference between accepting Jesus and following Jesus. We might think that those in Corinth surely had accepted Christ, but by the tone of what Paul is saying here, it would appear he was letting them know that he was following Christ and that as such life was different. Is there such a thing accepting Christ, but living as kings in the ways of the world? Oh we say God is blessing us with so much, he desires that we live as children of a King. But what about Paul and the other apostles, didn’t God what then to live like children of a King? Why does Paul feel like he is the lowest member of the totem pole? He compares himself to them is so many ways, each making them far better off them him, or could this be a bit of sarcasm? Are they living far too much in the ways of the world and are accepted by the world being considered as no threat to them at all, while all that Paul is and says is nothing but a treat to those who refuse and or despise Christ? That sure brings it home to us with the same force. Are we living so much like the world that it has no problem embracing us as one of its own? Or does it even know that we are not one of its own, but that we belong to Christ? Do we live to influence the world, or have we been influenced by it? Have we infiltrated the thinking of the world with the Gospel or have we allowed the world to infiltrate out thinking. Are we trying to show the world the love of God by just doing humanistic things, that any unbeliever can also do, or are we speaking out, living out loud, telling them they need to be born again or they are going to hell? Do we tell them that God loved them so much He sent His only Son to die on the cross for their sin and they need to repent and accept Him as their Lord and Savior or do we think they will just see how different we are and ask why, especially when we are no different. Oh sure maybe some of us do not smoke, drink adult beverages, go to movies, or do not dance, or use foul language, but does that actually make us different? It is not what we do not do, but what we think, say and do which makes us different, and if we are actually following Christ then perhaps the world would see our difference and not like us so much, as those who despise Christ would despise us as well. So who do we embrace, God or the world, and who does the world embrace, us?