Tuesday, March 26, 2013

One Gospel, One Jesus, One Message


DEVOTION
2 CORINTHIANS
ONE GOSPEL, ONE JESUS, ONE MESSAGE
2 Cor 11:1-6
11:1 I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that. 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 5 But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those "super-apostles." 6 I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way.
NIV’

This really says a lot here about what was going on in Corinth, but does it also speak to what is going on today in the here and now? Are we pure as virgins in regard to the gospel of Christ? Or have we been deceived by all sorts of different man made rules and regulations, denominational doctrines and dogmas? Every denomination is just a little different than all the others; otherwise we would all be one church, one pure church, on pure bride of Christ. Oh sure it would seem all the denominations preach Jesus, but he is really Jesus? Or is he their interpretation of who Jesus is? It certainly appears God was inspiring Paul to set the record straight here. We surely have some of those “super-apostles” around today, with their trained speaking, their silver tongues, their fine clothes, large mega churches filled with their followers, glued to every word which they even telecast for more to hear.  Is their message the true Jesus which Paul writes about here? Have we been deceived by them as well accepting them by not speaking out against them, not showing their message for what it is? Why so many different messages? Why so many divisions among churches? What is the purpose of that? Are they all preaching the pure message of Jesus? Yet they all have added to or taken away from the pure message of Jesus. They all are coming with a different spirit. Do we put up with this too easily? Why should we? Why do we align ourselves with certain churches taking on the argument with others? Sure some preachers are good with their words, persuasive and speak with such confidence and authority about their interpretation of the Gospel based on their indoctrination of their denomination. Maybe we do not have all those fine words, or ability to communicate them smoothly, but if we read the bible, we have the knowledge, we have the Word of God, we have the truth right they before us. There is but one gospel, one Jesus, one message.  

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