Strong and Blameless

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

STRONG AND BLAMELESS

1 Cor 1:4-9

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. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

NIV

Now that we have been enriched because of the divine influence of Jesus on our hearts and minds and we lack nothing concerning spiritual gifts because we eagerly wait for our Lord to appear in the sky and call us home, we now focus our attention on what Paul says something else we can expect to happen. Paul says that Jesus will keep us strong to the end so that we will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is interesting the Greek word translated as strong carries this meaning of to make firm. So the word strong does justice to this Greek word and we also have to understand that it is He who will make us firm. That is not up to us because we are not able to do it. The Greek word also can be seen as confirm or establish, which is also all Jesus and none of us. Of course, we should try to live as uprightly as possible, however, no matter how much effort we put in to being righteous, we simply cannot ever be righteous, or strong enough, or confirm or establish ourselves until the end in order to be blameless on the day of the Lord. We are entirely dependent on the faithfulness of God, who is the one who called us into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh sure, we might try to appear blameless, but in reality, we simply are not blameless unless God declares us so, and the only way that we are declared blameless is being in fellowship with Jesus, for He is blameless. Jesus is the one who is keeping us strong, he is the one who has and is confirming and establishing us until the end. How could we possibly go on, if it were not for Jesus? As it is we still fail in so many ways and so often that if it were up to us, we would have been condemned to everlasting death. Jesus took all our failure, all our sin, past, present, and future upon himself on the cross so that we do not have to be condemned, but so that we can be set free from that penalty of sin. Yes, we make every effort not to sin, but the reality is, we cannot make sufficient enough effort, so we have to rely completely on Jesus to keep us strong, to make us firm to the end. Again, this may not be Him making us, as in making a cake, or how He made all that is made, and that nothing was made that he did not make. This keeping us strong has everything to do with us being in fellowship with him. That is because we are in Christ and He is in us, it is Him who is strong, it is Him who establishes us as blameless. When God looks at us, He sees His Son Jesus, who is strong and blameless. God sees us through Christ, and then we are blameless until the end because God is faithful. We fail, but He does not. He is the reason we are strong and blameless.