Follow the Light

 DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

FOLLOW THE LIGHT

1 Cor 10:1-5

10:1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.   5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

NIV

The beginning of a history lesson to teach them and us a lesson about not being like they were even if they were the chosen people of God. Did they not cross the Red Sea on dry ground, seeing the deliverance of God firsthand? Did they not watch as God totally vanquished their captors who held them in bondage for four hundred years? Did they not plunder their captors of gold and silver and march out boldly onto a journey led by their God with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by the day? Did not God keep them in the daylight with the fire, while keeping the army of the Egyptians in the dark by the pillar of cloud? Did they not eat manna every morning, seeing God provide for them? Yet what happened to them should be a lesson for us. Paul will go on to explain this in more detail, but for now, we should see two truths. First, God will always be there to provide us with a path through any situation we might face. There is nothing that we face too great for God to perform his work on our behalf seeing us through it, and on dry ground. That is we do not even have to attempt to swim, fight our own battle, make our own way, using our own efforts to overcome any problem. God will not only show us the way, but he also provides the way, and in the mention vanquishes that which caused us to either be frightened or anxious. Second, not only will He lead us through those times of anxiety and deliver us from them, but He will provide for our material needs, and our sustenance, but with spiritual food, the word of God, and Christ whose body and blood are for our redemption. How can we ever think that our way can be better? We are baptized into Christ, and he is our Lord and Savior. How can we think we can devise a path through those difficult times that will be everlasting? We will see why God was not pleased with them and yet we already know God will not stand or is not pleased if we make our own path, thrusting in our flesh rather than trusting in Him. This even goes to the divided heart issue where we trust God for our salvation, and for spiritual matters, while we trust in ourselves for our material lives, and our physical life in this world. Maybe our trusting in our own path in this physical world is a form of wandering or being scattered in the desert. No, let us follow the path God has laid before us, and trust in his wisdom, not attempting to go back to our formal lives, without his deliverance, protection, and guidance. Let us leave the desert behind and follow the light.