2022_06_24 Insight Post- Emma Keeton
This week’s reading- 1 Corinthians 15-16
At home this week I commented to my family that I did not know what to write for the insight post this week. My 7-year-old son simply said, “You should write-Jesus loves you!” After initially laughing at his candor, I have now concluded that he is right. God’s love for us lays the groundwork for our faith. This truth is the foundation to which all else can be built and it is responsible for Paul’s testimony of grace found in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 this week:
“For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
One cannot help but notice Paul’s humility of heart as he addresses the Corinthians regarding the gospel. In Corinth, there were Christians who could not forget how Paul persecuted the church prior to his spectacular conversion and thought of him as a lesser apostle. In these verses, Paul agrees with them. God extended his mercy towards Paul and made him the leader of the Christian Church. Witnessing the power of God in that position of leadership could have gone to Paul’s head, but instead, Paul acknowledges God’s authority and a need for God’s unmerited favor. Paul had not forgotten what he had been saved from and this served him well by creating in him a humble heart. It’s with that humility God can work his grace through us. Proverbs 3:34 says: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
You can see God’s grace at work in your own life by answering this question:
“God, I don’t deserve ______.”
However you just filled in the blank is God’s grace at work in your life. An awareness of God’s grace for you creates an attitude of reverence. It has been said that spiritual strength and vitality flow through the gates of submission and humility. “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10b
Prayer
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a
right spirit in me. Psalm 51:10
In Jesus name
Emma Keeton
Prayer Team Lead