Saturday, May 06, 2006

Love is not Arrogant: Part 3

Of inferior value... continued
“Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” (1 Corinthians 4:18-20)
Arrogance values words over power. Christianity is full of people who can talk a good talk. They know all the right things to say, they are well versed in “christian-eze”, and they can speak fluently in Christian slang. Listening to them, you might conclude that they are solid mature Christians, but our Christian life is not to be judged by the words we use but rather by the life we live. It is not enough to talk the talk but we must also walk the walk.

Power is the inheritance of every Christian. Jesus Himself promised us, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Paul understood that even in the preaching of the Gospel it ia not enough to preach the word but we must also give evidence to the word with demonstration and power. “And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5) Paul not only preached to them the message of the Gospel but he also demonstrated the reality of the Gospel through his changed life and the many miracles he performed among the in the name of Jesus.

Here in America we are full of words but are lacking in power. Paul warns about these difficult times when he told Timothy that, in the last days, people would be “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5) This is the life of the arrogant. Why would people preferred words over power? Because the power of God comes to change us. It comes to conform us to His will and nature. It requires that we die to our old life and live by faith through the life of Christ that is within us. We cannot embrace the power of God and continue to live the way we please. We can only take hold of God’s power by first dieing to ourselves. The arrogant cannot accept this price, yet love pays it willingly and finds the blessings of a life lived in God.
“It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” (1 Corinthians 5:1-2, 6-7)
Arrogance is more concerned with the outward man than the inward man. In this scripture, Paul is bringing correction to the church in Corinth. The church is a corporate expression of the Body of Christ. Outwardly, the church was a happening place, they were a very charismatic of people, but inwardly there was sin and debauchery. The leaders of the church had become puffed up with how they were perceived from the outside but they had ignored what was happening on the inside. Even when there was gross sin, their arrogance blinded them to the harm it was doing to the church as well as the grief it was bringing to the Holy Spirit. Instead of morning over the church’s internal sin, they were brimming with pride in their church’s outward face.

Jesus had a similar rebuke for the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees. “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:26-28) We can only fool people so long. Eventually they will come to see who we really are, on the inside. People may be drawn to our outward façade, but it is who we are on the inside that will leave its mark on those closest to us. If we are full of sin and poison we will end up hurting others, but if we are full of the love of God, then our lives will be a blessing to those who know us. Arrogance focuses on the outward, but love compels us to clean the inside of the cup first.

More to come… David Robison

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