Earnestly Desire

Meditations in First Corinthians

June 8, 2022

Earnestly Desire 

But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit,

and we all share the same Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:13b

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-20

First, I want to back up to the last verse in yesterday’s meditation:

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. (v.11)

As disciples of Jesus, seeking the life in Christ as our way of life, our mantra is: my life belongs to God. By creation and redemption, my life belongs to God. As we submit our lives to the authority of God, we appreciate and accept the Holy Spirit alone decides which gift a person should have.

Paul goes to great length to demonstrate the need and value of each spiritual gift. However, the portion of today’s passage that caught my attention is verse 13b quoted above. Paul was writing to the church in Corinth, but he would say or write the same the same thing to the churches in Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, or the churches of Galatia. We have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. This is true of fully-devoted followers of Jesus who worship as Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, or in nondenominational churches. Jesus intends that by the Holy Spirit, we are one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until he, Christ Jesus, comes in final victory.

My Takeaway: It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of disciples of Jesus that forms Christ in the disciples. This same Holy Spirit empowers the disciples to be one in Christ and one with Christ in ministry to the world. I started today by backing up a bit. I’ll close by jumping ahead a bit:

So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.

(v.31) Emphasis mine.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.