Category: Devotions

“For this reason the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding. Otherwise when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an enquirer, say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? You are giving thanks well enough, but no-one else is edified.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭14‬:‭13-17‬ ‭

• Our spirit can pray and worship as well as our mind. Therefore the impact of prayer and worship can be experienced in our spirit. 
• Your spirit can cause fruit to bear in your mind. Therefore intelligence in your spirit needs to be understood so that not only your spirit grows but your mind also.
• Desire to do both. It’s not one or the other. Let the whole of you give thanks to God.
• Have in mind those who are ‘enquiring’ about the faith. When your spirit is involved make sure you make clear what is being said and sung.
• Make sure the church is edified. 

I have been in many church services all over the world and not understood anything that has been said, neither the songs, the exhortations to worship nor the prayers and shouts of praise to God. I’ve stood there trying to engage, having my own time of worship but not aware of anything that is happening around me. 

“Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the pipe or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. “Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭14‬:‭6-‭12‬ 

I use my encounters of world church services as an illustration to what Paul is meaning. It’s not meant to be a criticism and I quite enjoy listening to foreign languages trying to spot the odd Hallelujah and Amen! 

Paul is not against tongue speaking, he speaks in tongues more than all of them (v18). But having spoken so freely about love he is against the self-indulgent use of the spoken gifts that are not understood by those in that service. His thoughts are for the unbelievers and for the whole church. Everyone must understand what is going on otherwise what is the point of them being there?

A worshipper can be having a great time; they can be enjoying themselves; the church can be pleased that the service displayed spiritual gifts but if there was no explanation, no understanding by all of the people gathered, then what’s the point? There isn’t one.

The church service needs to edify all and needs to call everyone to battle. 

Love means no one is left out. That’s the point!

 

“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no-one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort. Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭14‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭

In the context of the pathway being love and with the desire to receive spiritual gifts, Paul’s encouragement is to desire prophecy. And this is why. 

Prophecy is the speaking to people through supernatural revelation. Whereas the Prophet may well be used outside the Church, prophecy is for within the church (but can also speak to the unbeliever who is present) and comforts and edifies the whole Church. With this in mind we should be desiring this gift and excel in it for who doesn’t want to build up the church?

There are many conferences and church programmes helping us all on how to prophesy. I am certainly not going to teach anything here in this short devotion on how to prophesy. But very simply this is what I do, it is simply this: a) asking God to speak to you about the person/church; b) At the same time remind yourself of all that God has done and is doing for them; c) As your mind focuses on those things and may even speak them out let your heart connect and feel God’s heart of love for them; d) stay in that place of God’s love for them and silently again ask God what He wants to say; e) be confident that God will speak and it may start with a word or subject matter, a picture in your mind or something the person is wearing will cause an understanding not seen before

It is possible that prophecy was being held with contempt, hence the command of Paul. It is still true today. We are called to test prophesies and not despise them. Again this might help some but there are great books and resources for this. This is my measurement in no particular order: a) the opening line is not ‘This is the Lord speaking …’ but rather something like, ‘I believe the Lord is saying this’ b) is it in alignment with the Bible? c) does it build up? d) is it bringing me nearer to God? e) does it set me free or tie me up?

Satan wants us to despise the supernatural gifts of the Spirit. He wants to remove them from the Church and our lives and in some places he has managed to do so. It is true that some abuse the gifts today. There are still the doom-sayers today within the church and deception is never far from us. If he can remove faith and replace it with fear then he has won. This is the command Paul is speaking about. Let us not kill off prophecy. Whenever we meet together as Christians there is an opportunity for God to speak through the Written Word and the Spoken Word of prophecy.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13

So the previous verses would suggest only love remains but actually faith and hope also are unceasing. 

They’re like a powerful trinity in our discipleship.

FAITH is the foundation of our life. Faith in God and what Christ has done for us through His Spirit. Faith in His promises. Faith in His presence. Faith in His purposes for our life. 

HOPE sustains us through the many difficulties we experience in life. This isn’t wishful thinking but a definite knowledge that God holds us and will bring us through. Hope holds us in the storm. Hope says there’s still more to the story. Hope gives us strength to keep going. 

But why is LOVE greater? Eternity.

In eternity we won’t need faith because we will see; we won’t need hope because everything will be fulfilled; but God is love and love will be there for Him, from Him and for mutuality with others. 

And so ends a beautiful chapter and a dramatic pause as Paul addresses the abuse in the Corinthian church over several things and one including spiritual gifts. He goes back to it now hoping they have understood the importance 

It never dies. It never ceases. It lasts forever. It is eternal. This is the beauty and power of love. Whereas the spiritual gifts will not last forever. 

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬-‭12‬ 

Love is more important than spiritual gifts. Love takes precedence over spiritual gifts. 

What good are spiritual gifts without love? 

Yet if you have love and no spiritual gifts then that lies with the sovereignty of the Spirit but love is still working. 

The gifts will end.

Prophecy will cease.

Tongues will be stilled.

Knowledge will pass away.

Paul could go on but he’s made his point.

All the gifts that this church are either abusing or ignoring will come to an end. What will we be left with when we stand before God? Our badge of being able to speak in tongues and able to prophecy? Or will it be that we loved whilst here on earth? Will the church be commended for its giftedness or its love? 

But there’s more.

Paul says the gifts are partial and incomplete. 

Completeness is coming and when it does the gifts will fall away. 

To those who say completeness is the death of the last apostle or the finalisation of the canon of the Bible then these verses challenge those thoughts. 

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

‭‭v12‬.

Completeness hasn’t come yet for we are all still waiting for Christ to return. 

Only then (or when we die before He comes) will we see Him face to face. 

When that day comes we won’t need spiritual gifts to know God or what He is saying for we will fully know and will be fully known. 

What will be left? What will we stand before Him with? 

The answer is we will stand before LOVE with love. 

Love never ends. 

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV

Love keeps going! 

It’s not sympathy we need at times,
not even a listening ear … We need someone to say don’t give up!
What are you facing?
“Hold on! I love you! Don’t back away now!”

People never just give up. They gave up behind the smiles and laughter a long time ago. No matter how resilient you are if you do not know you are loved then you will fade. 

I’m not thinking we need to say ‘pull your socks up’ or to ‘keep smiling’ under duress. But rather have a conquering patience with anything that life can throw at us knowing that God who is love does love you!

It is always too soon to give up when there is love.

Sunday 22nd January 2017 I stood with a married couple with 2 small children for a photograph. This was their farewell from the church as they were being sent as church planters to an area where there was absolutely no Christian witness. It was for me a most poignant moment for I knew the struggle that they would face. I was in the region of the world where the Church is continually persecuted. Christians carried injuries to their bodies because they were Christ followers. I was told of how their houses got burnt down, their children set upon and their entire family despised as worthless. I asked the question, “What happens when it all gets too much?” The answer that came shocked me. “We stay.”

You may enter your day struggling to get through it. You face internal pressures from external circumstances that are causing you to wonder if you will ever be free. Physical problems, loneliness, financial instability, loss of work and broken relationships are making you feel like you are swimming against the tide. Let the persecuted Christians help you today. They have found something that is priceless. If we do what they do then we will be saved in our circumstance. They have discovered perseverance that has come through knowing ‘God so loved the world’; they know they are loved and they love people. The power of love causes them to remain, to hold on, for love perseveres. 

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV

She did it first on 16th November 1952. Charlie Brown explains to Lucy: “All you have to do is hold the ball. Then I come running and kick it.” She’s not so sure. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Charlie Brown comes running, but, at the last moment, Lucy pulls back the football, explaining to the prostrate kicker: “I was afraid your shoes might be dirty, Charlie Brown. I don’t want anyone with dirty shoes kicking my new football.” He tells her: “Don’t you ever do that again! Do you want to kill me? This time, hold it tight!” She does, so tightly, he kicks a ball, which doesn’t move, and tumbles onto his back. “I held it real tight, Charlie Brown.” He laments: “I’m not going to get up. I’m going to lie here for the rest of the day.” Lucy would continue some variant of the football snatch in almost every subsequent year of the strip, all the way to 1999. The same would happen nine times in animation. Drawing the strip for the last time, Charles Schultz said that he realized, sadly, that Charlie Brown would never kick that football, but, he also thought, having him succeed would have been a disservice to the character.

I wonder today if you are living with hope of kicking the ball?

Priest and theologian, Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) said this of hope, it “expects the coming of something new. Hope looks toward that which is not yet. Hope reaches out beyond ourselves to a power beyond us. Hope is grounded in the historic Christ-event … and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness.” (in Seeds of Hope)

After quitting school early and a brief time in Europe working as a Red Cross driver taking soldiers to the frontline he returned to Kansas to become a cartoon illustrator. But he lost his job because the editor claimed he had no imagination. How wrong that was! He headed out to Hollywood and had failure after failure with his ideas. Universal stole his ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’ idea and MGM rejected his talking mouse and his ‘Three Little Pigs’ never saw the light of day. But he kept going. Half the audience walked out of his ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’; ‘Pinocchio’ was a financial disaster; in fact all the classic films that I grew up on and which broke record after record at the Oscars and which billions of people have now watched was only possible because one failed man held on to hope. Of course the man is Walt Disney (1901-1966); the Walt Disney Company is estimated now at around $130 billion.

February 1st 1975, a famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela (who spent 27 years in prison) wrote to his wife Winnie, “You may find it difficult at first to pinpoint the negative features in your life, but the 10th attempt may yield rich rewards. Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying. … No ax is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise and win in the end.”

Hope is more than optimism. There may not be any hopeful aspects of a situation which optimism clings to. But hope is found not in a situation but in a loving Saviour.

Hope is more than being positive. There may be no moving forward, no direction and no increase. But hope is found not in progress but in a Person named Love.

In his book ‘Deserted by God?’, Sinclair Ferguson shares the following story:
“The first physician to die of the AIDS virus in the UK was a young Christian. He had contracted it while doing medical research in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In the last days of his life, his power of communication failed. He struggled with increasing difficulty to express his thoughts to his wife. On one occasion she simply could not understand his message. He wrote on a note pad the letter J. She ran through her medical dictionary, saying various words beginning with J. None was right. Then she said, “Jesus?”
That was the right word. He was with them. That was all either of them needed to know.

Hope has a name and that name is Jesus.

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV

Let’s remind ourselves why the Apostle Paul is taking so long to explain what love is and is not. It’s because the church in Corinth needed to know. Mistrust was a common element in their church.

I know some reading this today will have experienced trust being broken. A promise not kept, a secret revealed or a boundary crossed. You have had to learn to trust again. To love again.

Choosing to trust is always an act of courage. Love is indeed that, courageous.

But if we don’t take that step of faith to trust we miss what it is to be human at the deepest level.

We were created for community and for it to be at the love level and that involves trusting each other.

Our calling and our destiny is better discovered and expressed through community than trying to convince a community of our own individual and personal revelation of the ministry Jesus wants us to do.

We were never meant to go it alone.

• Such singular approach to life holds too many temptations for stardom. ‘I did it my way’ is the song of the individual who will not share their life with anyone. Your marital status is not the sign whether you are doing life alone or not. I’ve known married couples not trusting each other and I’ve known single people who have opened their life and live vulnerable lives in a group of people they trust. The gospel was meant to be shared together. That takes trust and it therefore needs love.

How are your horizontal relationships? Who are you walking with? Who is holding you accountable and who is laughing with you? Share your life, learn to trust, it is better that way. As you get older don’t let the disappointments of your life prevent the fulfilment of new friendships of trust.

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening].”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭AMP‬‬

“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

There’s so much in this passage of love.

I love the translations above. It helps to form a picture that love protects others no matter what they have done or not done and never gives up on them.

Love.

Love was demonstrated over 3 days. 

Love was victorious over those 3 days. 

Love became the foundation for every follower of Jesus in those 3 days. 

Protect, bear with and never give up on anyone because Christ is with you and working through you. 

The light of the world was entombed in darkness.

God allowed man to do his worst. Nothing is blacker than a grave or more permanent than a tomb.

But remember who was behind the stone, LOVE. 

You may know the 1st day of pain.

You may know a 2nd day of nothing.

But we are people of LOVE.

We are people of the 3rd day.

We are people of tomorrow!

It will be better at dawn.

On the 3rd day God substituted Abraham’s son Isaac for a ram and rewarded his obedience.

On the 3rd day Moses was called to Mt Sinai to receive the commandments.

On the 3rd day God promised Hezekiah he would be healed and live a further 15 years.

On the 3rd day Esther went before the king on behalf of the Jews.

On the 3rd day Hosea says God will restore us so that we may live in His presence.

Those passages are more than coincidental. They speak of protection, bearing with and not giving up. Life had not ended. 

We are also people of the third day. 

Whatever is in front of you is not as secure as it makes out when LOVE is within you.

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭6‬ ‭

If you love films, then you must watch ‘True Story’. It tells the story of Michael Finkel who through a lot of cost to himself learnt the importance of telling true stories.

If you love dramas, then you must watch ‘The Capture’. It follows British soldier Shaun Emery and a case against him in which CCTV footage plays an important role. Surely CCTV cannot be wrong?!

Just because the story is amazing.
Just because the storyteller is charismatic and amazing.
Just because you desire to be part of the amazing.

Just because it has been amazing whilst it lasted.
It doesn’t make it true.

Next time it sounds unbelievable well just slow things down and check out the facts.

Just because you see a part and not the whole doesn’t make the part true. Truth is found in the whole, the beginning, the middle and the end, the alpha and the omega. 

Truth is a person, Jesus.

It is so difficult when people are speaking lies about you or when they believe things about you that are not true.

What is spoken against you is not as established as it may look.

What is spoken to you about someone else is not the evidence of the reality.

It takes wisdom to dissect a lie.

It takes courage to walk through a lie.

Truth sets prisoners free even if they have wrongfully served years in prison.

Untangle the lies and Truth will lead you out.

Truth will bring something beautiful out of the ugliness of the situation.

Search for the Truth amongst the misconception and the path will become clear.

Truth is hard to discover when there is no sacrificial self-awareness.

Put Truth on the cross and wait for Him to rise to a new day.

When love is the core, the very foundation of our life then it rejoices and celebrates truth.