Life Applications

If you are like me, you may have been a bit overwhelmed by the amount of material that the Apostle Paul covers in 1 Corinthians 5 - 8. The breadth of topics is a bit staggering when taken all together. So my first impression of this morning's devotional reading in 1 Corinthians was a sense that I needed to break this down into smaller parts. But no single smaller part presented itself to me as a focus for the day. Instead, I kept coming back to the wide array of life-situations that Paul was addressing.

And it was when I said that word to myself - "life-situations" - that a thought struck me. An important thought, I believe. Faith is meant to be applied in the midst of daily living. Faith is meant to make sense in the midst of a wide array of life-situations. Faith has meaning in the overwhelming amount of activity that is life.

Paul is helping the Corinthian Christians apply their new-found allegiance to Jesus in the midst of their cultural and sociological and economic situation. Allegiance to Jesus has something to say about morality. And it has something to say about the corporate witness of the church in its community. And it has something to say about how we treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly when we have been wronged. And it has something to say about marriage and family and children and our responsibilities as parents. And it has something to say about idolatry and hospitality and a Christ-follower's responsibility to nudge our neighbors closer to Jesus.

In short, faith has very public consequences, and it touches every part of our lives. It challenges us and nurtures us at every turn.

We fight against this, though, don't we? We much prefer to have a little box we label faith and then some other little boxes we label fun, work, family, finances, friendships, etc. We try to keep faith separate from some things in our life. We try to keep Jesus out of some of our business.

But allegiance to Jesus means we surrender all of ourselves to him. Nothing is held back. We welcome him into every area, every aspect, every relationship of our life. All we are is his. All we do reflects him.

I pray that we would let Jesus shape every area of our life this week until all that we do honors him!