But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57, NIV)
Our Links Fellowship season came to a close at Visalia Country Club last week. We meet all year until right about now. Because we are an evening group and the club needs our room for every variety of holiday event at that hour, we step aside.
As it was, we completed a 2019 verse-by-verse look at 1 Corinthians, that wide-ranging letter from Paul to the sometimes renegade church in the metropolitan environment that was First Century Corinth. The good folks at Corinth tried some ideas on for size, we’ll say, and Paul let them know when they were and when they weren’t walking the path of Christ.
This is really what we all should be looking for from Scripture if we have already latched on the part where we say, “Yes, I want the salvation Jesus offers!” After that, we should want to know what’s after that. Not that we can add to Jesus. But we can sure live for him. And the epistles are a great place to find out how to do so.
How many could have imagined the victory that Christ would bring as he lay in that manger on the night of his birth?The climax of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, though, was his grand defense of the resurrection of Christ in chapter 15 and his reminder that we have hope for eternal life because the resurrection was real. This hope caused Paul to exclaim his thanksgiving to God near the chapter’s close.
I wonder, now as we move into the Advent season, which begins this weekend, after we give thanks of our own, how many could have imagined the victory that Christ would bring as he lay in that manger on the night of his birth.
Certainly his mother and father had an inkling, for they had been visited by angels and told to name their son Jesus (Yeshua), “for he shall save his people from their sins.”
The shepherds come down from the hills had been knocked into petrification by the angel who told them that a Savior had been born to them: “He is Christ the Lord.” Now they broke from their fear and went running to Bethlehem.
Simeon and Anna, faithful servants of God in the temple, sensitive to the voice of the Lord, recognized the Messiah in this little one on the day of his dedication.
And some time later the magi arrived, led by a star of portent, to worship the future king.
This was a small bunch. In the years of Jesus’ ministry, it would grow. Then all the more after the Holy Spirit’s descent at Pentecost. Centuries down the line, you and I stand at the same place. Do we see in Jesus the promise of victory, the hope of salvation? If we do, we are ready for the weeks ahead.
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Jeff Hopper
November 26, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.