The 260 Journey

Day 143

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 10

We are always warned about dwelling in the past. Especially the bad past. Dwelling is one thing; forgetting is entirely another. Why? As George Santayana, a former philosophy professor at Harvard, said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We have a responsibility to look to the past when it will guide our steps into a successful future. The past is not meant to be cement to hold us hostage to our mistakes and blunders, but it should help us reflect when we need the past to make a wise future decision. Reflecting on the past is not the same as living in the past. Certain parts of all of our pasts can either keep us stuck and condemned or reflective and wiser. It’s up to us how we use it.

This is the truth the apostle Paul is bringing to the light for the Corinthians in chapter 10. Listen as he reflects on the Israelites’ blunders while they were in the desert:

These things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10:6-13, NIV)

I don’t have to sin to understand sin better. I can evaluate others’ experiences to help me come to a wise conclusion. And Paul is asking us to use a scenario from almost two thousand years earlier. Paul is asking the Corinthians and us to evaluate their bad decisions so we can make good decisions.

Paul starts the section by reminding us that these are not just Old Testament stories we are reading but “these things occurred as examples” to keep us from doing the same things. That means when we read the Old Testament, we read those stories not simply with a historical mindset but as present-day students imposing the question to the text, “What is this saying to me? How can this story help me?”

Look at the four things he warns us against.

1. Do not be idolaters. We probably should pause on this word idolatry. When we hear it, we immediately think of an ugly statue that people bow to and claim to be over them. Twenty-first-century idolatry still exists. The statues are less conspicuous. They may have an apple on them and we can carry them in our hands. They can be a little box on top of the television that will not let us stop playing. They can be a person, a sport, a casino, or something in a glass. Idolatry is whatever has the power over you. So Paul tells us not to be idolators.

2. Do not commit sexual immorality. That means having sex outside of marriage.

3. Do not test the Lord. What does that mean? It means when we go into tough seasons with no regard of God’s faithfulness and deliverance before. We test God when we go into a difficult moment with no recollection or memory of what He did before to help us. This is an affront to God.

4. Do not grumble. No complaining.

Then Paul reminds us again in verse 11: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us” (NIV). He starts in verse 6 with the words, these things happened as examples, and bookends the passage with those same words in verse 11. Paul is saying that we need to pay attention to these markers, reminders, reflective materials for us to live in the future. The challenge is for us to read them that way.

Paul ends with this exhortation: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Keeping all the past in mind, here is how we get out of the difficult present: endure and exit. It’s two ways through hell. There’s always an exit for us and there’s always strength too. Satan’s job in those times is to blind our eyes and create a narrative like this . . . “No one has ever gone through this. You’re the only one, so God must hate you” or “This is so intense, there’s no way out and this will finally crush you.” Neither is true.

It will never be too much to handle. No one can say, “There’s no way to overcome this.”

God is faithful to provide the way. He will offer us escape or endurance.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that Satan blinds eyes. In temptation, in the casino, in the arms of a lover, at a website, around a bottle, he blinds people so they don’t see their family, our future, and God Himself. And Paul says that those people in the desert went blind and forgot that God provided a way out and strength to make it through.

Paul connects three important words with every trial and temptation. Don’t miss them.

God is faithful.

Theologian Wayne Grudem explains about God’s faithfulness: “God’s faithfulness means that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he has promised.”

Whenever I think about God’s faithfulness, my mind goes back to this hymn I sang so many times growing up in the church:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not

As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Day 142

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 9

George Washington Carver once said, “When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you’ll command the attention of the world.” The apostle Paul lived for God in an uncommon way. He commanded the attention of the world with how he lived for Christ. He made the Christian life a pursuit of doing it the best he could:

You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally. I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

(1 Corinthians 9:24-27, MSG)

We live in a sports infested society, just as they did in the first century. Paul speaks sports to get our attention and he gets it. The image Paul uses is of the Greek games. The Greeks dated their calendars based on those games. The Jews dated their calendars by what they thought the creation date was. The Romans dated theirs by when they thought Rome was founded. And we date ours by the life of Christ.

Because sports were important to the Greeks, those calendars were based on their sports games. And so to get our attention and to help us better grasp about the Christian life, he uses a sports image.

I want my goal to be what Paul is speaking about, which is not just to get to heaven but to win on the way there. In order to help us do that, he chooses two sports that are the most grueling in their training: boxing and running. They both require treacherous workouts in order to be good and to compete. And they both require even more sacrifice to win. To win at Christianity Paul puts everything on the table. He says that Christ and that relationship is worth giving up anything else. Everything else is a distant second.

Look at what Paul puts on the table in the preceding verses: he would give up certain eating habits (verse 4), getting married (verse 5), and even a salary (verse 6-7). Think about it. To be a world-class athlete, they are also willing to give up certain foods, committed relationships, and even a career to pursue their passion. So was Paul—but for a greater reason than sports. The end he is reaching toward is eternal. He says:

You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally. (1 Corinthians 9:24-25, MSG)

The power and strength of anything is determined by what we are willing to sacrifice for it.

Is it worth giving things up for?

Is it worth dying for?

Only fanatics make a difference. Those who follow the status quo won’t even make a dent. Baptist preacher Harry A. Ironside said: “No sacrifice should be too great for Him who gave Himself for us.”

Notice how many times Paul says “that I may win” in verses 19-24:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. (1 Corinthians 9:19-24)

Six times in six verses. Winning was on his mind. And you can’t win unless you sacrifice. He was in it to win it!

When it’s all said and done, in five years, even in one year, no one is going to care who won the NBA finals, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, the World series, or the NCAA men’s basketball final four. Those athletes hold up their trophies that no one will care about even the following week. That winning has an expiration date. Ours doesn’t.

Jim Elliot was a missionary in the 1960s who not only knew that concept but lived it. Jim put these words in his journal: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Later, he wrote, “‘We are the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” And what are sheep doing going into into the gate? What is their purpose inside those courts? . . . Those sheep were headed for the [sacrificial] altar.” He gave up his life trying to reach a group of South American Indians with the gospel, and they eventually killed him. He sacrificed. He was in it to win it.

Don’t just be a Christian. Don’t just do Christian. Win. Give it all.

Day 141

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 8

People see Christian maturity as I don’t mess up a lot like I used to. I see it differently. Maturity is when you see others before you see yourself. That’s what 1 Corinthians 8 is about. It’s an encouragement to live the Christian life wider and bigger. And by that, Paul means that our decisions and lives are to help others grow. How I parent, how I treat my wife, what I do with my free time, what I listen to, and what I watch is not just about me, but it’s to be an example to others. As A. W. Tozer said, “There are rare Christians whose very presence incites others to be better Christians. I want to be that rare Christian.”

At our church we have four services every Sunday, each with the same message. One of our elders had a conversation with me one Sunday when I wasn’t preaching but was at each service since I was participating. His words both encouraged and inspired me. At our 5 p.m. service, he said to me, “I can’t believe the way you listened to that sermon. Wasn’t this the fourth time you heard it today?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You looked like you never heard it before,” he said. “You sat on the edge of your seat and took notes as if this were the first time you ever heard that sermon.”

What I learned from that interaction: (1) people are watching our lives; (2) we can inspire others unknowingly by our decisions.

I chose to take notes.

I chose to be excited four times.

I chose to sit on the edge of my seat and put myself in the posture of a learner.

I just forgot that it could be an example for someone else.

I realized that a good example is more powerful than a good sermon.

In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul is showing this same principle but from a different standpoint—but still with the power of influencing others. He speaks about the freedom that Christians have, though we must be careful if our freedom trips up someone newer and weaker in the faith. The challenge Paul gives us is that it isn’t for them to step it up; it’s for me to take a step back and a step down for their benefit.” Here’s what he says:

Christ gave up his life for that person. Wouldn’t you at least be willing to give up going to dinner for him—because, as you say, it doesn’t really make any difference? But it does make a difference if you hurt your friend terribly, risking his eternal ruin! When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ. A free meal here and there isn’t worth it at the cost of even one of these “weak ones.” So, never go to these idol-tainted meals if there’s any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.

(1 Corinthians 8:11-13, MSG)

We must care for their growth by adjusting ourselves for their sakes. If a nice hotel that we stay at has a casino and if that trips up anyone who has stumbled with gambling, then guess what? We don’t stay there. For their sake. This could be with the music we listen to or a movie with a certain rating we watch. If it affects a weaker or younger Christian, we stop—for their sake.

Why? Because maturity in the Christian life is putting others first. It’s living a life that is not just about ourselves but about seeing and being concerned for others.

Young Christians are called children in the Bible. James Baldwin said something profound about elders and children that can apply to parenting and even in the church: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” Paul is preaching that example in 1 Corinthians 8. He wants us to realize that it’s others before ourselves, which is a sign of maturity.

I remember as a teenager in church someone telling me, “Tim, do you know what joy stands for? Jesus first, others second, you last.”

That still holds true today. If you want joy . . . put others before yourself.

Day 140

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 7

The second most-important decision we can make is deciding with whom we want to spend the rest of our lives in marriage. The first is with whom we want to spend eternity. Because these decisions are important, God guides us through His Word to help us.

Good news. If you’re single, today’s chapter is especially for you. What makes this chapter so important is that it doesn’t tell us what kind of person to look for, but what kind of person we are to be while we wait. God takes this season of waiting seriously and wants you to do that too. And He knows we have questions during this season:

Will I be alone forever?

I am so lonely, is there something wrong with me?

Why does everyone else seem to have someone and I don’t?

What’s crazy is that the early church had questions on the same topics. Paul provides answers here in 1 Corinthians 7. Look at these words in verse 1: “Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me” (MSG).

Because of that verse we know chapter 7 will provide answers to their questions. I find it hilarious that their first question is the sex question: “First,” Paul continues in verse 1 (MSG), “Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?”

Paul’s answer comes in verse 2: “Certainly—but only within a certain context” (MSG).

Here is a huge point for us to be clear on, especially in today’s culture: sex has a context. Listen closely to the rest of verse 2: “It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder” (MSG).

Lust is often compared to fire. In the New Testament the apostle Paul encourages men to get married if they’re burning with lust or desire. The fire analogy is throughout the Bible.

Fire is incredibly powerful, not to mention fun and useful. The problem is, it’s also difficult to contain and enormously destructive if it isn’t kept where it belongs. Sex is like that. Wonderful and powerful, but it will destroy everything in its path if it’s used out of place.

Fire in a fireplace? Awesome! Fire in your garage? Big problem! This context is God’s design. God designed sex to be expressed in the correct context. That context is within the covenant of marriage. You can choose to express yourself outside of those parameters and covenant, but you can’t choose the outcome and the consequences when you do.

Here is Paul’s sex-out-of-context verse: “This is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Let me be clear: sexual immorality is having sex with someone you have not married. If you are doing that right now, if you are living with them right now, it is not God’s will. It is immorality. It is sin.

“I love them” does not change the parameters of what the Bible says. Marry them then, because you love what Jesus says more. If you love that person, sex is not the next step, marriage is.

Every couple I meet with for premarital counseling, I always ask this one question, “Have you had sex?” Why? Premarital sex sabotages the relationship. This is going to get people mad but it needs to be said very clearly. This shows whether they love them or not: the chapter that defines real Bible love is 1 Corinthians 13, and the first characteristic of love is patience.

Why is this important? Listen to what Paul said in the chapter from yesterday’s reading:

Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body. (1 Corinthians 6:17-20, msg)

Sex is not just physical, it’s connected to the soul. It cuts deep and it scars the soul. Sexual sin is not unforgivable, but it can make life unbearable. Sex is like glue. You shouldn’t apply it until you’re absolutely sure you’re ready to stick two things together permanently. Apply it too soon, and you’ll have a mess and you will realize too late the mistake you made.

This is difficult, I know. But in the midst of that we need to remember that singleness is a gift, not a curse. The gift of singleness is that you get time and less distractions to focus on becoming a better you. You can become the person God wants you to be so you can be ready for the second most-important relationship you will ever have.

Couples generally don’t have relationship problems. They have problems they bring to the relationship. The better you that you bring, the fewer problems you bring with you:

When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the master without a lot of distractions. (1 Corinthians 7:32-35, MSG)

You have to deal with the right questions. When you look in the Bible for “how do I find the right person?” It isn’t there. But once you ask, “How do I become the right person?” The Bible comes alive. If you are as intentional about becoming the right person as you are about meeting the right person, you will position yourself to bypass a boatload of unnecessary pain, regret, and wasted time. Spend your energy becoming the right person, not looking for the right person.

Day 139

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 6

Columbia researcher Sheena Iyengar has found that the average person makes about 70 decisions every day. That’s 25,500 decisions a year. Over 70 years, that’s 1,788,500 decisions. The twentieth-century philosopher, Albert Camus once said, “Life is a sum of all your choices.” You put all of those 1,788,500 choices together, and that’s who you are. As Stephen Covey said: “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”

Job opportunity

Ministry position

Dating

Marriage

Investments

One person insightfully said: “Many people today want filet mignon results but make hot dog decisions. It doesn’t work that way!” I want to help you with your filet-mignon results and give you filet-mignon decision-making skills from the apostle Paul. In fact if we take one verse in 1 Corinthians 6 and add one more verse from 1 Corinthians 10, I think we can take from Paul a good decision-making grid for our daily lives. In these two verses, Paul gives us three questions you and I are to impose on our choices each day. And they all start with “all things are lawful”:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

(1 Corinthians 6:12)

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. (1 Corinthians 10:23)

Another way to say “all things are lawful” is to follow how The Message describes it: “Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate” (1 Corinthians 6:12). What Paul is saying to us is just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

These are not things that “send you to hell” but they can be things that cause hell in your life if you aren’t careful.

Scrutinize your decisions with these Pauline questions. Impose questions on things that will take up your most precious resource—time.

First question: All things are lawful, but is this thing profitable?

That word, profitable, meant a traveling companion. Does it travel well with my travel partner Jesus? Can Jesus and this new decision go well together? Or will there be tension in the house?

Second question: All things are lawful, but will it control me?

One version of this verse says: “Even if I am allowed to do them, I’ll refuse to if I think they might get such a grip on me that I can’t easily stop when I want to” (TLB).

One test of being controlled or mastered by something: Do you get angry when people ask you to stop? Or when people challenge you on it?

This can be a great question to impose on anything as simple as . . .

Social media

Video games

Sports activities

Fantasy football to watching football every Saturday

Old friends and relationships

The list goes on. All these things are lawful, but is this thing profitable? Will it control me and master me—or get a “grip on me that I can’t easily stop when I want to”?

The third question to ask is from 1 Corinthians 10:23: All things are lawful, but will it edify others?

Say this with me, “It’s not all about me.” The word edify is from the word edifice. It’s a building word. It’s about helping people build their lives. If you say, “I don’t care what other people think about what I say or do,” you’re clinging to a belief that is unbiblical. You and I have to care, because we are responsible for their growth. We don’t live by people’s opinions but we do live to help them grow.

One Christmas someone became upset because I put a Christmas tree up in the church and they thought it was a druid idol. So I took it down. I am not going to fight over a Christmas tree, but I will fight over the truth of the Bible. I will yield on preference but not on biblical conviction.

Let’s sum up the decision grid Paul gives us: All things are lawful, but . . . can Jesus hang out with this choice? Is something hanging on that won’t let go? Am I hanging someone up by my choices?

The great Russian author Dostoyevski reminds us why these three questions are important for us: “The second half of a man’s life is made up of the habits he acquired during the first half.”

Let’s get some good first-half habits.