2 Corinthians 4:7-12 (Pressed, Not Crushed)

⁷ We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. ¹² So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

 ⁷ We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.   And so for some unimaginable reason that I will never understand, but which slowly seems like an incredible plan, God has chosen to put His light in us--we are some of the main instruments through which He has decided to whisper His love to the world (that is, when we show love to the world on His behalf).  But He shouts through our troubles.  We hold this treasure, but we ourselves are nothing to look at or to toot about, and so the idea that we hold a treasure would seem preposterous!  That is, until a Believer comes upon some trouble.  Anyone can praise Jesus in the good times, but we are most bright to the world when we are praising Jesus in the not-so-good times.  That is how the world looks past our tiny selves and sees Jesus.

⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.   Every person on earth falls into hard times, but one of the main differences God intends the world to see is how we respond to difficulty.  I know a woman who lost her husband and her 17-year-old daughter within 6 months of each other.  Just when she thought life was really starting to get great, she lost the two people most precious to her along with all the dreams she had for that future.  She grieved, oh how she grieved!  Please hear me say that Christians aren't stronger if they don't grieve or if they don't cry, no!  Tears and grief are as natural as eating three square meals.  But when the dust settled a bit, this woman chose to dig her heels in and keep trusting her God anyway.  Was she pressed on every side?  Every!  The financial, the emotional, the spiritual...the pressure got strong!  But she was not crushed, because she held onto a glimmer of hope that God was going to do something.  Then she was perplexed -- she didn't understand why God allowed this to happen.  But she didn't focus on the 'why' which would lead to despair.  Instead, she focused on the promises in Scripture.  And you know what, I think that is the hardest thing to do sometimes.  When I have felt myself spiraling into despair, why is it that the last thing I want to do is sit down and open the Bible?  It's not physically hard to sit down and open a leather-bound book, but in those moments, it seems that sitting down and opening a book is the last thing I want to do -- I'd rather stay up and moving and going and doing -- not sitting down and being quiet before the Lord.  And so digging our heels in doesn't always mean just going and doing even MORE.  Sometimes, the hardest, toughest, strongest thing to do is to trust God enough to open the pages of His Word.  And when we do...we will find that we have been knocked down pretty hard, we are bruised and bloody, but we are not destroyed.  No, we are not destroyed.

¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. ¹² So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.  Would you live differently if you knew you'd never leave this earth one day?  Yes, we do continue to live in Heaven, but what about this Earth?  Though we never cease to exist when we die, we will leave this world one day, and so we do "live under constant danger of death."  But as we all are one day closer to dying and leaving this earth, the hope is that "the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies."  There is something about knowing you're dying that causes one to live a different way -- Tim McGraw sang a whole song about wanting to "Live Like You Were Dying."  But we all are dying!  Whether our current trial is a terminal disease or a financial difficulty, we are all preparing to leave this world sooner than we'd like, and I want the life of Jesus to be evident in my dying body.  That is how the world will come to know Him.

"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
--Jesus

2 Corinthians 4:1-7 (Light from Darkness)

4 Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ² Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.  Do you believe you have a ministry?  No, like me, you may not be Paul or Peter and you may not be a missionary living in Asia, but you do have a ministry -- you know that, right?  Your ministry may be living as the light in your dark workplace, or it may be living as the light within your areas of service within the church, or it may be living as the light in your home as you change diapers, fold laundry, and make meals while little ones run around your feet.  Whatever or wherever you are, you have a ministry!  You are shining the light of Christ to whomever you are around (even when you're just relaxing with your best friend)!  And so with this ministry, we do not lose heart because God, in His mercy, supplies the strength necessary to persevere, even in the face of hardship and persecution and exhaustion.

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.  We must always remember that in whatever we're doing, God is there.  At work, God is right there.  At home, God is right there.  In the car on the way home from work, God is there.  At the grocery store, God is there.  And He sees what we do and hears what we say.  And so in the presence of God and of anyone else I may be with, I so desire to speak the Truth about Christ and His love for us at appropriate times.  I don't want to trick anyone into coming to church with me or even into reading this blog!  No, deception is never the way to love others.  Always, always tell the truth...simply and plainly.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  Yes, the truth of Christ is hidden from people, and the ones who don't know Him are dying!  The god of this age is satan, and he is the one who has blinded the minds of unbelievers, leading them to only have eyes for the things of this world.  The Word is numb to them, and they do not "get" Jesus.  And we absolutely need to remember that people around us are perishing, so what Jesus is about to say is crucial, but it also doesn't need to over-whelm us.

 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.  And that is our mission: to be the light that shines in the darkness.  If we are doing that, we have succeeded, whether people choose to accept Christ as their personal Savior or not.  We are not the cure-giver, only the care-giver to the people in our lives...Jesus is the one with the cure.  I like how The Message puts these last two verses:  
Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.
Do you see the command?  Jesus, said, "Okay (your name), I have filled you up and continue to light you up as you grow in Me, now run on out there and light up this dark world as my Spirit oozes out of you wherever you go!"  
 ...And one other thing that I'm just noticing -- Jesus says, "Let light shine OUT of darkness."  Physics might tell us that light cannot shine out of darkness, since darkness is the absence of light.  But that's where we remember that our God MADE physics and science, and He is commanding it to happen -- but how?  This is one of the most powerful and wonderful parts of knowing Christ for me: that He does take our darkness -- our grief, our loss, our despair, our hurts -- and He can make light come from those experiences.  A lot of light has come out of the deep darkness of losing my mom and our first baby (see entries from August).  I have grown so much and in so many ways, and I can take those experiences and help draw others closer to Christ when they are in pain, and more than anything, I've learned to trust God like never before!  Now THAT is some light coming from darkness.

God takes our darkness and draws light from it.  God takes us into a dark world and allows us to shine light into it.  It is a great calling to get the be the light in the dark, and just the tiniest light can invade an entire dark room!  (For more on that, read "Candle" from last February...I learned a lot that day.)

And so, my dear friends, you are that light today.  You're not curing anyone, but you are just letting your light shine in whatever darkness you may encounter today.  A little Light goes a long way, and our Lord will supply you with what you need.  

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." Now those are some powerful words coming out of the mouth of 3-year-olds...and may we choose to sing that song today as well...
 

2 Corinthians 3:7-18 (Lifted Veil)

In the past year, the Lord has really given me a heart for Jewish people.  It is clear through ALL of Scripture, even the New Testament, just how much He loves these people and has made them such a huge part of His larger plan...and I wanted to know more about these dear people.

One thing I've learned is that as we look back through all the names of people groups in the Old Testament, names like the Moabites, the Cushites, the Maacathites, and countless other people groups, these names no longer exist in our current day cultures because they have been overtaken by other groups who then overtook those groups, etc.  But the Jews, the Israelites, the tiny little people group out of tiny little Israel made it all these thousands of years...how is that?  It's because they are God's people.  He has guarded them.

In this quest to learn more, I've been enthralled to read about the Old Covenant God made with His people (the 613 laws) verses the New Covenant in Jesus which is not about earning your salvation by following laws, but rather is a gift offered to us through Christ from God that we don't deserve nor do we have to do anything to receive it other than to accept it and claim Christ.

So here we are in 2 Corinthians, and today's passage is all about the Old and New Covenants!  Remember that verse 6 on Monday reminded us that the old way of following the laws brought death (because no one could possibly keep all 613 laws perfectly), but the new way gives us a way to pay for our sin and lack of law-keeping: Jesus.  And once we accept Him, we have His Holy Spirit at work within us (a very powerful, incredible gift that the Jews and other non-believers do not yet possess).

⁷ Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, ⁸ will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? ⁹ If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!  ¹⁰ For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. ¹¹ And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!    
 So, remember that Moses' laws were carved on tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai. And when Moses came down from the mountain, after being in the presence of God, his face was so bright that he had to put a veil over it because people could not look at him!  (And to think that is just the by-product of being in the presence of The Holy One!  Wow!)  But then it says, "transitory though it was..."  This means that the brightness would not last forever, and Moses kept his face covered to prevent people from seeing to glory/brightness fade away over time.  And so when we read about Moses' face when he came down with the laws, we know that even the Old Testament law, which was written by God, did have some glory (glory = beauty, distinction, magnificence) that came with it.  But it would not and could not last forever, because we cannot keep those laws.  We are human, and we were condemned from the beginning with that law.  BUT...if even the laws brought some glory (in that although it condemned us, it pointed us to our need for a Savior), then how much more glorious is God's plan which gives us life through the Holy Spirit?!  In the new covenant, the law and the promises are fulfilled.  Christ has come and by faith, we may be made right with God!  

I love to know that the old law had a purpose, don't you?  God wasn't just wasting time or messing with us...He was laying the foundation for something so magnificent, it would blow our minds!

¹² Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.
It's because of this great hope, we can be very bold.  Yes!  We know that what is here now is here to stay, and we don't need to cover our faces or hide from anyone.  This is it!  This is the pinnacle -- Christ has come, and we are freed...forever! 

 ¹⁴ But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. ¹⁵ Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. ¹⁶ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.   This is the part that makes me so sad.  He's talking about the Jews!  They are still veiled, and they do not yet see what God has done for them in fulfilling the law and the prophets through Jesus Christ.  Christ is the only one who can lift the veil and bring understanding to our hearts, and whenever anyone turns to Jesus, the veil is taken away.  Have you heard people talk about feeling different when they have decided to follow Christ?  Or perhaps they understand the Bible now, when before the words seemed so foreign before?  I am praying, praying, praying for my Jewish friends (and not surprisingly, God has given me MANY more in the past couple years).  Oh, how I wish they and the rest of the world would turn to Christ!

 ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  No more bondage to laws and to our past here!  When the Holy Spirit resides in us once we accept Christ, we experience a freedom like we've never known before.  The new covenant is one of grace, forgiveness, hope, and love.  There is a lightening of step and a joy in our hearts!  Being ruled by shame and guilt is an experience only in the past once we experience the transforming power of Jesus Christ.  

¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.   Look at the picture here: rather than being bright but growing dimmer, this tells us we are  "being transformed"...like right this moment and all the moments in the future, it's continual... with an "ever-increasing glory."  We just keep getting brighter and brighter as we are constantly being made more like Christ each day!  We don't veil our faces, but we reflect the Lord and His glory to the watching world.  As we pray and study His Word, we are transformed by His Spirit.  And we don't do it for ourselves, because we are not the ones with the power.  No, God does that for us and in us.

Oh, Lord.  I am just overcome this morning! Thank you for this great plan You have been working since the beginning of time.  And thank you for letting us see just a glimpse of what You are doing with humanity!  My words fall short, but I am just so overcome by how much You know, how much You love us, that You could possibly desire a relationship with us, and that You are even willing to do work in our lives that helps us grow.  Who am I, Lord, that You would love me?  I am speechless, but I am so grateful.  I love you.  God, help me to shine Your glory to the world, especially to my dear friends who don't know You.  How my heart aches for them and that they don't know this incredible love and forgiveness You have for them.  May I be a reflection of You. Thank you for lifting my veil.

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 (Confidence)

⁴ We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. ⁵ It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. ⁶ He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.

Self-esteem.  Self-confidence.  These are two words that get thrown around a lot in our culture.  And for the non-Believer, they are as good as we can get -- feeling good about ourselves because of ourselves and who we are -- but that's a lie.  We are nothing in and of ourselves.  That's where our society has gone wrong, just like many societies before us.  We begin to see ourselves as god-like, having the ability to change ourselves, having value because of how great we are, and being the main instrument for change in the world.  But for the Believer, there is something given to us that is so much deeper, longer-lasting, and of intensely greater worth: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As the verses above remind us, our confidence comes from God through Christ.  We know that we are not qualified to do anything on our own, but yet God, in His infinite love for these beings He created, gave us a way to be connected to Him, to escape death, to live a purposeful and fulfilling life on this earth by living the exciting way God intends, and to help others do the same.  The God of the Universe gave that ability to us.  It is because of absolutely nothing that we've done for ourselves.  It's all because of Him.

Now, naturally, you'd think that when you really begin to see yourself for who we really are: value-less, sinful, selfish people whose hearts are deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), you begin to feel pretty low...not confident, not of worth at all, and it doesn't feel very good, so people don't like to go there.  But, my dear friends, we cannot understand what we gain until we know how much we don't have!  As the above verses say, the Law (all those rules) remind us how far we are from perfect...just look at the Ten Commandments, let alone all 613 laws in the OT!  As hard as we try, we will never be perfect or justified by ourselves...


But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.  Jeremiah 10:12

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Psalm 73:26

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8

You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.  Acts 3:15

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  1 Cor. 12:24-25


But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us...  2 Cor. 7:6

 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.  Hebrews 3:4

They (our parents) disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.  Hebrews 12:10

...Yes, we were nothing. But God...But God chose to teach us, to get involved with us, to save us from our own sin, to teach us how to love best, to give us strength when we are weak, to give us a Church where we can show the world what it looks like to live according to God's design, to die for us.  It is only because of God that we have any worth, any direction, any hope for today and tomorrow.

He is the reason I have confidence...and it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him.

2 Corinthians 3:1-3 (Written on My Heart)

Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! ² The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. ³ Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.

Paul is once again trying to convince his fellow Christians of his authority given by Christ.  False teachers had begun carrying "letters of authority" (many of them forged) to authenticate their authority as teachers of the law.  But Paul is saying that he needs no such letter, because the proof that God was working in and through him and those around him were their very lives -- their CHANGED lives.

Think about the ways both big and small that you have changed since knowing Christ.  No, REALLY think about how you have changed.  What kind of person were you 1 year ago? 5? 10?  We do not become believers and better Christ-follwers by reading some man-written manual on how to become better people.  No human being can take credit for this conversion!  Our conversion is the result of God placing His Spirit within us, which gives us the power to understand His Word (the Bible) and then live in a new way for Him.  How incredible that is!?  Do we really think about this?  It's like we all have that super-power we've always wanted to have.  We have a power in us that is way beyond ourselves -- the power to be less like our human nature and more like the God of the Universe (though we are still incredibly far from being exactly like Him).

I really love this thought that God's letter to us is written on our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  How personal, how intimate.  It could have been that God would scribe some words on large stone tablets and place one in each church -- that would still be pretty intimate if He made one for each church in the world!  But He goes way beyond that and says, No, I want a personal, one-on-one relationship with you.  I want my Word and ways to be in the deepest part of you where no one can touch it but you and I, where the center of your emotions, your longings, your desires, and your decisions reside.  I want to write My Spirit into your heart.

What an incredible gift.  What an incredible love.  What an incredible opportunity I have to listen to this new Spirit inside me and be lead in unimaginable ways today.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (Hobby Lobby and Other Aromas)

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. ¹⁵ For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. ¹⁶ To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? ¹⁷ Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

What are some of your favorite smells?  Yes, yes....we all love the smell of baking bread, chocolate chip cookies, and flowers.  But are there some smells that you love that others find interesting?  For instance, I absolutely love the smell of certain stores: Lowes, Blockbuster (which is slowly disappearing), Hobby Lobby, and our public library here in town to name a few.  

This summer, I took the kids I nanny for to the library one day, and as we approached the door, I warned them that they were about to smell one of the greatest smells they had ever smelt.  We walked in and all took a big whiff which left a smile on my face and a confused look on theirs.  I had to explain that it was a mixture between "new building smell, a chlorinated swimming pool, and muffins"...as we continued walking, they started to agree with me.  Who knows what they really think of the smell of the library (or of me for that matter), but the next week, they couldn't wait to go smell the library with me!

Aromas are funny aren't they?  We all have different preferences, and you can begin to like aromas that you didn't like before, but I wonder if it has more to do with association than the actual smell (for instance, associating that the smell reminds you of your incredibly fun and funny nanny...).  Just kidding...well, kind of.

And so we are used by God to spread the aroma of Christ.  It's quite obvious just by looking at the news or Facebook that we, Christians, have a pleasant aroma to some and an aroma of death to others.  You know that smell, right?  The aroma of death....dead animals, dead food in the trash can, dead plants that have stayed in the vase a little too long.  Never is "death" a pleasant smell.  

This is quite a large task He has given us, spreading the aroma of Christ, which some will love and others will hate!  But we are His hands and feet on this earth until He returns, and much of what people think about Christ is reflective upon what they see in us.  And based on what they see in our lives, they may begin to like the aroma of God in a way they have never experienced before.

Now, lest I talk all of us into acting like my natural position of "people pleasing," this doesn't mean that everyone will like us!  Look at verse 17, and see we are to speak of God sincerely, truthfully.  Or as the NLT puts it, "You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ’s authority, knowing that God is watching us."  And when we speak of God, our relationship with Him, and what Christ did for us, some people will not be happy about it.  That fact is plain as day based on what we read.  We must know that people will not agree or like what we say...perhaps because saying that Jesus is the only way seems "narrow-minded".  They won't like that.  

But others will have their eyes opened by God.  Others will see our lives and our message and suddenly "get it."  The aroma that once smelled like death to them, will begin to smell like life and beauty and peace and love.  You can begin to like aromas that you didn't like before.

So what kind of a smell are you today?  Cookies?  Rotting flowers?  Hobby Lobby?  Not everyone will think you "smell good,"  but don't change the aroma itself to make it smell better as those do "who peddle the Word of God for profit;" instead, remain steadfast, prayerful, and servant-minded.  And let those who will, see Jesus in you.

Whether they come around to "liking" the aroma or not doesn't matter, because the aroma of Christ on this Earth ALWAYS pleases the Lord.

2 Corinthians 1:23-2:11 (The Dirty Church)

²³ Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn’t return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke. ²⁴ But that does not mean we want to dominate you by telling you how to put your faith into practice. We want to work together with you so you will be full of joy, for it is by your own faith that you stand firm.

2 So I decided that I would not bring you grief with another painful visit. ² For if I cause you grief, who will make me glad? Certainly not someone I have grieved. ³ That is why I wrote to you as I did, so that when I do come, I won’t be grieved by the very ones who ought to give me the greatest joy. Surely you all know that my joy comes from your being joyful. ⁴ I wrote that letter in great anguish, with a troubled heart and many tears. I didn’t want to grieve you, but I wanted to let you know how much love I have for you.

⁵ I am not overstating it when I say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me. ⁶ Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough. ⁷ Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. ⁸ So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him.

⁹ I wrote to you as I did to test you and see if you would fully comply with my instructions. ¹⁰ When you forgive this man, I forgive him, too. And when I forgive whatever needs to be forgiven, I do so with Christ’s authority for your benefit, ¹¹ so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes.

Christians are not perfect.  We know it, and the world sure knows it.  The Outsiders expect to enter a church and find a bunch of people who are put together perfectly, prim and proper, and holy.  And sometimes we are.  But more often than not, we too, are a mixed bag of emotions, experiences, relationships, preferences, and personalities -- as different as the spices in our spice racks -- that when used together in the right way, make something delicious, so delicious that the world wants a piece of it.
...but that's on our good days.

The further I get into this book, the more mess I see with the Corinthian church.  Paul, the leader, is showing us a lot about how to lead some unruly folks, who at one time followed Him with great gusto, but seem to be a little distracted right now...hmm, I wonder if these methods work on squirrely fifth-graders, too? 

Feelings have been hurt...guidance has been given...grief and pain abound in this book so far...accusations of falsehood are being tossed around.  Yet, Paul has not given up.  In fact, he continues to be loving and direct.  I love verse 4, "I wrote that letter in great anguish, with a troubled heart and many tears. I didn’t want to grieve you, but I wanted to let you know how much love I have for you."  What?  Paul has cried about this?  Apparently a lot.

Have you ever cried over something that's happened in your church?  I have.  I grew up in the church where I currently attend, and I absolutely LOVE my church.  But I love it more now than I did as a child because I see the imperfections -- I can look at us as we really are, imperfect people so desperately trying to love and serve our perfect God.  I've been so disheartened by some of our choices one moment, and then so proud of us the next.  I've lost sleep over different situations in my church.  I've had conversations with people that left me so broken and sad.  So, if the church is a mess of people, too, why even go?

Well, here is what I have come to learn about why The Church really is different than the world: because of God's wisdom and guidance for us in the Bible, we are shown how to deal with the hard stuff.  It doesn't mean life is any easier for us or there is any less hard stuff (just yesterday I talked with someone who had just lost a family member, another person who is waiting for a diagnosis today and it doesn't look good, and yet another who is dealing with some major life changes that are over-whelming at times), so no, life is not easier, per say.  But we are given the knowledge and then the opportunity to choose a different perspective, to choose forgiveness, to choose to love.

I absolutely love my church.  I want the best for my church, and I want us to be the best representatives for Jesus Christ that we can be.  And sometimes, that means direct and loving conversations.  No one has ever had one of those with me at work, or in the grocery store line, or at school when I was a student.  But they have come to me from the people in The Church, who also don't want us to stay the way we are -- they want me to be better, too.

So, no, we're not perfect in the Church.  But, I think those of us who really love Jesus and desire to serve Him sure want to be better.  We want to grow.  We want to put ourselves aside and put Jesus and others first.  We want to be united with each other, not torn apart by conflict.  We want to be loving to everyone, not judgmental because of our own prejudices and self-righteousness. We don't do it perfectly, but we really do try with Christ's help.  And when you have a bunch of sinful people with that attitude, it is one of the most beautiful creations I have ever seen.  THAT is The Church.

And here is why we keep going, even in our messy moments, Church: "so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes" (verse 11).  The Evil One knows that we are a powerful unit when we are working together, and he will do whatever he can to divide us, to distract us, to make us focus on the small stuff...and he's been using the same tactics for millennia!  Why does he spend so much time working against The Church?  Because we are the spark that could start the forest fire, so he continually tries to snuff us out in whatever ways he can...usually the really dumb stuff.  So we don't let him -- we continue to work through conflicts, continue to serve others instead of ourselves, continue to look to Christ for wisdom and direction, and continue to work together for the sake of eternity.

...so, I'm not giving up on these Corinthians yet.  Satan is currently using false teachers, lies, and accusation to misdirect them.  But perhaps, hopefully, they are experiencing a season where they will look back one day and be able to admit: I was wrong.  I was immature.  I was selfish.  I know I have 20,000 examples of retrospective moments like that in my life, thanks to the direct and loving conversations others have been willing to have with me.

And so we are being renewed day by day...cleaned and re-cleaned, pruned and primed as we grow closer to Him.  The world knows we're not perfect, but my prayer is that they would also see that though we are dirty, we know The Way to be cleaned.