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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer for the Morning

Blessed are you, Lord God of my salvation, to you be praise and glory forever. As once you ransomed your people from Egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land, so now you have delivered me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of your risen Son.

May I, the fruit of your new creation, rejoice in this new day you have made, and praise you for your mighty acts. Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Prayer for Protections (from Psalm 3)

O  Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cry aloud to you, and you answer me from your holy hill. I lie down and sleep, and I wake again, for you have sustained me. I will not fear the men of this world, even if thousands set themselves against me.

Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For salvation belongs to you alone. May your blessing be ever on your people.

Meditation

[Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God.]

Benediction

Lord, support me all the day long of this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over and my work is done. Then of Thy mercy, grant me a safe lodging, and a holy rest and a peace at last through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Resurrection of Christ by Piero della Francesca, c. 1463. Christ is depicted as victorious, a scruffy bleeding King with a crown of thorns. Click the photo to see it full-sized.

1 Corinthians 2:6-11 (ESV)

Wisdom from the Spirit

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Notes on the Scripture

1 Corinthians is one of the most powerful and beautiful books in the Bible, and we begin to see a change, as the style of writing becomes richer. The previous section is corrective; Paul needed to chide people who were forming into sects, following different leaders, and arguing about minutiae of theology, instead of concentrating their energy on Christ. And so the prose has been straightforward and argumentative.

Here, however, Paul can stop arguing and write what he wants; putting aside the lecture, he can become more eloquent about the mysteries of his faith.

In the preceding verses, in order to stop the debating, Paul decried wisdom as a means of knowing God, for this was the habit of the Greeks and was causing much of the segmentation in the Corinthian church. Remember, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.”

Now, though, he speaks of wisdom that does help us in our faith, “the secret and hidden wisdom of God”. Paul really needed two words, but ancient Greek did not have them, and so he has to speak of two different types of knowledge using the same word, “wisdom.”

e describes the Holy Spirit as an intermediary, a sort of translator, for although the Spirit is of God and can understand God, human beings cannot. What God has prepared for those who love him, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined.” (There is no cite for this. It is not really a quote, or at least not a quote of something still in existence, but a reinterpretation by Paul of Isaiah 64:4.)

But our spiritual side can know these truths, for the Holy Spirit will interpret them to us.

Finally, Paul tells us that his words are not the product of human wisdom but are taught by the Spirit, to impart spiritual truths to those who can understand with their spirit. He demolishes an oft-encountered notion that the Bible is a book written, even fabricated by a bunch of men, a notion used as a preparatory wedge for anyone who wants to dismiss or discount part of the Bible.

This idea is part and parcel of the “Greek folly”; the slippery logic of the human mind can never know God. Unless we accept the Scripture as a spiritual truth given to us by God, we can never know Him, for the God our minds would create is not the God who exists.

Daily Inspiration

“Every Day is a New Day”

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