Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Thursday after the Seventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: 1 Corinthians 9:1-23 (NKJV)

1 Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 2 If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 3 My defense to those who examine me is this: 4 Do we have no right to eat and drink? 5 Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? 8 Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it oxen God is concerned about? 10 Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.

11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? 12 If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. 13 Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar? 14 Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. 15 But I have used none of these things, nor have I written these things that it should be done so to me; for it would be better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting void. 16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.

18 What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel. 19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; 20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.

Devotion

Living daily with our sinful flesh, it is easy to become desensitized to hell. Part of the fallout of that affliction is that we neglect the urgency of witnessing. Some of us spend a good bit of time sitting on our hands and closing our mouths, waiting for our neighbors to say to us: “Could I go to church with you?”

Now, this shame may make you slink down in your seat. It may even motivate you to try a little harder in your outreach. But shame and fear do not last very long. Pretty soon the scare tactic wears off. Even God’s thunder and lightning at Mt Sinai did not hinder some of the Israelites from making golden calves. There has to be a greater motivation and a more lasting compulsion for us to tell others about Christ.

So what is that “something?” Let us look at St. Paul. He was compelled by the Gospel—that Christ died and rose from the dead for the sins of the world, including Paul. Paul recognized that since Jesus also died for him, all those rotten things he had done to Christians, such as dragging them out of their homes and rejoicing at their deaths, were all paid for by Jesus. That is what God promises in spite of our many failings. Jesus says: “I still died for you. I still love you in spite of your sin.”

Prayer: Gracious God, guide our lips that we may bring people the liberating news of the Gospel. Help us to always be eager in our witness to the salvation we enjoy. Amen.

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