1 Corinthians 8:9

New International Version
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

Have a spectacular week!!!

1 Corinthians 3:10-17
New International Version (NIV)

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

Over the last 15 years, I have experienced many victories and defeats. Two major disappointments were not finishing my service in the U.S. Army and recently not finishing pharmacy school at Mercer University College of Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. These events were two challenges that God brought into my life that revealed to me that I needed to get back onto the right foundation in my journey with the Lord. They were difficult and challenging times because they were not being built on the foundation of Christ’s ongoing work in my life.

After finishing college, I found myself with some direction for my life, but with more confusion and uncertainty around me. Friends had failed me, my plans were falling apart, my dreams were shattered, and I was left with nothing but God and my family. As I began to think about life after college, I thought that joining the military was the best choice for me because I could one, get job training as a preventive medicine specialist and two, serve my country. This seed was planted in me during my junior year in college when I visited a recruiter on the college campus of U.C. Berkeley one random day.

That seed became a sprout after college as I indeed enlisted and signed a 5 year contract with the U.S. Army. My time in the military was amazing, yet was cut short as I found myself losing focus on my true purpose and plan for serving. After successfully completing basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and job training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, I began to lose some direction as I drifted into the world little bit by little bit. I attended church faithfully on Sundays, but I was walking a fine line between faith and failure. As a Christian, I had built my foundation in Christ and this was being tested during my time in the service.

Even as my intention was to be a good model and witness for Christ, my compass was starting to be influenced by the world around me. For some reason, I thought that it would be fine to explore some of the pleasures of the world such a going out every weekend in the city, attending a party or two, and visiting the club scene. However, I was beginning to fall away inch by inch, God had already drawn a line and when I started to approach it, the Lord brought everything crashing down.

I found myself being kicked out of my training one day for reasons that I could not understand. I remember my instructor telling me that I was not keeping up with the rest of the group and that I was falling behind in my daily work. From that point on things spiraled downward and I left the service with an early honorable discharge. My time in the service was over after a year and a half. I had stepped over the boundary that God had set for me. When I did, I found out that I was not in charge of this journey but God!

I headed back home to Cupertino where I prepared for my next challenge. This was of course to get into pharmacy school and to become a pharmacist. And as I shared earlier, this was also another failure. Even though I was not walking the fine line as I was in the military, bad habits, such as lack of self-discipline and lack of maturity revealed themselves and ultimately they brought me down again even as I was nearing my goal of becoming a pharmacist.

These two disappointments only revealed to me how life needs to be built on the foundation of the Lord. If it is not, then it is not worth building because in the end it will fail. God has put in every believer a Spirit that gives us His life in this world. This Holy Spirit guides and directs our paths each and every day. He is in the world as God’s hands and feet accomplishing His will for all His people through us! The Holy Spirit speaks to every believer and non-believer to lead them in the path that is right, worthy, faithful, and true. Yet, not all people listen or obey. Even as Christians, we may ignore God’s Spirit working in us as we see it at work in non-believers whose lives unknowingly do glorify God.

Intercede together: Japan, God has been with the Japanese people since the beginning because He created their nation. He knows their history and their journey in this world. Although they seem to reject Him from a Christian viewpoint, God is Lord over every nation. He walks with them like He does with all people hoping that they will honor Him. Although they have experienced many tragedies recently with the nuclear accidents, God has blessed them recently during this time with the privilege of hosting the Olympics in 2020! What an honor and privilege to be a host nation that brings life to the world!

Foundation:
Today’s passage continues Paul’s teaching to the church at Corinth about maturity in Christ. In verses 16-17, the individual believer is identified as God’s temple. Before the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came to reside in the souls of believers, God’s people were directed to build a temple for God’s Spirit to reside. God gave very clear instructions to His people about how to build His temple, including the dimensions and the materials to be used. In verses 10-11, Paul is instructing the Corinthian believers that the only foundation for their spiritual temple is Jesus Christ.

2. When the day comes, will your temple still stand? Ask God to reveal to you what materials to use as you continue to build on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Everything in Bold font is from the Living Life quiet time (http://www.duranno.com/livinglife/english_su06.asp)

Jesus Questioned About Fasting (Matthew 9:14-17)
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

These verses talk about the new Spirit filled life that Jesus was preparing the world for. This new spiritual life was the new relationship with God and man that was coming because of His life, death, and resurrection. John the Baptist’s disciples were confused and asked Jesus, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Fasting is of course a way that many believers draw nearer to God. However, Jesus was reminding them again the truth that He is God by saying that His disciples are not fasting because He, God, is with them now. But when He is crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected, He will no longer be with them and so His disciples will then fast to draw near to God.

Then Jesus says another shocking and amazing thing. Many years ago I was reading this verse in the Bible when I asked the senior pastor of my church at the time what it meant. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve been again reminded of this verse and I understand now what it means today. Here goes everything!!!

Jesus first says “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.” Based on the next statement of Jesus, I understand that an unshrunk cloth is a new piece of cloth. Jesus is saying that if we try to add a new cloth on an old garment it just won’t work. Why? The new cloth will pull away from the garment and make the tear worse. If the new material is unshrunk or new, then sewing it onto the old garment would actually make the tear worse. This must have been common knowledge of the day because Jesus was using it to make this point to the people.

The second statement is similar. Jesus says “Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Again, it seems that this was common knowledge of the time. It seems that pouring new wine into an old wineskin was also a “No, No.” Why? The old wineskins would apparently burst and the wine fall all over the place with the wineskins ruined. Instead you were to pour new wine into new wineskins so that both could be preserved.

Here is a picture of a wineskin. There is also a scientific basis for this statement that I will not get into now. Instead, I will return to the main point of these verses in regards to fasting and the point Jesus was making. Again, this is a response to the question asked by John’s disciples about why His disciples were not fasting often like the rest of the followers of God, and the Pharisees. Again, I am reminded in this section of Scripture of the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of the day or the Pharisees, who seemed to have fasted frequently to appear righteous before others or just unnecessarily fasted.

However, it seems that John’s disciples were also confused about the purpose of fasting as well. This was probably something that they learned from watching John the Baptist. However, we see here that these men were also missing the point about who Jesus really was, about His mission, and about His purpose in life. This is entirely understandable since very few really knew or understood God’s plan for Him. Even His disciples who were closest to Him lacked wisdom and knowledge to see what God was doing at the time! This is what He makes clear in his first question and response.

His second response is what I would like to really focus on today. Jesus makes a similar analogy in order to emphasize the point He is making. His second statement of the wineskins was revealing to the people that something new was happening in the world through Him. He was bringing a new way of God relating to His people. He was pointing to the fact that a person must be born again spiritually in order to receive God's new life or the Holy Spirit.

This new spiritual life did not work with the past religious practices or teachings. This new Spirit filled life was God entering the world through the arrival of the Holy Spirit into the lives of His people.

So my conclusion for you today is to ask “Are you experiencing this new Spirit filled life? Or are you still an old wineskin that needs to become a new wineskin that can be filled with God’s Holy Spirit? Are you still stuck in the old ways of relating to God which are based on empty religious activities, teachings, and practices? And finally, are you being filled with old wine or new wine?” It is clear from these verses that one cannot experience God’s new spiritual life without understanding the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.

As I reread these verses recently, I realized that I am a new wineskin that has been on some amazing, challenging, exciting, and at times difficult journeys. I’ve even sometimes been filled with old wine, however, I continually seek to be filled with new wine so that I can experience Him personally and so that He can accomplish His good will in this world through me.

Isaiah 53
New International Version (NIV)
53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Footnotes:

Isaiah 53:8 Or From arrest
Isaiah 53:8 Or generation considered / that he was cut off from the land of the living, / that he was punished for the transgression of my people?
Isaiah 53:10 Hebrew though you make
Isaiah 53:11 Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint); Masoretic Text does not have the light of life.
Isaiah 53:11 Or (with Masoretic Text) 11 He will see the fruit of his suffering / and will be satisfied
Isaiah 53:11 Or by knowledge of him
Isaiah 53:12 Or many
Isaiah 53:12 Or numerous

Have a fantastic week!

The best is always yet to come! ; )