22 August 2005

Though this is a chapter before the end of 1 Corinthians, we will conclude this look at this letter with the final verse of chapter 15.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58)

When a promise is made by the one we call the Creator of all things...the one who endures and takes into God's self the very pit of the suffering experience of humanity and then blows it away with the action of the resurrection, we can stand and be immovable. That is not a statement of how rigid we are to be in our beliefs. Rather, it is a place of comfort and confidence. Our days need not be filled with what people call excellence. We can fill our days with the loving work of the one we call Christ, Jesus, because no power can sell us their goods. We can count on God's promises to us to be just a full and completed as they once were and will be forevermore. Don't allow anything but the grace and mercy of God be our foundation from which we begin to be an alien and blessed people right in the middle of this day.

Connection: Find others who are amazed by this grace and stand up with and for one another so that the world around us will be graced by the presence of our Lord through our ordinary and everyday kind of life.

You, O God, bring light into our lives so that we can see with new eyes what is before us and all around us. By your light we see life that gloriously witnesses to your love. Pull us into that light both now and forever. Amen.