Daily Bible Devotionals

“Do you not know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.  Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything.  However, they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.  Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly, or box like one who beats the air.  Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”  1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (HCSB)

Believe it or not, I was a college athlete.  I ran NCAA Division 1 cross country and indoor and outdoor track and was insanely competitive.  In my Junior year of college, I didn’t lose a single cross-country race until our conference meet.  Did you know most athletes compete their whole college careers and never win a single event?  By the way, if I tried to run a mile today, I would get very sick and die!  Ha!

All that is to say, I know what the Apostle Paul is talking about in terms of competing to win a temporary prize.  To this day, I have no idea where all my ribbons and trophies are.  

Here’s a secret: Running was never a pleasure for me, especially at the college level.  It was grueling!  My joy was not found in running; it was in winning.  To me, there was no other reason to run except to win.    

Paul is comparing these competitive analogies to the passion and focus that followers of Jesus need to have.  Paul would say the prize that believers should strive for will not be obtained in this life.  Instead, it is a hearty “Well done!” from the Father once our race is finished.  

Why do you believe Jesus suffered for our salvation?  Why was it so important to Him that we become saved, and what does that life He calls us to look like?

While others may be content living out their Christianity for a couple of hours on Sunday mornings, Paul exhorts us to a selfless, sold-out, 24/7 faith.  We are not simply called to wander in and out of church services.  We are called to go into the world, wherever He leads us, and give reason for the hope that is in us.

We are called to love people to the point that it would be utter foolishness were there no resurrection from the dead.  And after giving all that we have for all that He is, we are to remain faithful to the end.  Many races are won and lost at the tape.  It is not enough to run well; we must prepare and resolve to finish strong!

Grab your Bible & experience the Groundworks Ministries Podcast as Steve Wiggins leads us through the full chapter of 1 Corinthians 8. Click the links below to watch or listen now!

“Each person should remain in the life situation in which he was called.  Were you called while a slave?  It should not be a concern to you.  But if you can become free, by all means take the opportunity.  For he who is called by the Lord as a slave is a freedman.  Likewise, he who is called as a free man is Messiah’s slave.  You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.  Brothers, each person should remain with God in whatever situation he was called.”  1 Corinthians 7:20-24 (HCSB)

The legalized practice of forced slavery in the United States ended with the close of the American Civil War.  For many years leading up to and following the Civil War, many Southern pastors interpreted Paul’s statements to mean the Bible supported forced slavery.  Of course, their assumptions were wrong.  Sadly, a whole generation of naïve and undereducated congregants followed such teaching as if it were the gospel.  Consequently, America would not be fully integrated until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 70s.  Even today, racial tension persists, especially in the South.

In the days of Jesus, slavery was very different.  A slave, in biblical terms, was not necessarily a spoil of war or human cargo.  People would sell themselves for a season, working for money for a specified amount of time.  Perhaps these people were down on their luck, had made bad business decisions, found themselves in debt, or just didn’t want the pressure of running their household.  Whatever the circumstance of their voluntary enslavement, God gave strict rules for the governance and treatment of slaves.  There was even a scheduled time when all slaves had to be set free by law.  Slavery was only to be for a season.  Jesus proclaimed this freedom in His message to his hometown synagogue.

“He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  Luke 4:18b-19 (HCSB)

An indentured Christian who heard of Jesus’ proclamation of jubilee might be tempted to cut out on his agreement, thus spoiling the testimony of honesty and integrity that Christians are called to.  Paul urged slaves to work themselves out of slavery by fulfilling their obligations.  In the meantime, they were to rest in the knowledge that, even though they were indebted to a slave owner, Jesus had set them free from their debt to God.

As for free men, Paul cautioned them against becoming prideful and feeling they did not need God.  He challenged them to remember they, too, had been bought with a price and were under an obligation to serve Jesus, as an indentured servant would serve a master.

Bob Dylan once sang, “It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”  Jesus paid a debt I could never afford; therefore, I willingly serve Him.  I am spiritually debt-free in Messiah, yet personally and eternally indebted for His grace and mercy!

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every sin a person can commit is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you are bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.”  1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (ESV)

My family comes from Arkansas and Texas, horse & cattle country.  There was a time when the West was young and yet to be tamed when men staked their claim to vast pieces of land.  Everything in that land was their property to use as they wished.  The wild horses on that property may not have known it, but someone had staked claim to them; it was only a matter of time before the cowboys would come and make those wild mustangs meek to saddle & bridle.  And such dominion was entirely within the rights of the landowner.

The first chapter of John’s gospel is clear that Jesus created all that exists.  He bought us with a price by virtue of His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.  So, not only is He our manufacturer but also our owner and warrantor.  We are not our own.  I understand that is an offensive notion in our culture, but it is a reality nonetheless.

I was living in Southern California a few years ago when a California court ruled on behalf of homosexual marriage.  If you are a homosexual in California, you can get married to your “partner.”  Whenever Christians take a stand on this issue, abortion, or other Biblical morality issues, the secular community always responds with the same statement: Keep your religion off my body!!

In today’s passage, Paul reminds us that we don’t own our bodies.  At best, we are subletting space that belongs to the Holy Spirit.  As in any other “lease” situation, we have the freedom to decorate, personalize, and otherwise exploit our space, but only within the limits & requirements set by the landlord.  In short, God gives us the ability to make life choices, but we are not free to choose wrongly and expect no consequences.

The Corinthians had trouble understanding “community.”  They were selfishly more concerned with their personal liberties than protecting the testimony and reputation of the Church-at-large.  Does this sound familiar?  Paul’s message could be preached today and still considered tailor-fit to our times.

His exhortation to us: If you were bought with a price, you have no personal liberty apart from what is granted in Scripture.  And those Biblical abilities & rights (along with their limitations) are given to us so that God may be glorified and our well-being (individually and collectively, i.e., the community of faith) is ensured.

“When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus with my spirit and with the power of our Lord Jesus, turn that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast permeates the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch. You are indeed unleavened, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old yeast or with the yeast of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  1 Corinthians 5:4-8 (HCSB)

The church in Corinth did not lack any spiritual gift. Being gifted is sometimes both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing that the gifted person is divinely enabled to accomplish more than any average individual could dream of. But they are cursed in that gifted ones have a higher potential to fall into pride. The gifted tend to crave glory for their masterful accomplishments while denying God His glory for having gifted them in the first place!  

The church leaders in Corinth were so proud of their congregation’s reputation of giftedness that they chose to defend their reputation rather than treat their reality. By boasting of their giftedness and ignoring sin issues, they ceased being shepherds and took up the mantle of “publicists.”  In doing this, they chose to offend God rather than damaging their reputations by exposing sin.

I have heard it said by some preachers that Gentiles are not allowed to celebrate the Passover Seder. That is simply not true. Not only does the Torah allow Gentiles to observe the Seder, given certain criteria (which all believers in Jesus meet), but Paul also indicates that Gentile believers in the early church observed the Seder.  

“Therefore, let us observe the feast…with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:8 (HCSB)

Those who have seen me lead the Seder Passover remember the tradition of “clearing their house of leaven” before the Seder. That is precisely the image Paul uses to rebuke the Corinthian believers…which indicates the Corinthians were familiar with the Seder imagery.

Something special about the Passover Seder is how it is to be observed in homes. It is all at once personal and national. Paul is telling us that we must personally purge our sinful ways, and then, collectively, we are to purge “leaven” from our communities. Communities should come together to purge sin nationally and (ultimately) globally.

Sin is spread inversely. That is, if we are not personally accountable, we won’t be accountable to a local body of believers, our churches will not rally together to take a stand against national sin, and we will lose our effectiveness in the world at large.

“For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; we labor, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the world’s garbage, like the dirt everyone scrapes off their sandals.”  1 Corinthians 4:9-13 (HCSB)

Well, so much for the Word-Faith and Prosperity doctrines. For all the so-called “modern-day apostles,” soliciting faith donations to support their opulent lifestyles, Paul gives insight into the ministries & lifestyles of the actual apostles. And for all those who preach that we should not “speak forth” negative things, lest we curse ourselves, Paul determined to describe things as they truly were: Shimmering blessings against the black backdrop of a martyr’s suffering.

The reason for Paul’s instruction is that some men had already found a way to exploit the Gospel for personal gain by elevating themselves. Once you uplift certain men above others, divisions within the body of Messiah soon follow. Believers become known more for their systematic differences than for their brotherhood by faith in Jesus alone.

Not only do such divisions affect the Church at large, but they also greatly diminish our witness in the world. For me, the Church’s damaged testimony is most evident when I am in Israel. There are hundreds of Christian denominations and divisions that have offices in Israel.   Listening to Jewish non-believers speak of how the Christians fight among themselves is shameful. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Old Jerusalem is a good example. Its ownership and upkeep are shared by various competing strains of Catholicism, each trying to outdo the other.  

It is so contrary to how Jesus prayed for the unity of all believers just hours before He was crucified.

Contra to elevating oneself, Paul tells us that God chose to display the apostles “humbly.”  The mark of greatness for a Christian leader is not how high they elevate themselves but how well they submit to God’s design of lowly humility. This aligns perfectly with the Beatitudes section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:3-11)

For all who seek the “luxurious life of ministry,” perhaps you should listen to Paul. There are riches to be had and primarily stored up in Heaven.

“ Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s sanctuary, God will destroy him; for God’s sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (HCSB)

When we started teaching the Bible in coffeehouses, it wasn’t a sophisticated event. Initially, we were just a small group, meeting in my living room, wondering if God had a bigger purpose for our gathering. There was no pressure to look or act a certain way. It was kind of a “sweatpants” group. Do you know who “sweatpants friends” are? Sweatpants friends are those you wouldn’t mind if they dropped by your home unannounced and saw you in your sweatpants!

That said, on the nights our group met, I would leave work early to help my wife tidy the house. With four children, we didn’t always have the “put together” look at the Wiggins casa. If our guests were “sweatpants” friends, why did we clean up the house? Why not just leave stuff lying around, like every other day?  

It’s because we respect our guests, and we want to create a pleasant environment. When we invite people over, everything is considered: the music, the conversation, the food…all to honor, even our sweatpants friends.

What if non-sweatpants friends dropped by? The Pastor or the President? Well, the stakes get higher, huh? If a dignitary dropped by unannounced on an average day, we would freak out! What if that dignitary was Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

In today’s passage, Paul tells us that believers are God’s sanctuaries and that the Holy Spirit lives in us. So, how’s your housekeeping? Do the things you allow into your life honor or defile God’s sanctuary? Do they make God smile or make Him jealous for your worship?

We allow sin in our lives because we don’t understand who we ARE in Christ, or we choose to forget. By sinning, we choose to relive who we WERE in the world.

Consider the nations which, on different occasions, destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. Where are those empires today, the Romans or the Babylonians? What of the persecutors, the Assyrians, Greeks, or the Nazis, for that matter? God ruined those empires & nations. But why did God allow them to persecute Israel in the first place? Because Israel abandoned God first, in the temple of their hearts, before He allowed their places of worship to be ruined. Let’s not be guilty of the same personal offense!

Let’s take this passage as a reminder for us to be continually aware of God’s presence in the sanctuaries of our hearts. God has no problem seeing us in our “sweatpants,” so to speak. Still, He is the Lord of all creation, and we must honor Him as such.

“But the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to know it since it is evaluated spiritually.  The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone.  For, who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct Him?  But we have the mind of Messiah.”   1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (HCSB)

It has been said, “Not everyone is called to be an Evangelist, but everyone is called to evangelize.”  There is a difference between people who have the “gift” of evangelism and your average pedestrian believer who shares their faith.  The evangelist makes everyone feel awkward at a party.  The evangelist witnesses to coma patients, only to have them wake up and accept Jesus!  It’s bizarre, but somehow, these “Evangelists” are so consistently successful that their success can only be attributed to God’s calling.  That said, people who aren’t called to be “Evangelists” can lead others to the Lord as well.

Years ago, my wife and I were involved in a program called Evangelism Explosion (E.E).  No, we weren’t witnessing to terrorists (explosion)…although I have shared the Gospel in a Muslim country!  E.E. is a program whereby people learn to share their faith.  Basically, we met with people in their homes, with the expressed intent of sharing the Gospel with them.  These weren’t uninvited “cold calls”; the people we met with had already visited our congregation and signed a card, asking us to explain the Gospel to them in a more domestic setting.

In sharing the Gospel, one thing I had to get over was my fear of rejection.  In our training, we were encouraged that if people reject the Gospel, they aren’t as much rejecting us; they’re rejecting Jesus.  The communication breakdown isn’t necessarily personal.  Most often, it’s purely spiritual.

During these E.E. visits, I learned to pray for the people I was sharing with, that God’s Spirit would capture their attention and focus them on Jesus.  While not everyone accepted Jesus, many people did.  And everyone (who accepted Jesus) did so, not because of my arguments, but because the Spirit led them to that point of decision…opening the “eyes of their heart,” as it were.  And this “awakening” was contrary to the way they naturally thought.

God desires that people enter into a saving relationship with Him (2 Peter 3:9), yet it is unnatural for them to do so.  The miraculous intervention of God’s Spirit reveals the truth of the Gospel whenever a person believes in Jesus.  At the same time, it is the individual’s personal decision to accept or reject Him.  God reveals what is unnatural for men to comprehend, yet at that moment, man is free to choose or reject that revelation.

Concerning sharing the Gospel, Oswald Chambers wrote, “God gives us a limited participation in something He doesn’t need us to do.”  Put simply, God wants you to share the Gospel because that is how He has chosen to bring people to faith.

Grab your Bible & experience the Groundworks Ministries Podcast as Steve Wiggins leads us through the full chapter of 1 Corinthians 1. Click the links below to watch or listen now!