Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
In the days before email, where we can be skillful editors of our writing and thus seem smarter than we are, we would just insert a random thought that came to mind in the middle of a paragraph. I miss those days. If you do too, read one of Paul’s letters. Here we see a mini pep talk in the middle of the final greetings to this letter to the struggling church. He had been giving instructions on Apollos and it may have brought to mind the division caused by the people following him and other men instead of Jesus Christ. So came this instruction before returning to Stephanus and Fortunatus. It is a blessed insertion in a letter to a church that desperately needed to have this verse on their bathroom mirrors and refrigerators, or the first century equivalent.
Come to Cape Community Church tomorrow as we seek and find more nuggets from a seeming list of instructions to a 2,000 year old church. This one is very pertinent to us today. There is much to be watchful for that forces us to remain faithful. The strength of Christ is our need in these situations but, in a nod back to chapter 13, it is all noise without love. Come and see that the Lord is good, even if our churches struggle to reflect it.
Dear Lord, thank you for the faith you give us and the love that we can share with others. Be with us as we worship you for that love and faith. In Jesus, name. Amen.
Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church