"I Am Of...I Am Of"...........

"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building."  (1 Corinthians 3:9)

I have often wondered over the years why there was so much pettiness in the Early Church.  1 Corinthians 3 reveals that there was arguing, jealousy, one-upmanship in that Church.  Sound familiar?  These people were in a period of some of the most violent persecution of the Church, battling for their very lives, yet they were still engaging in the pettiness of, "envy, strife, and divisions among you", and, "For...one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos.'"  Then John tells us of, "Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence."  Persecution or not, the battle is the same today.

The Holy Spirit in Paul says, "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God Who gives the increase."  This is another way of calling the Church back to Foundational Living, as Paul told the Corinthian Church, "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."  Worship, Prayer, Preaching, Evangelism, Missions, Giving, etc., all are built upon and in, "....no other foundation...than...Jesus Christ."  Remember the Psalm, "If the foundations are being destroyed, the righteous can do nothing." (best translation) 

If you and I want to "do" something of lasting value in the Kingdom of Heaven, we must live and obey, "For there is no other foundation...than...Jesus Christ."

Father, in Jesus' Name, "Search me...."  Amen.

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

Hebrews 12:2