WHY NOT ACCEPT WRONG? Devotion for Tuesday October 18, 2016

WHY NOT ACCEPT WRONG? Devotion for Tuesday October 18, 2016

Text: 1 Corinthians 6:1 – 7     Memory verse: 1 Corinthians 6 verse 7

The greatest desire of Jesus Christ concerning His disciples is unity. He prayed earnestly about it. In the New Commandment He gave to His disciples, He charged them to love one another. This shows His desire for His church. This notwithstanding, there are bound to be misunderstanding where more than one person meets. This led to the problem Paul addressed in this First Epistle to the Corinthians.

Paul’s opinion about disputes between Christians is that such cases shouldn’t be filed in a lawsuit. This is in every aspect the standard that Christians should adopt.  He suggested that disputes between Christians should be handled by qualified Christian leaders in the church. This is so because Christians are seen as brothers and sisters. If that be the case, why should people of same family go outside to settle disputes?

Some other reasons Paul had against secular court settling disputes between Christians because (1) if the judge and jury were not Christians, they would not likely be sensitive to Christian values and standards. (2) The basis for going to court is often revenge; this should never be a Christian’s motive. (3) Lawsuits make the church look bad, causing unbelievers to focus on church problems rather than on its purpose. Above all, Paul’s position was that the best thing a Christian should do is to accept wrong for the sake of peace which ordinarily is the emblem of Christianity.

That these Corinthian Christians had to resort to lawsuits to settle disputes among them was a worldly act and condemnable. It showed that they were still immature in their Christian faith. Paul explained the direction in which they needed to grow; they needed to willingly accept injustice if that would mean protecting the church from abuse and scandal.

Beloved, you should not wrong and defrauded someone especially fellow Christians for any reason at all in the first place. Mature believers would not act in that manner. Such act of defraud is peculiar to unbelievers and non Christians.  A matured Christian should be willing to turn the other cheek when wronged (Matt 5:39) as Jesus taught us. How matured are you in the things of faith? Will you be willing to turn the other cheek?  

Food for Thought: Romans 12:17 – 19

Prayer: Almighty God and my Father in heaven, grant me the grace to grow unto maturity in this Christian race.