Welcome to the final #SheSharesTruth of the Lent season. Can we just state the obvious here and say what a tremendous blessing these Fridays have been? You have opened your hearts and your notebooks, your blogs and your instagram feeds, and you have encouraged this community with your insight and vulnerability and love for God’s Word. We are so grateful for you!
If #SheSharesTruth is new to you, you can read more about the heart behind it here, and peruse the list of last week’s shares here.
The short version: As writers we’ve discovered that one of the most effective ways to learn from the Word is to study it and share it – to teach what we’ve learned to others. So each week during Lent, we’ve assigned a portion of Scripture (this week 1 Corinthians 2:1-5) for you to study and write about. And on #SheReadsTruth Fridays we share what we’ve learned by writing in our own spaces and linking to that here.
Here’s the plan:
- Write your devotional/reflections/response to 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 on your personal blog. (Or on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtags #SheSharesTruth and #SheReadsTruth; or even write the comments section here.) Use the graphics below in your post if you’d like!
- Link to this post so your readers can know about the #SheSharesTruth experiment too.
- Share the link to your post/Facebook update/Instagram below in the LinkyTool below.
- Visit each other’s links – at least one or two (maybe the two people who linked up before you?). Comment there – tell them you see them and hear them!
**Please share your heart, sisters. Our desire is not for this to be a time of comparison or sizing up writing abilities or spiritual maturity. Eloquence and insight are lovely, but we know that is not the thing our God calls us to. So, let’s not call each other to that either. Sister, if you feel ill-equipped – GOOD! If you feel like you have so much to learn – GREAT. SO DO WE! Every single time we sit down to write. And if we don’t, are hearts are not in the right place. Let this be a safe place to learn and share and love each other WELL.
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Reading some of the posts today has been a blessing. I love you sisters all around the world in this community. I appreciate you all.
Do check out my take on 2 Cor 2:1-5, I'm #20 "No smoke machines" or go on: http://the-goodsoil.com/the-daily-seed/
Love you all xoxo
I've deeply loved this new Friday tradition. It feels so much more like community when we're all sharing with each other!
I'm #53 above or you can find it here – The Sin of Self-Help | Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 – http://ouryellowdoor.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/sin…
My reflection (sorry for the length, I type as I think):
This passage is beautiful. I LOVE the Voice's version of it:
"My brothers and sisters, I did not pose as an expert with all the answers. I did not pretend to explain the mystery of God with eloquent speech and human wisdom. 2 I claimed to know nothing with certainty other than the reality that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Liberating King, who was crucified on our behalf. 3 I was moved to utter despair during my time with you. I would find myself trembling in dread and fear. 4 The sermons I preached were not delivered with the kind of persuasive elegance some have come to expect, but they were effective because I relied on God’s Spirit to demonstrate God’s power. 5 If this were not so, your faith would be based on human wisdom and not the power of God."
What really sticks out to me is verse 2: "I claimed to know nothing with certainty other than the reality that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Liberating King, who was crucified on our behalf." It reminds me of this past summer.
Amidst many talks about theology, Christ, and the church, I found myself crying in the backseat of an acquaintance's car. Our friend had been going on with complaints about the Church and how he felt unwelcomed both in modern church culture and in the world. This hurt. I loved this kid, and to hear him talk about all Christians as if they were all the fake people who made him feel outcast made me feel more than disrespected. I tried talking eloquently about church culture, gave my own thoughts on society, and cited verses that came to mind and heart, but he was a brick wall to all of it. Realizing that nothing I knew could change His heart like Christ could, I cried and spat off what was really going on inside of me: that he was not truly justified in his thoughts about the church. That I loved him, that we loved him, and that it was completely wrong for him to not recognize and appreciate the loyalty we, his friends, had to him because Christ had loved us first. Being with people I had not known long, it was uncomfortable, but provided the reality that we all needed:
We were teenagers, asking honest questions, but also giving our own proud opinions about a God who we could not even fathom.
After that evening, I got into my own car and cried again for a longer amount of time at the fact that I truly knew nothing. That every opinion I had on society and how to live in it was just that– an opinion. The only thing I knew without a doubt in that moment was God's love for us, made real by the blood of His own son.
How often do I still try to complicate or add on to the gospel in my life? Try to tie it to my lifestyle or my foolish causes when it should be changing ME– When the gospel itself should be my ONLY true cause? Lord, forgive me for making all of this about me. I don't know all of the answers, and I don't have to. All I need to know is You, and You crucified for me. Bring me back to the heart of worship, Jesus, and make me like Paul, with much fear and trembling, unsure of all things but the truth of Your Saving Love.
I do love The Voice translation of these verses!! So beautifully written. Sometimes with all of the distractions, and opinions in this world swirling around us, all we really need to remember is that He died for us, and He will always love us.