How can we be strengthened for this way?
The excellent way to live life, and more specifically to live the Christian life within the church, is not going to be easy. In fact, with man, it would be impossible. However, Christ is capable of taking his rag-tag group of people with all sorts of backgrounds, struggles, and temptations and making us something beautiful.
Did God pick his people for their natural skills and inclinations? Quite the opposite.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
We’re the kids picked last in gym class, and God built his all star line up with us. How can he expect us not only to have the individual capacity, but further to have complimentary abilities so that we work better together than we do as a sum of individuals?
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7
We are supernaturally empowered by God himself, through his Spirit.
For what?
The question of purpose is the main focus of much of Paul’s writing to the Corinthians. They were excited about the gifts, but unfortunately often only to make showy displays of their “spirituality”. So, what purpose do the gifts have?
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:15-16
It’s no accident that, when Paul references spiritual gifts, he regularly uses the analogy of the body. Like a body, no part is sufficient in itself. An eye can’t “see” without a brain, and neither can function without oxygen from the blood. That blood can’t get there without a heart pumping it, and it doesn’t get oxygen without lungs. Similarly, an evangelist needs charitable aid to fund his travels, a teacher depends upon the revelation which came through prophecy, and the body would have been led astray by false prophets without someone distinguishing between spirits.
We need each other. A person operating their gift independent of the ministries of fellow believers is going to be able to do about as much work as a dismembered arm. However, when we all work together we can mature one another as we all attain to the maturity which is the righteousness of Christ.
How does it work?
Paul ends 1 Corinthians 12 with “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” Talk about cliff-hanger. What’s the point without the more excellent way and what is that way?
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
We need love. Without it, no amazing work of gifts, skill, or even self-sacrifice has any value. Love is the guiding line for progress. If we try pushing forward without it, we’ll certainly be heading in the wrong direction. However, love is also one of the most confused and abused terms in our modern society. Thankfully, he gives us a definition in the very next paragraph.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
If you’re easily frustrated because you want to help someone out but they just won’t change or they speak negatively toward you, it’s not love. If you’re willing to wait it out, but only until they come around to your preferred methods, it’s still not love. If you’re patiently waiting, willing to consider their perspective, and also eager to be seen as supportive by letting them go their own way even when it is wrong or contrary to the truth. This also is not love!
Love is when you’re doing what you can to direct a person to Christ (who is the truth) and all that entails, even when they may drag their feet, insult you, take the “scenic route”, and all without getting resentful or giving up hope.
If the church can do that with one another, then we will be well equipped by the supernatural ministries of the Spirit to mature into the likeness of Christ. This should be the goal of every believer!
