DAY 233

U R GOD’s

Psalm 105 & 106 and 1 Corinthians 3

The Psalms are a bit long today. They both draw on the deep history of God and Israel. Give thanks to the Lord…make his deeds known…and speak of his marvelous works and the Psalmist then recalls God’s deliverance of Israel. Psalm 106 is similar, Who can declare the mighty works of the Lord…and then the Psalmist recalls the unfaithfulness of Israel as God was delivering his nation.

Taken together, these two Psalms might look like some sort of comparison between God faithfulness and our unfaithfulness. And humanity certainly is unfaithful as they sacrifice their sons and daughters (106:37). Yet that is not the point of the Psalms, the point of both is God’s unrelenting love and commitment to us…to you…to me.

This chapter in Corinthians is similar, yet we may be able to relate to it a bit more. Paul is writing to a church that is squabbling with each other…there is strife and division. We get a sense that in the midst of their division, each side is trying to prove they are in the right by appealing different authority figures, e.g. Apollos.

We can relate to squabbles, whether they are in church or elsewhere. Paul says, “stop fighting!” What is his argument? First he points out that all those authority figures they are appealing to, they are God’s fellow workers…they are on the same team. Second he reminds them of who they are, Do you not know that you are God’s Temple and that God’s Spirit dwells within you? This is exactly what the Psalmist is doing…retelling the story to remind people of their roots and their identity. Paul chides them because they think they are wise, just as the Israelites thought they were smart when they failed to follow the law…for human wisdom is folly in God’s plan.

Yet this is not the high point…the high point is coming…it is in fact the unchanging point that God has been shouting through the ages…YOU ARE CHRIST’S & CHRIST IS GOD’S (v.20).

I am not sure how you feel about that, I would like to suggest that this point is the point that we read in Genesis: “let us make humankind in our image.” It is the point we read in Exodus as the people who have been assigned the job to tell the world about God find themselves bound in slavery and then they are then delivered by him. As those delivered people abandon God and yet God still makes them into a great nation. I could go on, but there is a more modern point to make. More than recalling Israel’s history, or the Church in Corinth’s history…what is yours…what are your moments which unequivocally reveal that God has not let go and that U R God’s. Give thanks to the Lord…make his deeds known…and speak of his marvelous works…the works in your life.