April 13th, 20

APRIL 13th,  Let God Have the Last Word in Your Life

Today’s readings are I Samuel 14, I Chronicles 4, and II Corinthians 13.  We are reading from the New Living Translation. 

Famous last words.  These last words of Paul at the end of this book have to be some of the finest ever spoken.  Be joyful. Grow to maturity.  Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace.  Then the God of love will be with you.  These are beautiful amazing words to live by and aspire to.  That is the with-God life that Paul has just described. That kind of life can only be achieved by the presence and the power of Christ in you.   

Paul is hoping for a third visit with the Corinthians.  And this time, like the other times, he is trying to point this troubled little church to the important truth of the abiding, saving life of Christ in you.  He tells them to examine and test themselves to see if they are in the faith because to be in the faith is to have Christ in you. In other words, if you don’t have Christ in you, you don’t have the faith.  

Those beautiful and compelling last words of Paul are out of our reach.  The ESV says, 

Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? (II Cor 13:5) 

Consider these last words of Paul, today.

Be joyful.  Grow to maturity.  Encourage each other.  Live in harmony and peace.  Then the God of love will be with you. 

This is only achieved by the presence of Christ in you.  

Receive these last words.  Examine yourself. And rejoice in the fact that Christ has come to reside in you. He makes it possible.  Allow Christ to live his life in and through you, so that you can experience all those amazing things described by Paul.  Let God have the last word in your life.

You are loved!