AWAKE BIBLE IN A YEAR NOVEMBER 27
Read 1 Corinthians 12-14
Love gives. Grace is a gift. (Ephesians 2:8-9) The law would disqualify all. Love offers pardon to all. A works based salvation would result in puffed up boasting. Love does not boast or brag, but it will tell the truth. 1 Cor. 13:4
Love is more than a slogan. In chapter 13 we see a reference to children in a context starkly different from Christ’s ‘you must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven’. Matthew 18:3
I’m stretching out for a proper perspective. Please stick with me.
As we read 1 Cor 13:11 we find an exhortation to put childhood or childish ways aside.
Now there is another scripture to perplex. Why would 1 Timothy 2:15 which talks about women being saved through childbearing come into play? Again it’s a stretch. Saved is used much the same way in 1 Cor. 3:15 if any man’s work is burned up, he suffers a loss, but he himself but only as through fire.
Obviously, this means not that fire saves him, but that it’s through this process that salvation is wrought. Salvation is given but then it is worked out, shaped in us, and we are molded into the image of Christ. Fire affords this opportunity.
It is God who saves. It is a gift. And we see this even more as He is described as the potter and we are the clay. (Jeremiah 18:6) And further God sitting as a refiner. (Mal. 3:3)
So safe passage, or spiritual protection, or even better spiritual formation is a better understanding of the term saved-SOZO in this verse. SOZO means ‘save, heal, make whole, deliver‘.
Ok ok where am I going?
Enter like a child, and fully embrace the joy of salvation. Believe like a child. However now salvation begins to sprout much like a seed and grow. When we put childish ways behind us, we often times do that most when we become mothers the maturity of girlhood disappears into the beauty of motherhood. Consider, how this active mothering leads us into the greatest gift and the most sacrificial experience of love. We love with our bodies first and foremost, physically, bearing in our bodies, the marks of having children, and then we love with our life force, and time and energy. We protect nurture and create a safe home for the well-being of our children.
This way of loving gives us safe passage into eternity. It makes our salvation—God’s pure gift, easy to trust in. HOW AND WHY? Well I know that no work of my own would be enough to save my family believe me I’ve tried! And so I turn and trust in Christ. I put my faith in his promise. Although in my mothering I strive with all the energy God provides to love to my last breath.
Nice 👌