26 August 2013 - spirit and power

26 August 2013 - spirit and power

For our Gospel did not come to you in word alone,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

Has the gospel come to us in this way?  Is it something real to us, with the power to change us and the world?  Or is it just an abstraction?

If it isn't real to us we can easily give in to the temptation of the Pharisees.  They get so lost in the details of the law of God as to make it an idol.  In doing so, they lose their true sense of sacredness.  They lose their sense of the hierarchy of value that makes the gold, the temple, the gift, the altar, and all such things significant.  It is as if the words give the value to the person who said them.  Clearly nonsense if we can just realize it.

Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?

We all have idols to one extent or another.  We need to turn from them or we'll face similar difficulties.  Our hierarchy of what is important will be out of whack.  Let us turn to the living God and cast our idols aside.

and how you turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, Jesus,

who delivers us from the coming wrath.

We need to remember that "[t]he Lord takes delight in his people."  This is why he gives us a law.  He gives it out of love and a desire for relationship.  The more we live this relationship, rather than needing more and more nuanced words to describe it, we need fewer.

so that we have no need to say anything.

Let us be glad in him!  Let us rejoice in our king!

Let the high praises of God be in their throats.
This is the glory of all his faithful. Alleluia!