“ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (1 Corinthians 1:9)

Compared to other religions, Christianity is less focused on a way of life, a set of principles, a collection of moral laws or spiritual techniques.  Rather, it has this strange obsession with a Person, Jesus Christ.  It is for this reason through church history that the Christian church has been doctrinal – always attempting to get right the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.  Whatever perspective we come from in other matters, whatever background or state we find ourselves, we are united together in a unique fellowship that centers on one thing – Him.  We are a group that might not normally mix.  However, our fellowship and preoccupation with Jesus makes brings us together.

“. . .and that He was buried”  (1 Corinthians 15:4)

My friend’s church has a service on Saturday where they sit with Jesus in the tomb.  I imagine it is a time where not much is said.  There is not much to say.  Instead, there is the dreadful feeling of the morning after.  It is getting up the next morning realizing that something horrible happened the night before.  It is as a woman who recently told how every morning she would wake to the word cancer.  We arrive to these mornings due to sin of our own or, at best, the result of a fallen world.  Jesus chose to go there.  He differed from all the selfish motives of the disciples around the table in that his intent was always to love the Father and to love others no matter what the cost.  It is this quiet time the morning after that works upon my heart and causes me to ask God to root out that streak of self-seeking within.  It causes me to ponder how grace may make it possible for me to follow Christ in this way of selfless sacrifice.

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3)

Beginning at the fall the continual message of Scripture is “this is not enough.”    Mere conscience could not keep man from the judgment of the fall.  Law could not restrain man from plunging into idolatry and then exile.  Exile could not soften man’s heart enough to receive the coming of the Savior.  Finally, Scripture is fulfilled.  Christ’s atonement restores from the fall what nothing else could.  At last, it is enough.

“Love does not take into account a wrong suffered,” (1 Corinthians 13:5)

It is wrong to read this verse, “I must not take into account a wrong suffered in order to love better.” It is the other way around. When I love, the natural response is to overlook the other’s wrong. Does a father fault his adorable children when they are his delight? Does a wife scorn her husband when she is captured by the bliss of a honeymoon? When God does a spiritual work in our heart and we value others as important and delightful, their faults will be irrelevant.