Lectio Divina is Latin for “divine reading” and represents a traditional Catholic practice of prayer and scriptural reading intended to promote communion with God and to increase within you the knowledge of God’s word. It is a way of praying with scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen to, pray (and even sing and rejoice in) God’s word, within the soul.

I am reading through the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians and regularly throughout this journey will be sharing some short thoughts of what God highlights to me through His Holy Spirit and this Lectio Divina practice. Will you join me?

First Thoughts…

“God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the message of what He has done, collecting a following for Him. And He didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center–Christ on the cross–be trivialized into mere words.” (1 Corinthians 1:17, The Message)

“I don’t know how to put this….but I’m kind of a big deal.” Just like our friend in Anchor Man, we like to be accomplished people and be around accomplished people, don’t we? We want others to be impressed with us and what we do for God. Even within “Christiandom” we often like to exalt people into seemingly rock star status…those who are up “in front” and who have gifts that seem to stand out more than others. Worship leaders, teachers, prophets, etc. We want to be like those people and we want to be a part of their group. We want to shine with those gifts ourselves, sometimes not because we actually have a compassionate heart like Christ and want to serve Him but because we want attention and accolades for what we “do” for Jesus. The gifts He gives are because He is good, not because we are.

I love that Paul, a man who we often think of as the most “famous” apostle, teacher and writer of scripture–a man we would want to exalt and rub elbows with if he was here in our church in modern times–promptly (and often) takes the focus off of himself and puts it where it belongs–on Jesus.

It’s not the power of our words in and of themselves that matter; rather the power of Christ moving through them. Christ’s power is what makes things happen. He saves, He heals, He redeems, He sets free. He often uses us to partner with Him in these things but let’s always remember that we’re not the big deal.

Jesus is.

We’re just blessed to know Him, to be His friend, and to be His partner in this spiritual journey.