Today Our Daily Bread 1 Cor 2 & 2 Cor 2:14

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

1 Corinthians 2
Paul Preaches Wisdom
1Dear brothers and sisters,[a] when I first came to you I didn't use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God's message.[b] 2For I decided to concentrate only on Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. 3I came to you in weakness--timid and trembling. 4And my message and my preaching were very plain. I did not use wise and persuasive speeches, but the Holy Spirit was powerful among you. 5I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom.
6Yet when I am among mature Christians, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world, and not the kind that appeals to the rulers of this world, who are being brought to nothing. 7No, the wisdom we speak of is the secret wisdom of God,[c] which was hidden in former times, though he made it for our benefit before the world began. 8But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would never have crucified our glorious Lord. 9That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."[d]
10But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Spirit, and his Spirit searches out everything and shows us even God's deep secrets. 11No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own Spirit. 12And God has actually given us his Spirit (not the world's spirit) so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. 13When we tell you this, we do not use words of human wisdom. We speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit's words to explain spiritual truths.[e] 14But people who aren't Christians can't understand these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means. 15We who have the Spirit understand these things, but others can't understand us at all. 16How could they? For,
"Who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who can give him counsel?"[f]
But we can understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

Footnotes:
a. 1 Corinthians 2:1 Greek Brothers.
b. 1 Corinthians 2:1 Greek mystery; other manuscripts read testimony.
c. 1 Corinthians 2:7 Greek we speak God's wisdom in a mystery.
d. 1 Corinthians 2:9 Isa 64:4.
e. 1 Corinthians 2:13 Or explaining spiritual truths in spiritual language, or explaining spiritual truths to spiritual people.
f. 1 Corinthians 2:16 Isa 40:13.

~Lena’s Journalin’~
God’s Word does not need human explanation to prove or justify it, yet the Lord desires humans to understand and trust in His word. In that, He does not want human understanding to take over belief by faith, by trying to reason and dispute God’s word. God’s word is His word. It is not up for dispute, whether we understand it or not. The goal is to gain understanding with an open and pure heart of one who has been drawn by God’s tremendous love and who then through that love relationship, desires to know everything one can about the other (God).
I think our intelligent world causes us to figure God out in a manner much like the Greek philosophers of this day did. They’d study and weigh matters and prove or disprove them, by presentations and arguments etc. This passage says that God and His word are spiritually discerned, not intelligently figured out or proven. The natural mind is the soul of man. The soul and the spirit are not the same. Man has 3 parts of His person just as God does. Man is a living spirit who has a soul (this is where his mind, will and emotions are), then to be alive on earth, God gave each one a human body. We all know that when we stop breathing here on earth, our bodies stay here and decay, but our spirit man goes to either be with or apart from God in eternity. We’ve heard of people who “knew” about things after dying and “passing on”, they even looked down at their bodies and saw their bodies lying down dead, yet they knew the surroundings and people etc, that knowledge is from the soul working with their spirits who are still alive.
Spirit and soul are not the same, yet they do and should work together the purposes of God. Our souls are the receptors of spiritual or natural discernment. We see a truth or a lie and it is presented to and through our souls and it’s windows (eyes, ears, taste, smell, touch, etc…)Then we either take it in, accepting it as truth or desire, or we reject is as though it is harmful or a lie. Our souls process what we sense. Once our souls have processed, then our spirits fellowship the reception and take it all in, receiving it as a part of oneself.
Anyway, all of that written, the enemy knows this process and will use it for his “glory”. Ignorance of God’s word is bliss only to God’s enemy, who gloats when we stay that way. He’ll also stroke our souls and try to bring us tastes or smells etc that seem right or good, but are not truth based o God’s word. He likes to cater to one’s sense realm and make on think that the sense realm is the real person and all that matters. This is where “figuring God out” comes in. If we base any truth on soulish knowledge, we will not be able to receive it. Satan has trained a whole world is the power of the senses (soul) and has made this his seat of rule. He couldn’t have God’s throne, so he’s tried for a substitute. If he can get man in the soul realm, he can have some sort of rule in the minds of men. Our bodies (souls and spirits) are meant to house God and His spirit, if we give the rule of that over to satan by philosophically taking God in along with every other things we’ve ever heard, we have given God’s throne inside of us, where He was designed to rule, over to another. God won’t share that place with others, so He leaves until invited back. Satan has been enthroned in another mind on earth.
We cannot figure God out, we can only come to know Him as Savior, King, Friend and Lord. He wants to be the lover of our souls, He desires to take the thrones of our hearts and minds, to protect us from other’s who will try to seize that place. Knowing is a very intimate word, it is a word for lovers and best friends. To know Him and make Him known is the highest of accomplishments.
He wants that place in us because He loves us, not because He wants to control and rule us. That’s the character of satan, not God. Don’t allow our world to cloud and taint God’s nature, confusing god and God.
No human words could convince any soul man of God’s love or power. It is received and obtained through the spirit man. The soul can filter out the spiritual things of God, if we allow it to.
God is revealing Himself to man daily. What an awesome and honored place to be in, His revelatory presence. Even His gifts cannot be figured out. The figuring out rather than receiving by faith is what has limited God’s power being made to live and breathe inside of each one of us.
So, who does know God’s mind? Jesus does, and because he does, so can we, because we have received Jesus and the same spirit that lived in Christ. The ones who love Him and seek Him, not trying to prove Him right or wrong, can see Him and His will very clearly.
Ya know how lovers on earth can know what one another is thinking? Even seek to know more of how one another thinks? This is the same in a minute model of hos we as lovers of God can seek to know His mind and be in fellowship with His spirit, even to the point of fellowshipping counsel as Abraham did. Abraham was a friend of God and he conversed with God as did Moses, on a friendship level, of course God had and has the “last word”, but there was input from His man.

(daily repetitive verse)
2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.