{"id":8538,"date":"2020-07-24T16:42:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T16:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=8538"},"modified":"2020-07-24T16:52:50","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T16:52:50","slug":"an-early-fantasy-i-used-to-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=8538","title":{"rendered":"An early fantasy I used to have\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2026and those members of\nthe body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more\nabundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable,<\/em> whereas our more presentable members have no need of\nit. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to\nthat member which lacked, so that there may be no division in\nthe body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And\nif one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member\nis honored, all the members rejoice with it\u2026  <\/em>1 Corinthians 12:23-26<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Bible reading led me to 1 Corinthians 12 today. I was all set to think about gifts of the Spirit and how they operate in a church, but what really caught my attention was what was said in verses 23-26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked myself, \u201cHow\nwell do<\/em> we honor those members among us whom we may deem less honorable?\nHow do we approach those whom we think are less presentable? Are we being\nscriptural in our dealings with members who lack the elegance of our more\nappealing members? Are we ignoring and shunning them or are we taking them under\nour wings, listening to them, and lovingly discipling them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tough questions.\nBut we are entering a new time in the church. Whoever I listen to online these\ndays, the call for the re-establishment of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our\nchurches is clear. The Holy Ghost must be free to flow, the voices are all\nsaying. I agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I found it\ninteresting that Paul, the writer of the letters to the Corinthians, included<\/em>\u2014and\ndid not exclude<\/em>\u2014the less honorable<\/em>, the less presentable<\/em>,\nand those who lacked<\/em> (in my opinion, social graces) in his admonition\nconcerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I LOVE<\/em> that he\nincluded these precious, awkward souls in his teaching!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This thought came\nto me: Is it because<\/em> the churches\u2014generally\u2014have been somewhat embarrassed\nand put off by such souls in their midst that the Holy Spirit has actually been\nhindered<\/em> in His full, powerful, life-giving and life-affirming operation\nand manifestation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I remembered a fantasy I used to play frequently in my mind\nwhen I moved back to St. Louis after my first year of teaching. I was a\nwhopping four years old in Christ, gobbling up the Word of God, and full of the\nzeal of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would see people wherever I went\u2014to the gas station, McDonald\u2019s, the store, in the neighborhood\u2014and I would fasten my eyes on a random individual. Whoever that was, black or white, old or young, male or female, big or small, dirty or clean, wealthy or poor\u2014I would imagine them behind a pulpit, preaching a fiery sermon, and praying for the sick and oppressed while signs and wonders followed. This fantasy made me incredibly happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord told me as memory took me back to my old fantasy, \u201cThat fantasy used to make Me very happy, too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we the church transition into the restoration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we must be sure to make every<\/em> correction Paul prescribed to re-establish not only the gifts<\/em> of 1 Corinthians 12, but also the very heart<\/em> of that message as well. Otherwise, we will merely be noisy gongs or clanging cymbals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorothy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2020, Dorothy Frick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[535],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gifts-of-the-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8542,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538\/revisions\/8542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}