Living In the Spirit

Living in the Spirit

September 14, 2021

Scripture Reading:
Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22
But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death;
considering him a friend, they pined away
and made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his company.

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
‘Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. –Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-18

The Above segment of Scripture is described as the Speech of the Wicked in the New Interpreter’s Bible* which continues by outlined four major parts: 1) The temporary nature of life, 2) thus creating a despairing drive toward pleasure, 3) a similar drive toward power, 4) opposition to the righteous one. These four items sound so hopeless, so faithless, so without love. Jesus asks in Matthew 16:26, For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? Jesus brought a message of support for the Righteous One as being the only way to find wholeness in this life. So he describes it in John 10:10b, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

I tend to be dedicated to living life now following the ways of Christ, which is and can be the fulfillment of God’s abundant life. It involves living into the full actualization of the Kingdom of God now and in whatever way God’s eternity becomes real.

Prayer: God of Grace, shield us from forces tempting us to oppose the righteous one. Amen.

*The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume V, Wisdom, Abingdon Press, page 459

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.