Checking the Right Boxes...

As I stood in the little voting booth yesterday morning during Oklahoma’s runoff primary election and filled in the boxes of the candidates that I was voting for, I got to thinking of the previous research that I had done on each of the candidates.  I had heard and or seen most of their ads on local TV and radio and then went online to see what I could find out about them.  I looked at legislature that they had endorsed and/or voted on, things that they had said and accomplished, and then looked at their personal Facebook page.  I was trying to get a sense of the ‘real’ person on the inside and not just who or what they might be trying to project during the campaign.  At the end of the day, after the votes were tallied, I came out with about a 50-50 percentage of winners to losers!

I again thought about the checking of boxes earlier today, when I continued to study around the idea of “FELLOWSHIP” in my Bible from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  The King James Version of I Corinthians 1:9 tells us that,

“God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the FELLOWSHIP of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

The phrase “by whom ye were called” particularly caught my attention as I looked it up in the original Greek language in which the letter was written.  Thayer’s relates one definition as “to bear a name or title among men,” While Mounce Concise Greek-English Dictionary expresses it as “to call into an office or dignity.”

Those definitions gave me pause for thought as I realized that we were called to bear a “name” or “title” among men… and whose name and what title would that be?  Well, in the case of our chapter and verse, it would be the name of “JESUS” and the title of “CHRISTIAN!”

So, in order to further understand Paul’s point, I looked up the meaning of the word “dignity” in a couple of English language dictionaries and discovered it explained as “A high or honorable rank or position; of bearing, conduct or speech indicative of self-respect or appreciation of the formality of an occasion, situation or calling.”  With “formality” further defined as “an established order or method of proceeding,” and the “strict adherence to established rules and procedures.”*

With all that in mind, I got the clear indication that Paul was telling his readers (including you and me today) that God doesn’t just call us into FELLOWSHIP with Him so that we can go to church and enjoy the comradery of our fellow parishioners, but also to live in such a way that our lives exemplify His standard of order and the Biblical procedures that set us apart from the rest of the world around us…

And… he also points out that being a Christian is an honorable ranking or position in the world order of things and should be expressed with the personal bearing, conduct and speech that is indicative to the position as sons and daughters of the most-high God!

And… how do we do all this?  Well, it’s one of those abilities and characteristics that has to begin and develop on the inside of us before it can shine forth on the outside of us and be expressed through our lives!

We’ll talk more about this in coming blog posts… but for now… Look up I Samuel 9:2 and I Samuel 16:6-7 and tell me what is different between these two situations.  What were the specific boxes that were checked by the Prophet Samuel when he looked for the potential king of Israel… and what do you think that it might have to do with us today? 

Then, we’ll discuss it in our next post, as we look deeper and deeper into the Biblical, God-kind of FELLOWSHIP!

Have a fantastic week, and as you do… Keep EXPECTING God’s BEST in your lives!

 

*Oxford Online Dictionaries / Dictionary.com