Category: Spiritual Healing

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:33

“Even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” (1 Corinthians 10:33, NIV)

The Remedy says it this way: remember to be winsome in dealing with others, not promoting your own agenda but spreading the Remedy of Jesus Christ, so that many may be eternally healed.

What does this look like, trying to please everyone and not looking out for your own advantage? It begins with keeping your word, whatever the personal cost (Psalm 15:4). It means noticing the little things that would make someone else’s day, and doing them when wisdom allows.

Balance is the key. An organized life leaves you free to do the little things. A cluttered life keeps you so busy with your own mess that you never notice anyone else. Living an open, other-focused life does not mean you stop living your own. It means you become organized and responsible, aware of how your own growth affects your ability to bless others.

Start at Home

Start with your family. Clean up your world, and really notice each member of your family. Do it for yourself; they don’t need to know you are doing it. Do special things to draw them out, so you can know them better. Start growing your loving muscles at home with the ones closest to you. As kindness and the little extras become your habit, they will naturally spill over into the rest of your life.

Start small: one choice, one day. Learn to be consistent with your new habits. It takes time to heal and change a lifetime of how you react and speak to those around you. Some people will not approve; they were comfortable with the old you. That is fine. Paul was not seeking approval but the good of others. Growth is never easy or completely painless. Stay with your plan, and stay with your time with the Lord. You will find your life expanding. You will become more.

Making close companions of your family is a true gift to yourself. Enjoy them, let them in on the new you, and see if they don’t jump on board and begin working on themselves too. And so the wave of Love and Light moves out from you, first to those your heart is bound to most, then out into the world around you.

Don’t Announce It

It all begins with one person making one choice to change. That choice, made alone between you and Christ, gathers strength in the currents of Love and Truth flowing through the universe, on into eternity. You are not alone in it. You are standing with the God of all creation, and all heaven is ready to help you in your new life.

These are not changes you announce. This is a new life you begin quietly, one observation at a time. When you notice one thing you can do, just do it (Matthew 6:3–4). The reward is greater when someone asks, “What has changed about you? You seem different.” Then what you share is not just words, but a real answer to a real question, from someone who truly wants to know (1 Peter 3:15).

People are drawn to Christ because they are drawn to the winsome way you have begun treating them.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:32

“Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:32, NIV)

The Remedy puts it this way: do not knowingly act in ways that confuse others about God, or lead them astray, whether believers or non-believers.

Be open and caring toward everyone, regardless of who they are or how they affect your life. Every soul born into this world is a child of God and deserves to be treated with the wisest, most interested concern. No one is beneath your notice.

We cannot be aware of everyone we affect. The wave each choice creates travels far past our ability to follow it. Picture it this way: we are all living under water. Every movement, no matter how small, shifts the water around us. You cannot pass by anything without changing it in some way. You cannot even come close enough to notice another person without having an effect on them. Water carries every twitch, every slight change in us, out to everything around us. Nothing we do is of no consequence.

This is why Paul tells us to put no stumbling block in anyone’s way. We never know how far the ripple of a careless act will carry, or whose faith it may unsettle.

God created the water, and He sees all of its movement at once. He is with us in everything we do, yet He is not tied to physical reality as we are. He lives in eternity, but He chooses to participate in linear time with us. In eternity, past, present, and future are one before Him (Psalm 90:2). He can see everything without being pushed around by any of it, and when He chooses to act in time, He acts with perfect control.

We cannot do that. We affect each other on every level. So move carefully through your life, not with fear but with understanding, aware that what you think, say, and do reaches far beyond yourself. Live in the moment, aware of all that moment holds and all you can do to better your own life and the lives of everyone sharing it with you.

And never stop learning. Knowledge ennobles us, empowers us, and lifts us above the life we were born into. The more we understand, the better stewards we become of ourselves and of everyone our ripples touch. The more you know, the more you are.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:30

“If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?” (1 Corinthians 10:30, NIV)

Paul ate with a clear conscience. He thanked God for the food, and gratitude settled the matter between him and his Lord. The Remedy puts his stance simply: he would not be held hostage by the opinions of others.

The opinion of others is never meant to shape our actions. But the heart of someone searching for truth should always be a soft place in our souls.

Sometimes the person criticizing us is that searching soul. They don’t yet have the understanding, experience, or relationship with the Lord to sort out the truth behind everything they believe. It takes time and maturity before they can look at those they admire in the faith and comfortably let each person walk their own journey. We are not all learning the same things at the same time. A truth one soul finds a glorious comfort, another must struggle to accept.

So be slow to judge and slow to criticize. Trust what your past experience with someone has shown you about their heart, and give them room to explain their current choices. If something directly affects your life, ask your questions in Love, ready to hear the best answer. Don’t shy away from the questions that need asking. And when offense is given, be ready to do whatever you can to make it right. When it’s your responsibility, own it, fix it, and move on.

There will be many times we stand alone in our decisions, alone except for God. What a great exception He is. These are the times to know yourself and to know your God and Friend, the One who guided your life to that very decision. Stand firm. Know what you know. The Lord will give you the strength and wisdom to continue in the truth He has shown you.

But standing firm is not the same as closing your ears. The most valuable piece of wisdom I can offer is this: remain teachable. We can fool ourselves into believing the Lord led us to a decision simply because it makes sense to us. Stay willing to hear truth from people you respect who have also been walking with the Lord.

If God really has shown you something others don’t yet understand, their objections won’t change it. In fact, you need their objections to refine that truth even further.

Your only safeguard against fooling yourself is to stay in a truly teachable spirit.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:29

“I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?” (1 Corinthians 10:29, NIV)

Paul anticipates the objection. If I know an idol is nothing, and the meal in front of me is good food, why should someone else’s conscience limit what I do?

His answer isn’t that your freedom is wrong. You remain free. The question is how Love chooses to use that freedom when someone is watching who doesn’t yet understand. The Remedy puts it plainly: the confusion isn’t yours, it’s theirs. They still believe the idol has power, and you don’t want them to think you believe in their god.

This is what Love does. It protects and cares for those who lack understanding.

Think of how we raise children. Some things we model, and we smile when they try to mimic us, because their efforts build the ability to do it one day. Other things we forbid them to touch. Hand a young child an ax or a power tool, and the gift of your skill becomes a danger to them. They don’t yet have the understanding to respect the tool, the maturity to give it full attention, or the strength to handle its blowback.

Our infants in the faith need the same care. A new believer will naturally copy their mentor, even when they don’t understand what they are stepping into. Sometimes experience is how they grow. Other times, wisdom says not to introduce a truth too early, before they have laid a solid foundation to build that belief on. Wisdom and Love advance no faster than the soul can follow.

So don’t run ahead and leave your child stumbling around in confusion while you enjoy good company and a well-prepared meal. There’s no sin in that meal for the mature in faith. But your child is still on infant formula. Because you love them, you’ll share their fare and change your plans to give them time to grow up.

Stay aware of the people in your sphere of influence. The Holy Spirit, or the energy you sense in a person, or both, along with your own experience and wisdom, will guide your attention to a soul struggling alone in a moment of distress. Sit beside them. Ask why they’re troubled, and point them in a better direction. Stay a while, answer their questions, and enjoy their eager discovery of new life in Christ.

This is our work: what Love can see and do for each other.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:25–26

“Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.’” (1 Corinthians 10:25–26, NIV)

The church in Corinth had a real dilemma. Much of the meat sold in the city’s markets had first been offered to pagan gods. Was it safe for a Christian to eat? Paul’s answer was simple: buy it, eat it, and don’t worry about it. Everything on this earth was made by God and still belongs to Him.

Dr. Tim Jennings’s paraphrase, The Remedy, puts the reason plainly: physical matter cannot soil the conscience. So don’t waste your emotional energy and time worrying about things that have no ability to affect your heart, mind, or body. The demons cannot affect God’s creation. They are not gods; they cannot create or change created matter. Just like us, they cannot effect a single change to a hair on their own heads.

It Starts in the Mind

The demons must live and move in the laws of reality just as we do. Food offered to an idol is physically just as it was before it was offered. It is the value we place on the act of offering a sacrifice to demons that affects us.

The effect takes place in the mind first, and then how the mind is affected transfers into the body. We can affect our own physical bodies for good or ill by the way we choose to assimilate and process the events of our life. Our past history and the way we were taught to approach an event all play a part in how something will affect us emotionally, and then move into the physical part of our lives.

But we are also free to examine our beliefs, to understand the science, truth, and reality behind an event, and to reapply it to our heart and mind. This changes how things are able to affect us.

Far More Than Food

This applies to far more than food. Think of the death of a beloved pet. A constant companion for a decade or longer cannot vanish from your life without a feeling of loss, an empty space right next to your heart. Yet the reality is you will have the company of your beloved pet again.

The Lord who loves you, and who created that creature to fill your heart and life, will return him to you with all the love he had for you when he fell asleep. So the event, though sad, is not an eternal loss for someone trusting in the Lord. You now have a deposit waiting for you in heaven. Like the loved ones we say goodbye to in this life who fall asleep trusting Jesus, he will at last be reunited with us.

An event in this life only carries the emotions, for good or ill, that we personally give to it.

We Still Choose the Good

That doesn’t mean anything goes. The food we eat and the places we go still need to be healthy for us in reality. Praying over unhealthy food, or before going into a place of entertainment that is not good for the mind or heart, will not change the effect it has on your body. Unhealthy food is still unhealthy, and mind-numbing entertainment will not become enlightening and uplifting.

You have to choose the good for yourself, and know that the devil has no ability to touch the good you choose or how it blesses you. It is your mind and your choice how you take in reality and apply it in your own heart.

We Are Free

We can live knowing the devil has no power to taint the heart and mind that trusts in the Lord, regardless of what another misguided person might do or think. Even Job, who lost nearly everything at the devil’s hand, was not touched where it counted.

We are free to live walking in heaven, surrounded each day by the glories and protection of heaven. We are free to move through this world, never needing to ask questions or be concerned with what the devil or someone else has done before us.

We are free!

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:28

“But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake.” (1 Corinthians 10:28, KJV)

Paul has just told the believers in Corinth that they are free to eat what is set before them without asking questions. Then he adds this: if someone at the table tells you the meal was offered to an idol, don’t eat it. The Remedy puts it plainly: not because there is actually anything wrong with the food, but to avoid confusion.

Our choices matter. Someone is always watching. We need to be aware of the effect our actions have on the babies in the truth, those just learning about the freedom they will find in a relationship with Christ.

We know in our own hearts that demons have no power to change the value of our food. The only effect Satan has is on our mind and heart, and the only power he has in our life is the power our belief gives him. But the person just coming out of that belief doesn’t know this yet. For him, the meal is still tangled up with the lie.

The way out of that lie is to know the real God, and that is exactly why Christ came. He lived as a human, right among us, eating what we eat, confined to the same body we live in, all to reveal one thing: who God truly is. Christ Himself said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). If we do not know the god we worship, we do not have life eternal. This is huge. And it tells us that today, two thousand years later, we can actually know the God revealed in the life Christ lived.

As we become more aware of this actual Person who is with us every day, right beside us where He has always been, we become more aware of who we actually are. His acknowledged presence in a life is uplifting and ennobling. We become more caring of others, more useful, more loving to those in our charge. We become servants, as Christ was a servant. This is our happy duty.

So when the child in the faith speaks up and tells us the food was offered to an idol, everything about the meal changes. The food is no longer something we are free to consume. The man is now our focus.

So we walk away from the food, sit down with the man, and tell him about the freedom he truly has in Christ, slowly and with wisdom, as he is able to take it in. His warning told us a great deal about him. He was seeking truth. He wanted to know if we understood it too. He was asking for our understanding. These are questions he is ready to hear the answers to; they have been asked.

The Lord has brought you your work for the evening.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:23

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” (1 Corinthians 10:23, KJV)

When I laid this verse out across my translations this morning, something unusual showed up. The translators split almost evenly between two readings. Some take it as being about what our choices do to us: not everything is good for us, not everything builds up our character. Others take it as being about what our choices do to others: not everything is good for others, not everything helps them grow stronger, not everything helps the building of the community.

So which is it? I believe Paul means both, and he deliberately moves us from one to the other. The word translated “expedient” means profitable or beneficial, and in the very next verse Paul says, “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.” He ends the chapter with the same word turned outward: “not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many” (10:33). What benefits me and what builds up others are not two separate questions. They meet in the heart.

A Time and a Place Under the SON

In God’s universe we have the freedom to do anything we want, but not everything is healthy or in harmony with God’s design. There is a time and a place for everything under the sun. This from Solomon, the wisest and most foolish man to live under the SON.

The intent of the heart is the key to the benefit or harm of our actions, upon ourselves and upon those in the sphere of our influence. Our intentions, coupled with the wisdom that comes from maturity in our relationship with the Lord, allow the mind of Christ to be in us. The actions that flow from a wise and loving heart and mind will always build up those affected by them. Evil actions are the evil of the heart flowing out in the works of the hands.

The same action, seen through a different understanding of the heart behind it, can prove to be either a curse or a huge and lasting blessing. And if this is true of our actions, it is even more true of God’s. How we read what God has done depends on whether we know His heart.

The Flood Through the Eyes of Love

The history of God’s dealings with this fallen world gives us an example. One action in particular has been used to put God’s character of Love in the worst light: the worldwide flood that destroyed every living thing on the planet, except for eight souls and the animals safely riding out the destruction in the ark.

How could this be anything other than God throwing up His hands, saying “I give up!” and in a hot temper killing off His entire creation? Or do the eyes of Love see our loving God holding on until the last possible moment, the moment when only one human heart on the entire planet was willing to work with Him? Only one human left for God to pour His healing, restorative truth into. He had to keep the door open for Christ to come, be born, and restore humanity to a healing relationship with God.

For 120 years the entire world was warned that it was destroying itself. Just like the nation of Israel later in history, they absolutely refused to hear, or were so sealed in their hearts against God that there was nothing more He could do. So He let them go. The God of Love withdrew His protection, and the results of all their choices came crashing down upon them. Whether they brought it on themselves, or God withdrew His hand from nature and allowed the waters above to come down upon the earth, the result was the same: the destruction of every breathing thing that had not entered the ark.

This was the only way forward for our loving God. The heart of Love could see no other way to save humanity from destroying itself, so in Love He changed everything. God had the same freedom each of us has, and in His freedom of choice He chose the only action that would preserve the opportunity for each soul on earth to choose for himself to live or die. He chose this knowing He would be misunderstood, knowing Satan would strut around gloating, “I told you He could not be trusted! I never said He was not powerful, but can we trust Him with all that power?”

Free to Choose, and to Live With It

So the story of humanity goes on. The ability to choose is still ours; the ability to become who we will be is still up to each one of us.

Yes, you have the right and the God-given ability to choose to do anything. You also have the right and the God-given ability to live with the results of all your choices. You cannot avoid the results, the truth of who you are and what you have chosen to do with your life. You can only delay the day you deal with yourself.

If you deal with yourself here and now, while there is still the opportunity to overcome and grow up into the truly great creation God made you to be, the rewards are truly fantastic: heaven here on earth, and a never-ending eternity to keep growing and discovering even more. Or you can choose to deny, to blame others for your sorry life, and to develop a heart and mind that would find an eternity of Truth and Love everywhere to be pure hell.

So yes, there is a time and a place for everything under the SON. Everything is good in its proper place when it comes from a heart intent on blessing itself and everyone in its sphere of influence. The good or bad of a thing is all in the timing and the intent of the doer of the deed.

Laws for the Immature Heart

Concrete laws are for the immature in heart and mind, those who cannot yet be trusted to do right regardless of the cost to themselves or what others will think of them. Paul calls the law our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), and tells Timothy that “the law is not made for a righteous man” (1 Timothy 1:9).

The mature do what is right because it is right. They have a real, deep relationship with their Creator, whom they have known by experience can be trusted. To break faith with God, with Christ, the One who gave you life and then restored that life to you again, is to break faith with yourself and with every creation in the vast universe. All of creation is pulling for each and every lost soul on this sick planet.

The Freedom Love Requires

In the things God has left to our freedom, our personal choices and what we choose to believe, He will not manipulate us, for to force the will would be to destroy the very person He created. You cannot force someone to love you. You can love them and create an environment that makes them as comfortable and happy as possible, but you cannot make them love you; that has to come from them. We are free to choose what we will.

When we stop believing that someone has our best interests at heart, as Adam and Eve stopped believing that God had theirs, the circle of Love and trust is broken, and the immediate result is fear and selfishness, the need to protect self. Adam’s first words after the fall were “I was afraid, and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10).

The whole history of mankind is God showing us in every way possible that He can be trusted, that He is not the manipulating, vindictive God Satan has claimed He is. And in that freedom, nothing is evil except the intentions of the evil heart.

A study of 1 Corinthians 10:14–15

Paul has spent the whole chapter laying out his case about idolatry. He has walked the Corinthians back through Israel’s history in the wilderness, given his reasons, and let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Now, in two short verses, he does two things. He gives a warning, and then he hands the decision back to his readers.

Flee

The translators reach for strong words here. The NIV has Paul telling them to flee, and the NCV says run away. Knox says keep far away, the Jerusalem Bible says keep clear, and Moffatt and the Twentieth Century New Testament say shun it. Phillips puts it most urgently of all: avoid it at all costs. This is not a gentle suggestion. Paul is telling them to put real distance between themselves and anything that takes the place of the true God.

The Living Bible widens the warning to idol worship of every kind, and The Remedy carries that thought all the way home: flee from false gods and all false God-concepts. That takes us past the carved images of Corinth to something far closer to us. An idol does not have to be made of wood or stone. It can be a picture of God that we carry in our minds. A person can be in the right church, keep the right day, and read the right books, and still be bowing before a false God-concept.

Judge for Yourselves

Then Paul says something remarkable. He speaks to them as sensible people, men of good sense, intelligent people, men of discernment, and he tells them to weigh his words and decide for themselves. He has laid out the facts and given his reasons. Now he is saying, in effect, “You need to apply your God-given intelligence to what I have shared, and decide for yourself whether you find it to be the truth.”

We each must decide this for ourselves. No one else can believe for you, not the pastor, not the books you study. All of these contain facts or opinions, and you must apply your own mind to understanding them. Yet we cannot even understand truth without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Our study must be approached with a mind open and ready to follow the Truth wherever it leads. A heart filled with the Fires of Truth and Love will be eager to know and follow the Truth.

Can Facts Lead You Away from God?

So the question is, how do you know the truth? It is possible to follow a line of facts that leads you away from God. Yes, it is. You have to know by personal relationship, by your time spent in communion with Christ, who this Being is and who God is in your life.

A Testimony

My own study of the Shepherd’s Rod movement, founded by Victor Houteff, is the story of being completely convinced that a lie was truth. The God presented in that movement is a vengeful God who is going to destroy those who refuse to accept the truth as given in the writings of the Shepherd’s Rod. I studied each and every lesson, followed every line of thought, and could not find any error. All the Bible texts appeared to say exactly what Victor Houteff said they said. I read every word the man wrote. My Spirit of Prophecy books were read cover to cover, and I could find no error in the way the material was used.

But there was a problem. The people in the movement were cold and vindictive. There was a serious lack of true brotherly love among all the different factions of the movement. There was the need to lord the truth over the women, telling them what they could wear, applying a dress code to women beyond what the men followed. Little things I noticed.

At the same time I was introduced to the writings of the Shepherd’s Rod, I was also made aware of the 1888 material from Jones and Waggoner, and I read everything I could find on this truth that Ellen White supported completely. The more I read, the more I became aware of a different God. This one had a love for fallen humanity. The need to do all the rules perfectly was replaced with a relationship with a personal Christ who had always been my friend.

I moved through the Rod movement still unable to find flaws in the line of truth. Then, somewhere along my journey, I discovered Graham Maxwell’s Conversations About God video series, and that was the truth that began to shift my understanding of the character of God. Still, I did not see clearly enough that the Law lens I was trying to view God through was wrong. Then I came across the Through the 66 series with Graham Maxwell, taking every book of the Bible and asking the question, “What does this tell us about God?”

I could finally see a God who was Love. I understood the missing link: our choices either refine or destroy us. God does not have to destroy us; we do it to ourselves. It was as if all the years of reading the Spirit of Prophecy, the 1888 writings of Jones and Waggoner, and the beautiful way Maxwell presented Christ and the Father finally made sense. My spiritual vision became clearer.

Looking back at the Rod studies, it was now easy to see the lens Houteff had viewed God through. The facts were all there, but the spirit of the God being presented was a lie. Satan’s hand was in that message, putting out the same lies about Christ and the Father that he had been spreading in heaven among the angels.

Later, around 2014, my brother discovered Dr. Tim Jennings and shared his find with me. The message Dr. Jennings brings out in his Bible study classes has given me the tools to go back through all my years of study and refocus on the truth of God: seeing Him as my Healer, the One who is truly for me, never against me.

God Can Be Trusted

The Truth is that God is Love. God can be trusted, and He has poured out every resource heaven has to give for the salvation of humanity. The one thing He cannot do is make up our minds for us. That is exactly why Paul says, “Judge for yourselves.” God will not force belief, and Paul will not either. They set out the evidence and trust us to weigh it.

For me, I discovered that the Bible is truth, and “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). So flee, not only from idols of wood and stone, but from every false picture of God. Examine the evidence, draw your own conclusion, and do it in communion with Christ. Ask of every book and every teaching the same question: what does this tell us about God?