Daily Reading 3-21-17
1 Corinthians 10:1-7, 12-13
I have made many mistakes over the past sixty years. How about you? Scripture teaches a wise person learns from his or her past mistakes. I strongly believe we can learn not only from our own mistakes, but from the mistakes of others around us. We can evaluate the success or failure of life choices and learn from them; our choices can become wiser. We can grow more spiritually. God expects us to learn from mistakes.
Our Scripture for today has the Apostle Paul telling the early church in Corinth about the mistakes the Israelites made worshiping other gods. Why would he dig up the past? So these new Christians might not make the same mistakes.
1 Corinthians 10:1-7, 12-13 Lessons from Israel’s Idolatry
10 I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or worship idols as some of them did.
12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. 13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
Prayer: Father, thank you for the lessons I have learned from my mistakes and from watching others. Continue to teach me wisdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.