What a complex passage we have today! Paul was working hard to explain to the Corinthian people that since Jesus had come to earth, had died on the cross and been resurrected everything had changed for a purpose. He wanted them to understand that when we receive Him and we’re filled with the Holy Spirit we’re free from all the stuff that makes life so messy and difficult. There’s no longer a need to satisfy ourselves with self-adoration, exultation, the praise of others, heaps of useless stuff or anything else. We are simply free to be the people God made us to be – worshippers of God and Christ Jesus unashamed to hide our faces from the world and free from the need to ‘big ourselves up’ in front of others.

Jesus gave His life so that we could have that freedom, so that we could live in the confidence of knowing that His sacrifice on the cross has set us free from the weight of our sin. Paul wanted the people to know that they needed nothing else but the supernatural knowledge that once they had received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour they were free.

I wonder how much of life is lived as if God is still some distant being with whom we have no real connection except for some occasional prayers and the signing of some hymns on a Sunday? Paul makes the point that there is no longer a barrier between us and God. We are free to stand before Him once again cleansed of the one thing that had caused a barrier (our sin) so that we can talk to Him, worship Him and pray like we’re talking to our oldest and closest friend.

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Questions:

Does God still seem distant to you? Do you feel like He’s a God who dwells in a far-off place who frowns upon our mistakes and is angered by our willfulness?

Action:

Consider for a moment the point of the cross. Under the Covenant of the Old Testament every sin commit was added, like a brick, to the wall of separation between God and us until Jesus came and demolished it with the cross. No there is no barrier and God can dwell within instead of viewing us at a distance.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for Your great sacrifice for me. Thank you for removing the barrier of sin from my life. Help me to walk in the power of that freedom every day. Amen.