“When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,  you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 5:4-7

I decided to make some cookies for my women’s bible study this past Monday! I made peanut butter cookies, I had some peanut butter chips and thought why not? Fun fact: I whisked the egg first. Most cookies start off by creaming the butter and sugar. I found that when I whisk an egg till it is foamy and using melted butter I get thicker, more chewy cookies. YUM!

We have been going through 1 Corinthians and will be for the rest of the year. We have been using the book First Corinthians: Living Love when we disagree. The book is geared towards women and we have been loving Corinthians! This past week we went through 1 Corinthians 5. In this chapter, Paul was telling the Corinthians that their actions (in the case of this chapter – incest) were unholy and wrong. This leads to the question of judgement vs. accountability. We talked about how sometimes it can be hard to distinguish the two in our actions towards others. God is the ultimate judge, and we shall not judge (Matthew 7:1-5). But, as Paul displays here it is still our role to hold others accountable and lead them closer to God’s merciful heart. We discussed the ways we could potentially do this:

1. Determine the relationship you have with someone. How will they perceive your words if you’re just an acquaintance vs. a close friend? 

We discussed that we feel we can tell someone their actions are wrong or hurtful if we have a firmly rooted friendship. We all listen to our peers and will take feedback from them and they will take it from us, normally. This can be challenging, but we have to understand that someone may be holding us accountable out of love, not judgement.  Sometimes it can be hard to hear feedback like this, but it is to make our hearts more full. We must open our hearts and ears to learning the ways we can improve to be a better daughter or son of God.

2. What about situations with people who we don’t know and are trying to draw us into their immoral ways?

Simply avoid things that bring you down or make you feel uncomfortable. If we come across a situation that would draw us away from God, then we can avoid it. But, don’t go around judging others for what they are doing. If you know someone is doing something wrong or hurtful, but you know you can’t approach them about it, we thought, “well we can at least pray for them.” God is working in all of our hearts, but sadly we cannot change everyone’s hearts. We can plant seeds, but God is the one who encompasses that power to change a heart.

3. Live a life of love and purpose. 

 I think the best way to go about life is to lead by example. We can’t classify sins, we can’t make others feel guilty, and most importantly we can’t judge others. But, we can show others what it means to live a Christian life. We can show others the joy that comes in surrendering to the Lord and we can open our hearts and show them love and compassion. ❤

I think my favorite part about 1 Corinthians 5 is verses 4-7 (that I shared at the top). We got stuck talking about those verses for awhile. At first, it sounded really harsh and we all had to ponder what it meant for a minute. We had to really think about what Paul was trying to say. But, if you think about it, by the time we have all died, we have sinned many times in many ways. Is God just ready to let us into heaven in that state? I mean Jesus suffered for us, but if we commit to mortal sin, should we suffer too? Should our flesh be rid of the sinfulness? This could lead to a lot of disagreement and agreement. But, what this verse points out…“so that his spirit may be SAVED in the day of the Lord.” 

The Lord still wants to save this man’s spirit! I mean wow. That is awesome and a great reminder of how merciful our God is. We are called to salvation. The Lord knows we are imperfect and we will have times we fall to sin. But, he FORGIVES us if we understand our wrong actions and make our best effort to follow his call and love him. He grants us salvation! The past couple weeks have been tough for me, but these verses were a great reminder for me to continue to carry my cross and to continue to use my heart to love.

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Now to those cookies I was talking about…

Here is what I was describing early, about making the eggs foamy then adding the sugars:

Here is an example of the size of the dough balls I rolled them into (about 2 inches).

-ENJOY –