Before you begin today’s reading and reflection, take a few minutes to create or find a “sacred space”. If you’re in your room, make yourself a small space with as few distractions as possible. Put aside any books, music, magazines; turn off your phone; get away from your email/facebook; turn off your music; etc.

 Now, pull out your Bible, and as you take some deep breaths, pray this short prayer: “Lord, help me be still and listen to your voice now and throughout this day and the next. Amen.”

(You can choose to read the whole chapter, or just the passage that is shown)

 

⁶ Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

¹⁰ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

¹⁴ The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.¹⁵ The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶ “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

REFLECTION

1. In this chapter, Paul stressed that he depended on God’s spirit to preach and to testify. And God’s Spirit makes the wisdom of God’s message plain to believers.
2. How is God’s wisdom different from the “wisdom of this age”, or of our day (vv6-10)?
3. When it comes to understanding God’s wisdom, how does the natural person (v14, person without the Spirit) contrast with the spiritual person (vv14-16)? Do you know such people, no matter how smart they are, it’s difficult for them to understand the meaning of Christ’s salvation? They may even think your decision to follow Christ is foolish.
4. Based on this chapter, how do you define a person of spiritual maturity? Who has been an example of spiritual maturity for you?  What can you do to become more spiritually mature?

Prayer & Journaling:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what he wants to tell me.

If you have a prayer journal, as you listen to God, write down a few thoughts, questions, words, names, drawings, or anything that has come to your mind during this time.

 

Proverbs for Today 17:8-10

⁸ A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of the one who gives it;
    wherever he turns he prospers.
⁹ Whoever covers an offense seeks love,
    but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.
¹⁰ A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding
    than a hundred blows into a fool.