The Devotional

Papa “J” Says

What shall grab the eye, should also touch the ear. It does not have to tickle the nose or tantalize the taste buds since these two can never satisfy the soul. Psalm 42:5

One day recently I had a business connection with a Palestinian Muslim. He called me his brother, when it came to asking my name, I said, “my name is Jesse Abel”. He said, “What nationality is that?” I said, “My dad says were English, but my brother says were Jewish”. “Awe” he said, do you know I come from Palestine and disregard the Jews” “Awe, yes I said, but do you know that I follow Christ and believe the Bible?” As things unfolded, I noticed something important. He no longer called me brother, now I was a friend and that he liked to talk. He told me that he followed God and that the Qur'an spoke favorably of Jesus and did I know this? “Yes” I replied. He also said that he was honest and I could trust him. He said, “I am for the peace of all peoples and mean no harm to anyone. I applauded him for this and explained that I was for peace too, Yet “I have this one thing against you” Alarmed, he looked at me and said, “What is that?” “Well, my Palestinian friend, you run this small convenient store and gasoline station in addition to this truck rental operation. In this store I find myself standing next to pornography magazines, all sorts of tobacco products, lottery gambling incentives and a host of other enticements that tells me that your heart does not speak as your mouth. These things do not promote peace, they wreck homes and promote hate in the hearts of those who purchase this stuff. His normal olive colored skin, changed to more of a black olive color. It was time for me to leave anyway, but he now has something to think about. If God permits, this man will hear the gospel, soon!

1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 14:1-5 This is the chapter that brings all of this together, it is also a chapter that many folks might ignore or simply fail to understand. Notice for example that in the very first verse, Paul does not say, “Pursue the spiritual needs and desire love”, but he says that we are to chase after love and secure a firm grip on this attribute of the Spirit first, then desire to be used of God the Holy Spirit to use us for a spiritual need of the church.

Today in our churches, men and women seek after the manifestations of the Spirit of God from a heart of greed. They take without asking, and seek without knowing the love of the Spirit. Tongues is a spiritual need for the church, not for the person. It is manifested to bring glory to God, so high on the needs list, but made so low these days. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and do not have love, Paul says these people are nothing more than “rap artists”.

Most of the temporal needs of the church these days are abused in some way, even to say that one prophesies is frowned on. “What, who prophesies today?” Notice, verse 3, I believe God allows me to meet this spiritual need in the churches and you've been reading my exhortations, I hope these things I say comfort you! But, if you need to frown and feel skeptical, go ahead that too is between you and the LORD!.