Paul Merideth

 

How’s your pulse? If you don’t have one –that’s not a good sign. In fact, it means you’re dead! How ’bout we take the church’s pulse. Do you think we’ll find a strong, vibrant heartbeat?

The Corinthian church to which the Apostle Paul wrote was a congregation under siege. Satan has always tried to make the body of Christ into a pulseless corpse. The pagan environment surrounding the Corinth Church of Christ was trying to corrupt and kill her; unfortunately, with some success.

The message to that congregation was to hold true to each other and to the Lord while resisting the negative influences of a corrupt culture. Toward that end, the first letter to the Corinthians begins with words of thanksgiving. Paul reminds them, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

The faithfulness of God and our fellowship in the Son is the heartbeat of our faith. We give thanks for these gifts we’ve received.

Now, check your pulse. As a Christian don’t you feel the steady, strong beat of thanksgiving? God’s grace, provision, redemption, and direction keep us alive and healthy. Therefore, we, with Paul, can declare “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge – even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:4-8).

Paul Merideth is Minister of the Watterson Trail Church of Christ, Louisville, KY. He is  a  doctoral student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and teaches  part-time at Louisville Bible College.