Hope & Love, Bound together....never fails.....

                                              Out of the dry, dry earth, something  green,

                                                       Springing up, towards the light,

                                              Appearance of death seen, with eyes so blind,

                                                               Ever to rise, once again,

                                                          Hope, glory, fused with love,

                                                        Ours to behold, scales unfold,

                                                  Newness of creation, inventive and fresh,
         
                                                            Death releases, ceases it's hold,

                                                              God's bold plan, on the move..........

                                                           Never give in, to thoughts within
                                                                   
                                                          Dour and dark, they must subside,

                                                          We have become the welcome, Bride.

1 Cor. "Are you not acting like mere humans? Are you not mere humans?

     This is a statement to the first Century Church of the newly formed Christian Church of the Corinthians.  Paul have learned that there was infighting between it's members on who is following who.  They have quickly aligned themselves with "sides" for whatever reasons, and became adversarial. Paul quickly lets them know their error.  They have reverted to a base understanding,  a hierarchical stance of who to follow.  They have become not of one mind as Paul had taught and preached.  Instead he pulled  out the term "mere human" as if to shake up their understanding of what they had really become and who they had par-taken of.  Of Christ's Spirit, and not of men.  Christ was Deity and had imparted some of that "like" Deity in each one who was a believer.  In other words, Paul sought to teach them with Spiritual words, taught by the Spirit.  A new thing.  Foolishness to the wise of this world.  God had taken the poor, downtrodden, and not "wise who were many" and turned the world upside down with a new way to understand God's purposes for mankind.  Paul always preached a crucified Christ and also a risen, Christ, so that the Gospel would not lose it's power and message.  He strenuously preached a Gospel not of eloquent words so as to strip the Gospel of it's Spiritual power to redeem and restore men.  Restore to what, you ask?  Not to be mere humans.....
     In C. S. Lewis's book, Mere Christianity, he, in one chapter, lays out the premise that what God begets, are God-like, and what man begets are man-like or human in other words.  So The Son of God, Christ, led Captivity captive and created a whole new thing, Spirit filled people, with Spirit filled understandings, and we were meant to come away with new reasoning's. So no small wonder of Paul's strong letter to those he founded in Christ.
    We in this Century have created or have been subjected to a "worldview" of Christianity that has morphed over centuries I believe to become weaker and less effective gospel bearing representatives of our Lord.  This has taken centuries to get where we are, and most likely will take "much time", if we have, it to fully understand how far removed we are from the First Century beliefs of those forerunners before us.  Fortunately, I have lately been in circles where this is understood and new teachings are about.  This is refreshing.
     You see, if we continue to debase all that is Spiritual and bring it down to a level of our understanding, then we lose a gift of God, not only in it's power to redeem but, loss of a real binding of Spiritual strength of being in one mind, with one another.
   Following men blindly can lead to some trouble of which I have been acquainted.
  That is not to say, we must not follow men, ( it is necessary) but, we must be wiser that we sometimes are.  For there are wolves in sheep's clothing, still seeking to lead astray those who are "unwise."
     If then we can be of the mind that we have become "more that Mortal"  in that the resurrection is a reality and we will rise like Christ, then we are more that "mere humans", and must act accordingly.  However, living this out is harder in our twenty- first century with all it's trappings of post-modernism's  thought we have absorbed.