1 Corinthians 2:9d English Standard Version (ESV) what God has prepared for those who love him”—

What has God prepared for us? Do we know by seeking our own desires or by seeking to receive what God has prepared?

This all comes back around to being conformed to the image of the living Christ. The tendency is to look at the life of Jesus and decide who He was in life and to make every effort to duplicate a life we could never achieve in the first place.

This ignores God’s effort to conform us according to His will, His plan and His presence. It is God who changes us and not by our self-effort. Everything we were taught in our old life says to take charge, make a decision and make it happen. If the old man is truly dead, then dead men do not make decisions. He who sits on the Throne is Lord and makes decisions and gives commands. He is the Lord.

Giving over control of our lives is not an easy thing. If we came to Christ because we saw that we ruined our life in those things we chose to do, then accepted that He has a better way.

1 Corinthians 12:31b English Standard Version (ESV) And I will show you a still more excellent way.

These were Paul’s last words before he writes the love chapter, Corinthians 13. Remember what was said about knowledge and love. Seek to know the love that abides in us. These are the attributes of His abiding love and they are performed by Him who is perfect and not by some human effort that has a long history of failing. It is as simple as letting go and letting God. Letting go of control is the hard part.

1 Corinthians 2:10-12 English Standard Version

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.

We ended with verse 11 yesterday and this is that verse in context. Note how those things graciously given by God to us, to the benefit of His Son, still need to be understood. That would be like being given a gift and never opening the box to discover what is inside and the purpose for the gift. What use is there in a gift not understood or used?

This leads us to ask what preceded these verses that Paul is revealing to us.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9 English Standard Version

Wisdom from the Spirit

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”—

Focus on the words “God decreed” and not on secrets and hidden wisdom. We can love secrets to the exclusion of using wisdom during the search. This is not an emotional plea to search out secrets. It is a promise from God to reveal in us those things we need to know with purpose. His decree is His Word and God is not a liar. He will keep His Word.