Being a Pilgrim

Unity?

Posted on 13th Nov 20258th Oct 2025 by korgrocker

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar?”
1 Corinthians 10:14-18 NLT

Paul wrote, “though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body”. There are several different ways of sharing the Lord’s Supper. In Corinth, they started with a single loaf of bread, and each communicant took some of it as it was passed around the church. In many churches today, the sacraments are contained in a small plastic cup, with the liquid sealed and then a wafer sealed on top, a modern solution to the potential transmission of diseases such as Covid. Anglican churches have a special mass or Holy Communion service that involves a cup of wine and a plate containing wafers. But in it all, there is the sacrament of sharing in the body and blood of Christ, in memory of all that Jesus did for us.

To the Corinthians, Paul asked a question designed to focus their minds on the implications of sharing from the same loaf of bread. Surely, he was saying, this act of unity should be outworked in their relations with each other as they sensitively avoided any behaviour or belief that would upset their fellowship. Paul wrote to the Philippians the following: “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too” (Philippians 2:3-4). Jesus said to His disciples, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). And to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

Today, there are many facets of the Christian church. As I write, the appointee for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury has just been announced —a woman from the more liberal wing of the Anglican Church. This is likely to be an appointment that will be divisive rather than inclusive, and we can expect, sooner or later, to see a schism emerge between the liberal and traditional wings of the Church of England. However, we also have various denominations and movements, each representing distinct biblical positions and interpretations. Unity in the church? We are far from it. Unity in our churches and fellowships? In many cases, that is not so apparent either. How God must grieve sometimes.

We pilgrims carry a message of hope and reconciliation, which we share with those both inside and outside our churches. Human nature is full of its egos and sensitivities, and this is sadly very apparent in our churches. Worldly behaviour is so often brought inside our church doors, and this disrupts and distorts the true reason for why we are there. Church unity, I’m afraid, starts with us, and our example in sharing the love of Jesus with those around us. We are all at different stages in our Christian journeys, and our fellow believers often carry heavy burdens, such as health problems, financial worries, and so on. And yet we are commanded to love one another, with all that that entails. So we look out for one another and bless them as we are able, in the name of Jesus. We pray for them, we help them practically, we weep with them, and we laugh with them. And we graciously accept the love shown to us by others when we, too, struggle with our own issues. A fellowship of believers living in the “sweet spot” of Jesus’ love is a fellowship that will grow, both numerically and individually.

Dear Father God. We are Your children, and our squabbling and lack of unity saddens You greatly. Please help us get this right, because one day we may spend eternity with the very people we lived with on earth. We ask this in the name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Reasonable People

Posted on 12th Nov 20257th Oct 2025 by korgrocker

Paul summed up much of what he had been saying with the exhortation to “flee from the worship of idols”. It is worth mentioning what an idol is – it is anything that is worshipped in place of God, and it has a much further reach than statues or figurines. Idol worship won’t necessarily involve bowing with prayers and the like. In Paul’s day, it also included certain practices, such as sexual activity with a prostitute and eating meals with other worshippers. Today, idol worship is still with us, focused on activities, people or objects, any of which can be a problem if they get in the way of the true worship of God.

Paul continued with an appeal to the Corinthian believers, based on his assessment that they were “reasonable people”. Such a person had the rational and mental ability to follow a line of logic in questions that Paul then put to the believers. If we read the previous chapters, we find that issues had emerged around idols, meals, and sexual morality, and the believers in Corinth had adopted sinful practices based on a false understanding of God’s grace and what He expected of them in their Christian walk. Having addressed these issues, Paul then appealed to these “reasonable people” with several questions. He started by doing what all good pastors do – he pointed the people to Christ. The Corinthians obviously were familiar with the sacrament of sharing in the blood and body of Christ at the Lord’s Table. So his first question was simple: when they blessed the cup containing the communion wine and then drank from it, were they not sharing in Christ’s blood? Similarly, when they each took some bread off a single loaf, were they not sharing in Christ’s body when they ate it?

In a subtle way, Paul introduced the concept of unity between believers. Individual believers might have thought that through the grace of God, what other believers thought of them and their behaviour didn’t really matter. But through the lens of Holy Communion, everything changed. By sharing in the sacrament at the Lord’s Table, they were united, one with another. Such a logic, Paul thought, would surely resonate with these “reasonable people”, meaning that they would set aside their marginally divisive but sinful practices and instead prefer one another in their lives of fellowship. Paul wrote to another fellowship of believers in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

So, for us pilgrims, the Christian life is not to be lived alone. It is, of course, possible to be a Christian without attending any church or fellowship. But, of course, by implication, such a Christian is still part of Christ’s body, and even if they are involved in some sinful practice, God will see what is going on and will be grieved by such behaviour. Being present in a fellowship of believers is an essential requirement for a Christian, whenever possible. There, we believers are accountable to one another in Christ, something that we of course understand because we are “reasonable people”.

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for the unity we believers have with one another, through Your wonderful Son, Jesus. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

Temptation

Posted on 11th Nov 20257th Oct 2025 by korgrocker

“If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”
1 Corinthians 10:12-13 NLT

People who have misinterpreted or misunderstood God’s grace have to face a problem with sin. Believers read 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”, and some of them then think that their sinful behaviour will be ok because God will forgive them anyway. But there are consequences to wrong behaviour. The thief next to Jesus on the cross was forgiven his sins (“today you will be with Me in Paradise”), but his excruciatingly painful death was going to happen anyway. God’s forgiveness wasn’t going to stop the consequences of his sin. No one can assume that salvation brings them immunity from the earthly consequences of their own behaviours.

But Paul moved on to the subject of temptation. We are all tempted in some way. “Just one more cake won’t make any difference” could be the anguished cry of someone trying to lose weight, and the temptation of a muffin on the table before them being too much to resist. Our enemy, the devil, will know our weak spots, and he will always try to cause pain and disruption in a believer’s life. The “surely God didn’t say…” lie still reverberates around the recesses of human minds. But we may find ourselves fearing a situation in which we are unable to resist the temptation before us. Temptation is ubiquitous and experienced by all human beings, believers and non-believers alike; we need to remember that every believer who has ever lived has faced the same temptations that we do. Just because we have confessed our sins and now enjoy the experience of salvation as God’s children, it does not mean that temptations will disappear and no longer bother us.

One Scripture that is always encouraging and helpful is Hebrews 4:14-16, “So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most”. Jesus, the God-man, was able to resist the temptations that we experience. He faced them all as a Jewish boy and young man growing up in Israel, but He did not sin. And so, when faced with temptation of any kind, we can call upon Jesus for His help to resist what is before us.

Paul wrote that “God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand”. He continued, “When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure”. There was a dramatic moment in Joseph’s life that is recorded in Genesis 39. His master, Potiphar, had a wife who was determined to have sex with Joseph, but he resisted even to the extent of running away. Genesis 39:10-11, “She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house”. Joseph escaped, only to find himself back in prison, where we read, “But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favourite with the prison warden” (Genesis 39:21). We pilgrims won’t all experience a Potiphar’s wife situation. But we might be overlooked for promotion in the office, or shunned in the community, all because we resisted the temptations that were arrayed before us.

Sadly, believers everywhere can refuse God’s help in resisting or escaping temptations. The consequences are sinful, and although God will be gracious and merciful in forgiving our sins, the outcomes might not be ideal. What if Joseph had succumbed to Potiphar’s wife’s charms? Genesis 39:9 recorded these words from Joseph, “No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God””. And that’s the thing. If we rebel against God through our sin, we must hurt Him terribly. When God observed the people’s sins on earth in the days of Noah, we read, “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart” (Genesis 6:6).

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:12-13). We will never “show the results of [our] salvation” by continuing to give in to temptation.

Dear Heavenly Father. You are so gracious and kind, and surely Your goodness and mercy pursue us through our daily lives. We pray that You do not lead us into temptation, in the knowledge that You know what’s best for us, and will deliver us from all the evil coming our way. We thank You. Amen.

Standing Strong

Posted on 10th Nov 20257th Oct 2025 by korgrocker

As we review the previous verses and chapters, we find that Paul addressed some false assumptions the Corinthian believers were making. There was much in their culture and society that would be considered sinful, but through God’s grace, the believers somehow wrongly thought that He would overlook their sins if they joined in with certain idolatrous and immoral customs. Paul even wrote about the sins of grumbling and rebellion, such as those committed by the early Israelites on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. However, all of Paul’s exhortations were ultimately addressing the need for the believers in Corinth to be holy and upright, exemplifying right living, and being beacons of light and hope in a dark and evil society.

The believers in Corinth were saved from the consequences of their sin through God’s grace, but that did not mean that God would necessarily leave them alone to continue with their sin-tainted lives and ignore the consequences of their actions. Paul warned the Corinthians that they must not belittle the reality of God’s grace and think that they were “standing strong” when in fact they were in danger of a heavy fall. Through grace, we are saved, but God also wants to purify our lives, using Jesus as our example. Paul said this to the Ephesian church, “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). Whenever I consider the practical reality of God’s grace and holiness, of sin and temptation, I always return to Ephesians 4:22-24. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. We refer back to our baptism, where we left our “old man” under the waters, and adopted the visage of a “new man” and all that entails. We cannot realistically expect to stand firm in our faith, and make assumptions about our status before God, but continue to live in our old, sinful ways.

Some of the believers in the Corinthian church had become supremely confident in their standing before God, but as we know, such confidence can be delusional. Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” It is wrong to assume that salvation brings us immunity from the earthly consequences of our own behaviours. Taken with other comments made by Paul, it also serves as a warning to those who are arrogant or careless about their standing in Christ. If we persist in sinful behaviour, then God, our loving Heavenly Father, will discipline His children. In Hebrews 12:10-11, we read, “For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way”. The reality of living the Christian life is that God will help us deal with any persistent sin. God can and does use various methods of discipline. He may use trouble at work, hardship at home, or troubles in the ministry. God may allow us to experience loss, as David learnt. God may send physical ailments or even death. Often, God allows the natural consequences of our sin to run their course. One thing is certain: God will deal with us with love and kindness. He is never harsh with us. We should note that discipline is not the same as condemnation. God disciplines His children, but He does not condemn them. Discipline is related to training and growth; condemnation is associated with punishment and guilt.

Although some in the Corinthian church thought they were untouchable, standing strong in their understanding of God’s grace, Paul warned them to be careful and realise that there were temptations in their lives that could lead them astray. The same applies to us pilgrims today. We must never become so complacent that we become arrogant. We must continually read the Word, applying its precepts to every facet of our lives, both to ourselves and our relationship with others. And we also pray for God to shine His spotlight on our lives, asking Him to point out to us anything that we need to deal with. “Then [we] will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard [our] hearts and minds as [we] live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

Dear Father God. We pray the same prayer as David did, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24). As we stay close to You, we know that You will guide us in Your ways. Amen.

Examples For Us

Posted on 9th Nov 20259th Nov 2025 by korgrocker

“Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”
1 Corinthians 10:9-11 NLT

Paul listed some additional events that occurred during the journey through the wilderness, a journey that should have taken the Israelites no more than a few weeks at most, but ultimately lasted forty years. It was a journey full of miracles, but also one marked by punishments that God inflicted on an idolatrous, complaining, and grumbling people. Yesterday, we considered the sexual immorality and idol worship. In today’s verses, Paul highlights two more episodes, the first of which can be found in Numbers 21. “Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!” So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died” (Numbers 21:4-6). This time, the sin of the people was one of ingratitude, rebellion, and grumbling. The Lord’s punishment was a plague of poisonous snakes and “many were bitten and died”. Well, it indeed focused their minds, and we read what happened next in the following verses, “Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a bronze snake and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!”

The snake episode was a “type” of what was to come, with Jesus being raised up on the cross at Calvary, and anyone who looked upon Him with a believing heart would be saved, but from a different kind of death. Jesus Himself referred to the Numbers 21 event when He said to Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

The second reference from 1 Corinthians 10:10 pertained to another instance when the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. A man called Korah had initiated a rebellion against Moses. He was a Levite, but it appeared that he possibly desired to be a priest, and we can read the account in Numbers 16. The Lord dealt with rebellion with a terminal solution. The earth opened up, and the three rebellious families and all their belongings disappeared into a big hole, which closed over them after they had gone. But the rest of the Israelites were very upset by this. Numbers 16:41, “But the very next morning the whole community of Israel began muttering again against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have killed the Lord’s people!”” The Lord was going to destroy them all, and he sent a plague that Moses only narrowly averted. Paul believed that the Lord sent an angel of death amongst the people, but the outcome was the same.

Both these examples quoted by Paul in our headline verses today were “written down to warn” all who were grumblers in the Corinthian church, and, by implication, they apply to believers today. We don’t know for sure how the Corinthians reacted to Paul’s message, but we do know how we pilgrims should respond. When we wake up in the morning, do we grumble about anything? We could list many things, but none of them are worthy of a child of God. I once said to a man whom I met early one sunny summer morning, “Nice morning today”, to which he replied, “They’re all nice if you wake up”. Instead of grumbling about the injustices of life, we would do better to thank God for the new day granted to us and get up with a sense of anticipation about what God has in store for the day ahead.

Dear Heavenly Father. None of us knows the day or hour when we will leave this life, but while we are here and alive, we will thank You and praise You for all You have done for us. Please lead us in all that You want us to do today, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Some Of Them Did

Posted on 8th Nov 20253rd Oct 2025 by korgrocker

“Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.”
1 Corinthians 10:5-8 NLT

These verses today are in a section of my Bible entitled “Lessons from Israel’s Idolatry”. Paul was deeply troubled by the news of events unfolding in the Corinthian church. This situation was particularly influenced by the type of society in which the Corinthian believers lived, characterised by its emphasis on idol worship and the flagrant immorality that accompanied it. Part of the problem as well was that some of the Corinthians joined in with the idolatrous meals, eating meat that had been offered to idols, and in the process, upsetting more sensitive Christians who would not touch anything even remotely associated with idols. In Exodus 32, there is the account of the Golden Calf episode, where the Israelites persuaded Aaron to make a calf out of the gold jewellery donated by the people. In Exodus 32:6b, we read, “ … After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry”. Moses was up the mountain, and the Lord told him what was going on in the camp. He said to Moses, “How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt’”” (Exodus 32:8). Idolatry, pure and simple. The punishment was brutal, and we read later on that three thousand idolaters were killed by the Levites. “Moses told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone—even your brothers, friends, and neighbours.” The Levites obeyed Moses’ command, and about 3,000 people died that day” (Exodus 32:7-8). But the retribution didn’t end there, and the last verse in Exodus 32 reads, “Then the Lord sent a great plague upon the people because they had worshipped the calf Aaron had made”.

Paul warned the Corinthians about what would happen if God wasn’t pleased with them because of their idolatry. He implied that death would result, and that they should consider the events in the wilderness all those years ago as a warning. But it was clear that the Corinthians misunderstood what many Christians still misunderstand today. They believed their freedom in Christ—their freedom from following the law of Moses—meant they were free to indulge in sinful desires without fear of consequences from the Lord. But we pilgrims, of course, maintain that we don’t worship idols, picturing a Golden Calf hanging there in our imaginations. But there are many other kinds of idols that we need to be aware of. An idol is anything that takes the place of God, and when we consider that, we find that perhaps we do find objects or even people that we can idolise. A sobering thought for us Christians today.

There is also the issue of sexual immorality, another blight on the Corinthian societal landscape. Paul wrote, “And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did”. And he continued with a warning about the consequences of such a sin, as we read in Numbers 25. The Israelites were in proximity to Moab, and we read in Numbers 25:1, “While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove, some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with local Moabite women”. Summary justice resulted in one wrongdoer being put to death, having been caught in the act, and a plague followed that killed 24,000 people. “ … Phinehas thrust the spear all the way through the man’s body and into the woman’s stomach. So the plague against the Israelites was stopped, but not before 24,000 people had died” (Numbers 25:8-9)—gruesome details but a sombre warning to the Corinthian believers.

So what about us pilgrims today? Idolatry and sexual immorality are two sins that have been a curse for the human race for many years. While it’s true that believers are saved from damnation through faith in Christ by God’s grace, Paul’s message is that believers everywhere must understand that the Lord will discipline them in this life, if necessary. Will that discipline come from plagues or even death? Will an idolatrous or immoral believer suffer an early death? Not necessarily to both these questions, but we should never underestimate the power of God’s justice. God, in His grace and mercy, will award plenty of time before He feels He has to act, and we must never assume that just because God is apparently turning a blind eye to our misdemeanours, that He is ignoring them.

Dear Father in Heaven, thank You for Your grace, mercy and love, limitless and constant. Please forgive us for our waywardness and sins. We pray with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. Amen.

Spiritual Food

Posted on 7th Nov 20253rd Oct 2025 by korgrocker

“I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptised as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that travelled with them, and that rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.”
1 Corinthians 10:1-5 NLT

The Israelite slaves were miraculously fed for forty years with manna, a complete food containing all the nutrients, proteins and carbohydrates necessary to sustain a human being’s life. However, the miracle wasn’t just the food itself; it was the number of meals that God supplied. Think about it – one estimate was that there were two million Israelites, and if they had just one meal per day, that totalled over twenty-nine billion meals supplied for the forty years in which they were travelling in the wilderness. But we blithely read the Scripture passages referring to the supply of manna, verses such as in Exodus 16:4, 14-15, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day, the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. … When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was. And Moses told them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat”, and we never stop to think of this being a miracle.

In Paul’s writings, he referred to the Israelites as having been baptised “as followers of Moses” through the cloud of smoke and the crossing of the Red Sea, and now he referred to them eating the “same spiritual food”. Surely, we think, the “spiritual food” was the manna that had been supplied from Heaven for their physical sustenance. But it was more than that. Imagine being there and waking up in the morning with the thought – Will there be any manna today? And then the feeling of relief to find that there was indeed a supply of the “flaky substance as fine as frost” (Exodus 16:14). But that wasn’t the only miracle, as we read in Exodus 16:16-18, “These are the Lord’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent.” So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed”. God miraculously supplied the needs of the Israelites. However, there is a spiritual element in the supply of manna, because every day they had to exercise their faith that it would be there waiting to be collected, and every day they ate it with thankful hearts. Or perhaps they became a bit complacent and never gave God’s provision a thought, other than to collect it each morning.

We pilgrims, too, have access to a spiritual food, food that nurtures our souls and spirits rather than meeting our physical needs. Jesus was asked to show a physical sign about His authenticity, as we read in John 6:30-31, “They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat’””. Jesus’ response is recorded in the following two verses: “Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world””. But the verses that really upset the Jews came a bit later in John 6:49-51. “Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh””. Cannibalism was all they could see, and that was something anathema to their culture.

Jesus gave us the sacrament of communion, as we read in Matthew 26:26-28, “As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many”. That is our “spiritual food” today, and we honour Jesus by remembering all that He did for us at Calvary. Jesus’ statement about being the bread of life, one of His seven “I Am’s” recorded in John’s Gospel, is pivotal to our lives as followers of Jesus. Daily, we must take into our souls His sustenance of spiritual food. Without it, our spirits will shrivel and die. It may not involve the act of sharing a communion service, but it does affect our faith, as we thank God for every morsel of food that passes into our mouths. And we also feast on His Word, contained in the Bible, spiritual food that sustains us every day.

Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for the rich nourishment contained in Your Word. How can we thank You enough? Amen.

Ancestral Mistakes

Posted on 6th Nov 20253rd Oct 2025 by korgrocker

We all have ancestors, and genealogists try their hardest to source a person’s origins, even analysing DNA to determine where a person came from. Occasionally, a set of bones emerges from the ground or another burial site, and the owner of the remains is tested for DNA, and even their facial features are reconstructed. Their age and manner of death are worked out, and we end up marvelling about what has been found. But none of that determines the state of the person’s soul, something that will continue to be a mystery. Most people can only look back over two or three generations before their ancestors become lost in time. But one thing can be guaranteed, and that is their choices in life would have determined their ultimate home. Ever since Jesus walked this planet, the importance of making the right decision has been apparent. However, for those of our ancestors who never heard about Jesus, there is no escape clause, because we are all made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This means that people will instinctively know right from wrong. Paul wrote, “They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right” (Romans 2:15). Paul also wrote, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God” (Romans 1:20). See also Acts 17:30. Of course, we worship a righteous God who will judge fairly.

Paul reminded the Corinthians that the Israelite slaves followed Moses out of Egypt, and were effectively “baptised” as they passed through the Red Sea on dry land, and were then led through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Paul used the analogy of the cloud and the sea as baptismal indicators, but regardless of that, most of the Israelites did not please God. He was warning the Corinthians that just ticking all the liturgical boxes did not mean that they were then behaving as Christians should. Baptism is all about making a public declaration of faith, a faith that displays the belief that when a person is baptised, their “old man” is left in the baptismal tank, and their “new man” rises up to start their journey as a born-again believer. However, just because a person is baptised does not mean that God will always then be pleased with them. Their subsequent behaviour could be sufficient to make Him displeased, resulting in some form of discipline, because God loves them and wants what is best for them.

The message to us pilgrims is the same. When were we baptised? Are we now growing in the faith day by day, reading our Bibles, praying to our Heavenly Father, witnessing to our friends and families, and anyone else who stops to listen? Are we dealing with sin in our lives through confession and repentance? The Christian walk of faith is not one of grumbling and sin, as displayed by those ancestors long ago in the wilderness. The Israelites had remarkable indicators, miracles performed before their eyes every day, but they still failed to walk in the shadow of God’s provision. As a consequence, most of them failed to enter the promised land that God had prepared for them. The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land should only have taken a few weeks at the most, but our patient God allowed them to wander around the wilderness for four decades, due to their disobedience and lack of faith.

Of course, we pilgrims would claim that had we been with them at the time, then we would have behaved differently, but this would not necessarily be the case. Are we disobedient sometimes? How is our faith in challenging times? Do we grumble too much when things don’t go our way? Of course, we are guilty of such things, but thanks be to God, He forgives all those who come to Him in repentance. He dusts us off when we fall and stands us back on our feet. That’s what we call God’s grace. Through Jesus, we have a Friend and Saviour who, by His Spirit, is with us on our journey through life. And so we are so grateful. We may not have a pillar of fire leading us, but we do have God’s Word and the Holy Spirit.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your grace and mercy, always there, packaged with Your love. We worship You today. Amen.

Run to Win

Posted on 5th Nov 202530th Sep 2025 by korgrocker

“Don’t you realise that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NLT

The Corinthian society was highly competitive, and the ancient Olympic Games were founded in Greece in the eighth century BC. The modern Olympic Games were founded on the same principles and were restarted in 1896. The predominant race in ancient Greece was known for its prowess in running, and Paul used that analogy in the verses we are reading today. But Paul was not suggesting that Christianity was an athletic sport in which there was only one winner. Neither was he implying that there was some competition among individual believers. Instead, Paul was referring only to the effort and dedication exhibited by the athletes: that was what the believer should duplicate in their pursuit of Christ.

The point of participating in a race is to win, and winning takes work. Athletes who hope to be competitive must exercise significant control over themselves in all that they do. This would include not just physical training, but also strict diets, regular sleep schedules, abstaining from harmful substances, and exercising caution in their behaviour. Through it all, they would keep their focus on winning the race and getting the prize: a wreath. At the games in Corinth, a pine wreath was placed on the head of the winner, much like a crown. If Paul were writing this today, he might refer to the gold medal of the modern Olympics.

However, the wreath sought after by the Greek athletes was perishable, Paul wrote. The prize a Christian aspires to win is imperishable; it is eternal. To accomplish that, Paul indicated that considerable human effort was required to win the award. This all sounds logical, particularly to people who are naturally competitive and able to train hard in whatever discipline they choose, be it athletic or something else. But then we stop and think for a moment. We don’t have to strive by human effort to win the prize of eternal life, because Jesus did that for us. The Amplified version of Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, “For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favour drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God; not as a result of [your] works [nor your attempts to keep the Law], so that no one will [be able to] boast or take credit in any way [for his salvation]”. Put simply, it is through faith that we will receive eternal life, and certainly not by our own efforts.

So what is the point that Paul was making, and how does that impact pilgrims like us today? Paul’s metaphor of an athlete in training did not apply to his desire to get to Heaven one day, but instead to the service he was conducting in spreading the Good News about Christ. Paul was totally focused on his mission to see souls saved for the Kingdom of God, and to achieve that, he put his body through much hardship to achieve his goal and win the prize. His efforts for God eclipsed everything else that he did, even at times impacting his basic life needs. He was afraid that his efforts would have been insufficient to win the race and disqualify him from achieving his goal. Paul was a driven man, totally focused on his mission and the goals that it contained.

And so we turn to us pilgrims. What are we focused on? Is there a “race” that we are trying to win for God? And if so, what is our personal race? Many believers do little outside of attending church meetings. There, they have the faith to believe in Jesus, but do little with that faith. In Ephesians 2:10, we read, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. We note that Paul wrote that we are not saved by our good works but saved for good works. So, we pilgrims must ask ourselves about the “good works” that Jesus prepared for us to do. Many Christians work in charities and other organisations to share God’s love with less fortunate fellow citizens. A friend of mine works part-time in his retirement at a food bank, assembling packs for those unable to afford the basics of life. Other people will do what they can to be “salt and light” in their communities. Even others engage in philanthropic acts of kindness, such as what happened to my niece, who was financially supported through college by a benefactor. James wrote, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17), and so it is.

We pilgrims must pray for God’s guidance in the “good works” that we do. It is easy to burden our lives with things that God doesn’t want us to do, with poor results. We have all been granted at least one gift (Matthew 25), and we must use the gifts we have been given for the benefit of the church or fellowship to which we belong, as well as for our neighbours and friends. To ignore our gifts is not an option in the Kingdom of God.

Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for the fullness of life that You have granted us through Jesus. Please guide us in the ways You wish us to follow, and the works of service You have pre-ordained for us. We love You and thank You for Jesus, and for all that He did for us at Calvary. We worship You today. Amen.

Gospel Blessings

Posted on 4th Nov 202529th Sep 2025 by korgrocker

“When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.”
1 Corinthians 9:22-23 NLT

Paul sought to be all things to all people to try to “save some”. Only someone with a strong and secure character could do this, as there is always a risk of becoming attached to the role they assume. For instance, visiting the local pub or wine bar to attract converts carries the danger of alcohol dependency. The human mind has an extraordinary ability to rationalise its way out of situations, justifying all manner of unwise and even sinful behaviour. However, as we noted earlier, Paul was a driven man, devoted to sharing the Gospel—the Good News about Christ—with everyone he met. He did that for their benefit, of course, because he wanted everyone to experience a living relationship with God just as he had found that momentous day on the Damascus Road. But Paul said there were blessings for himself as well.

Responding to the Gospel by believing in Jesus brings numerous blessings. Let’s look at a few of them:

We have the primary benefit of salvation and eternal life. We know the verse from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. This is a blessing that we will not immediately experience in this life, but one day we will be with Jesus in Heaven, blessed beyond even our wildest dreams. Paul wrote in his Philippian epistle, “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live” (Philippians 1:21-24). Paul was drawn to the benefit of leaving this life because by so doing, he would join his Lord and Master, Jesus, in Heaven.

Another blessing we receive from the Gospel is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1:13-14, we read, “And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him”.

When we believe in Jesus and respond to the Gospel through repentance, we achieve right standing before God because Jesus gives us His righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ”. That is truly amazing, that a sinner estranged from a relationship with God can become like Jesus in His eyes, and in the process, join His family as an adopted son or daughter. Ephesians 1:5, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure”.

As human beings, sin is always lurking at the door of our souls, and we strive to keep short accounts with God through repentance when we get things wrong. We may have to repent daily or even more frequently, as the Holy Spirit reveals to us things we do or say that are wrong and ungodly. However, Paul wrote, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death” (Romans 8:1-2).

There are many more blessings, of course, for a believer in Jesus. Paul continually experienced the blessings of the Good News and shared them with those he met at every opportunity. But we pilgrims do as well. We will always encounter people in our daily lives and find opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus with them. Our hearts, empowered by the Holy Spirit, cannot keep all the blessings to ourselves, and like Paul, we share them with the needy and lost in our society. Our wonderful God works through us with words of comfort, grace and love. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life, something that is too important to squirrel away just for our own benefit.

Dear Father God. Please lead us by Your Spirit to those whom You have pre-ordained to hear the Gospel. We thank You for Your grace and love, and pray that You keep us close to You in this sinful world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.