{"id":14450,"date":"2007-07-30T13:58:11","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T13:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2007\/07\/30\/day61\/"},"modified":"2007-07-30T13:58:11","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T13:58:11","slug":"day61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/day61\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond The Packaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. …<\/em><\/p>\n\n

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Character Check<\/strong>\nHow have I focused on my character development in recent years?<\/p>\n \n

In Business Terms<\/strong>\nRecently I heard a marvelous missionary speaker, a woman who had served in the jungles of an equatorial country for almost forty years. She had a somewhat dowdy appearance; she wasn’t dressed in the latest styles. Her hairdo was a little out of fashion, and she was not a particularly polished speaker. She shuffled her notes a few times and looked for a couple of quotes she’d lost in her notebook. She spoke quietly and humbly.<\/p>\n\n

But I was so invigorated and challenged. She told stories of how she and her husband took their small children into jungles where malaria was running rampant, where rivers were infested with crocodiles, where the monsoon rains came down, and where their tiny grass hut, up on twenty-foot pilings of bamboo, was shaking in the wind. The natives they were trying to reach were cannibals who practiced headhunting.<\/p>\n\n

The fact that she wasn’t a polished speaker made her stories and insights from God’s Word all the more brilliant They shined with a kind of unpolished glory. Her speaking was so unmanmade, so divine.<\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, not everyone in the audience was so impressed. It made me wonder, can we not rely on the Word of God or the Spirit of God to enable us to look at somebody through the light of his grace and see character, perseverance, self-control, self-discipline, a desire to obey?<\/p>\n\n

—Joni Eareckson Tada<\/p>\n\n

Something to Think About<\/strong>\nCommon-looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.\n– Abraham Lincoln<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[2087],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[156],"tax_ctp_tags":[3430,3559,3613,3897,3921,4067,4192,4264,4355,4688,5046,5049],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-14450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-joni-eareckson-tada","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-application","tax_ctp_tags-character","tax_ctp_tags-church-leadership","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-experiencing-god","tax_ctp_tags-god","tax_ctp_tags-humility","tax_ctp_tags-integrity","tax_ctp_tags-leadership-training","tax_ctp_tags-preaching","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-formation","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-growth"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nBeyond 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