The foolish message!

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 NLT

The Message of the Cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very Power of God. [19] As the Scriptures say, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent." [20] So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. [21] Since God in His Wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. [22] It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. [23] So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. [24] But to those called by God to Salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. [25] This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

The focus of every believer must ever be on The Cross of Jesus - that is the Power at work in each follower's life....

Does it sound foolish to focus on someone being cruelly betrayed, facing trumped up charges, subject to massive torture and violence, so much so, that someone had to help carry the Cross on which He was to die? Humiliated by hanging naked on that Cross, how can it be the only way to Salvation?

Well, that was God's choice, His price to buy us back and snatch us from the savage jaws of death and damnation.

No amount of human head knowledge can comprehend what Jesus accomplished when He cried out: "It is finished!"

How could it be that One God-man absorbed every vile sin - past, present and future - on that Cross? It sounds nonsensical to human intellect.

So, only by the illumination of God's Holy Spirit can a person "see", "hear" and comprehend it.

Sometimes my nearest and dearest tells me that he hears me speaking, but can't understand the words because his hearing is impaired.

Without the Holy Spirit's intervention, our spiritual hearing is impaired - we read the words, hear the preaching, but it sounds like gibberish.

Prayer:

Father God, please send Your Holy Spirit as I share the Message of the Cross. May these words be illumined and made plain to all who read them.