Take a moment to read 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 before reading the devotional below.
The Gospel only makes sense if you are looking for hope. In today’s passage, Paul describes the no-mans’-land where Jesus lives — right between Greek philosophy and Jewish obsession with supernatural proof. If you’re trying to figure it out, you’re doing it wrong. Jesus only makes sense to people who aren’t trying to make everything make sense.
If you are wise, wealthy, or powerful in human terms, you may be wondering why you even need Jesus at all. You can pretty much do life on your own. Much of America is in that place today. We have everything we need and we don’t see why we should give anything up to follow some guy from thousands of years ago. Didn’t he die, anyway? Where’s the proof that he wasn’t just some nice teacher who got a few people fired up? Why are we even still talking about him?
Here’s your freedom for today:
Jesus gives you everything the world can’t.
If you aren’t that important in your job, or no one would think of you as particularly smart, or if you are just looking for some kind of hope to get out of a life you don’t want to live, I’ve got the guy just for you. It’s going to sound ridiculous, but that’s exactly by God’s design. God doesn’t cater to humans or bow to those who think they are great and powerful. Just like the Wizard of Oz, all that is just smoke and mirrors anyway. God wants people who have nothing to brag about but him. “Look what Jesus did for me!” I know a lot of people like that, because I live in a place with a bad reputation. I came here on purpose so that maybe, just maybe, my smarty-pants, self-reliant self wouldn’t miss Jesus when he came by. I cling to the foolishness of Jesus on the cross and a belief that he came back to life and is working in my life today. I hang onto the ridiculousness of the Holy Spirit, who makes me do silly things like cry in weird moments and pray in a language I don’t even understand. All of that makes perfect sense to all those I know who didn’t die from addiction and came to know Jesus. Those who had nothing to lose don’t blink an eye. What about you? Where do you land on defining “wise” and “foolish”? Stop by Lynn, Massachusetts sometime… I’ve got some people I’d love for you to meet.