DAY #246: 1 Corinthians 1:14-2:5

Believers are not baptized “into” different preachers—they are baptized into the family of believers. Baptism replaced circumcision as the initiation rite of the new order, the new covenant. Christians need only “one baptism” by which they publicly acknowledge their one faith in one Lord. Baptism is a key unifying factor in the church.

Paul preached the message of the cross—Jesus Christ crucified on behalf of sinners. Such a message always has two results, for ultimately all of humanity will end up in one of these two classes. (1) The gospel message sounds foolish to those who desire worldly wisdom. (2) But for those who are being saved, the gospel message is the very power of God. Only with such power can the gospel message redeem sinful people and transform them into God’s people.

God’s way of thinking is not like the world’s way. Human wisdom and brilliant ideas refer to world-centered wisdom and intelligence. These are not wrong, but they are worthless as a means of salvation. People can spend a lifetime accumulating human wisdom and yet never learn how to have a personal relationship with God. They must come to the crucified and risen Christ to receive eternal life and the joy of a personal relationship with the Savior.

This looks like absurdity to the “high and mighty” of this world. Many people of Paul’s time, and many today, mocked the message of the gospel. In their human wisdom, they wanted to reason “above and beyond” and experience more than what they felt was offered in the foolish preaching of believers. In reality, the worldly wise will not find God; those who accept the message of the cross will find him and be saved.

Many Jews considered the Good News of Jesus Christ to be foolish because they thought the Messiah would be a conquering king who would give This proclamation of Christ crucified offended them.

While some Jews and Greek tripped over the message, it was a different story for those called by God to salvation—those who embraced and believed the gospel. Many people, both Jews and Gentiles, will not stumble over the message but will find that it is the mighty power of God and the wonderful wisdom of God.

God chose the foolish and the weak, things despised by the world, so that those chosen can never boast in the presence of God. God chooses those who are counted as nothing at all by the world and turns them into great people for him. People’s abilities, social standing, or knowledge have nothing to do with God’s choice. Skill and wisdom do not get a person into God’s Kingdom—faith in Christ does—so no one can boast that his or her achievements helped him or her secure eternal life.

SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)

Galatians 6:14 (NKJV) says, "But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

You don't have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things.

If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don't have to have a high IQ or EQ; you don't have to have to have good looks or riches; you don't have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.

There are so many today in the church that just don't care whether they make a lasting difference for something great, they just want people to like them. If people would just like them, they would be satisfied.

Of if they could just have good job with a good wife and a couple good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and quick and easy death and no hell - if they could have that (minus God) - they would be satisfied. THAT is a tragedy in the making.

I am pleading with you today - Don't waste your life. It is so short and so precious. John Piper grew up in a home where his father spent himself as an evangelist to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. He had one consuming vision: Preach the gospel. There was a plaque in his kitchen for all his growing up years. Now it hangs in his living room. Piper says he has looked at that plaque almost daily for about 50 years. It says, "Only one life, twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last."

I plead with you today: Want your lives to count for something great and for eternity. Want this. Don't coast through life without a passion.

Isaiah 26:8 says - "Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts." Here is not just a body but a soul. Here is not just a soul, but a soul with a passion and a desire. Here is not just a desire for being liked. Here is a desire for something infinitely great, and infinitely beautiful, and infinitely valuable and infinitely satisfying - The name and the glory of God. Would you make that your passion today?