I'll cling to the old rugged cross

Good morning brothers and sisters,
Paul explains here how God uses the cross and regular people to show the world God's love and power. Sometimes we worry that we aren't big enough or wise enough, we worry that we don't have the resources we need for ministry. The truth is that God uses our weakness in ministry as much as our strengths. We don't have what we need for ministry in ourselves, but when we lean on God we have everything we need. Sometimes the church strives for human wisdom, and sometimes we're uncomfortable with the stark and ancient story about the cross. The cross doesn't make sense to everyone, and sometimes we struggle with that.

The cross breaks all our pride because God didn't come into the world with obvious power. Jesus didn't make the wealthy and important his priority. Instead he gathered a diverse band of misfits and working people and went with them to the cross. All the money and programs and capital campaigns can't save us from sin and selfishness: only Christ and his cross can do that. The message we take into the world is about a radical, loving God who went to death for us. That message may not play well in beautiful academic buildings, but it has been reaching people, especially people who know suffering, for almost two thousand years. When we trust in Christ and proclaim his cross, God can do incredible things through us.

God bless,
Sam

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

18For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." 20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.


26Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."