Only Jesus who was without sin could be the sacrifice for all the sins of the world.  Only Jesus makes us right with God while demonstrating the extent of His love for us by allowing himself to be crucified, taking the punishment we all deserve.  Only Jesus can give us this gift of salvation and hope of eternal life!  Only Jesus saves us.  We cannot save ourselves or anyone else.  All praise to God, all gratitude to Jesus, and thanks be to His Holy Spirit who comes to live in us to help us each day as we turn our lives over to Him as an offering of devotion and love.  May His Kingdom dwell in us and be seen all around us.  May His will be done in every detail of our lives here as we prepare for life forever there with Him.  Yes, Only Jesus saves us.

1 Corinthians 1, The Message

The Cross: The Irony of God’s Wisdom

¹⁰ I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.

^11-12 I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”

^13-16 I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.)

¹⁷ God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.

^18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things! —to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

^22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

^26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We still do this today—fight among ourselves, vying for position and rank while God looks down over his children and shakes his head.  But with God is Jesus who advocates for us.  I can almost hear Jesus say, “Give them a bit more time, they’ll eventually get it.”  “As they mature in our love, they will understand the futility of this behavior.”

Listen to the trumpet of Jesus!  Ask God what HE wants.  Pause to listen to Him speak to our yielded hearts who have a desire to trust and obey Him.  When we do, it might look silly to others but it is not “others” we follow with all our hearts, minds, and souls!  It is only Jesus who is the Way, Truth, and Life! Then join the band of believers who blow the horn of God through living in His ways, demonstrating His love, telling HIS story of redemption for others to hear and believe! Blowing the horn of God warns those who have not yet heard or believe that Life, real Life, can be theirs, too!

Jesus at the center!  Most people want Jesus and want to be like Him once they hear the Truth.  But surveys of the church today show that many do not attend because His authentic love is not demonstrated.  Many still love Jesus but are not seeing His love displayed in His church.  It is the infighting, jealous actions, taking sides, hidden financial reporting, or being told to follow certain people and make them look good instead of God, the only One good, that keeps them from coming to learn and grow in His love.  If the church gathering as lost her first love—Jesus—then these are some of the consequences.  See Revelation 2:4-5.

Legend of the Boy and the Snake

(As told by Max Lucado)

An old Cherokee legend tells of a boy who was walking up a mountain when he heard a voice. “Carry me with you,” the voice requested.

The boy turned and saw a rattlesnake. He refused. “If I carry you up the mountain, you will bite me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” the snake assured. “All I need is some help. I am slow and you are fast; please be kind and carry me to the top of the mountain.”

It was against his better judgment, but the boy agreed. He picked up the snake, put him in his shirt, and resumed the journey. When they reached the top, he reached in his shirt to remove the snake and got bit.

He fell to the ground, and the snake slithered away.

“You lied!” the boy cried, “You said you wouldn’t bite me.”

The snake stopped and looked back, “I didn’t lie. You knew who I was when you picked me up.”

We hear the legend and shake our heads. He should have known better, we bemoan. And it’s true. He should have.

And so should we. But don’t we do the same? Don’t we believe the lies of the snake? Don’t we pick up what we should leave alone?

The Corinthian Christians did. One snake after another had hissed his lies in their ears, and they had believed it. How many lies did they believe?  How much time do you have?

The list is long and ugly: sectarianism, disunity, sexual immorality. And that is only the first six chapters.

But 1 Corinthians is more than a list of sins; it is an epistle of patience. Paul initiates the letter by calling these Christians “saints.” He could have called them heretics or hypocrites (and in so many words he does), but not before he calls them saints.

He patiently teaches them about worship, unity, the role of women, and the Lord’s Supper. He writes as if he can see them face-to-face. He is disturbed but not despondent. Angry but not desperate. His driving passion is love. And his treatise on love in chapter 13 remains the greatest essay ever penned.

The letter, however personal, is not just for Corinth. It is for all who have heard the whisper and felt the fangs.

We, like the boy, should have known better. We, like the Corinthians, sometimes need a second chance.

Fortunately, our God, because of Jesus, is the God of second chances.  It is not God’s desire that anyone perish but have life forever with Him! 

Pause, reflect, prayer, and give thanks for all God has provided through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Lord,

Thank you.  I know the words cannot begin to describe my grateful heart, but thank you is a place to begin.  Forgive me when I choose what bites over what is your best.  Help me to love like you love.

In Jesus Name, Amen

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1Corinthians 13:1).