Good morning,
God’s foolish plan
How often have you fallen into the “prove it” trap? The world around us has decided that the only reliable truth that we can believe, has been discovered and proven by highly trained experts who “really” know what they are doing. What we keep forgetting is that our enemy, the Devil, knows the Bible well enough to use what God says against us. For instance, Hebrews 11:6 tells us - it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. God’s standard is belief, not proof. We need to keep remembering that God wanted the whole world, friend or foe, to be able to read his truth. We also need to remember what Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:18 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. What our enemy has done is to convince his world that if anyone believe something that they can’t prove by the world’s standards, then those who believe the idea are just fools with another empty theory. The God who created us, the God who loves us, the God who longs to spend eternity with us in his heaven tells us that, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”(v.19) Do we have the right to ignore these sincere and brilliant people?
Paul’s challenge was, So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense.(v.23) It helps to remember that at one time Saul/Paul was considered one of the brightest of his time, yet he came to understand and live out, 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.(v.25) Paul, like Jesus, was constantly confronted by “experts” and religious teachers who hated what he was teaching and was punished and accused of lying and hating them because he based his truth on the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. His enemies considered Jesus a carpenter from a bad town in a bad part of their land who was just fooling a lot of people. What Paul knew and lived out was the truth that God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.(v.27) So where does that leave us? People will often have a list of questions about some part of scripture that doesn’t seem to have an answer to see if they can corner us in a trap that proves that you can’t understand and believe the Bible. Paul and D.L.Moody and Billy Graham and ordinary people can all go back to the truth when we say “That’s what the Bible says and that’s what I believe.” If we are genuine children of God, and are learning to know and believe what God has told and taught us, God’s Holy Spirit will give us the love and wisdom we need to defend God’s truth without being shamed or trapped by those who can not possibly understand what only God’s children can know.
1 Corinthians 1:18 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.
Roy Wisner
