Scripture: “And I, when I came to you brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
For I DECIDED to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” 1 Cor 2:1-2
Observation: A firm word is uttered by Paul. “I DECIDED.” He made a choice to limit his words. Do I?
Analysis: Answer: sometimes.
It depends on the situation and my own attitude for the day. Sometimes (a lot of times) I run off at the mouth, demonstrating that I know a lot of stuff. Give me a subject and I will try to bend an ear off for an hour or so. Ask my wife, we go to the emergency room often to get her ear reattached.
Earlier in my Walk, I looked at everything that was current in Christianity and tried to absorb the knowledge, if not the practice. It made me full of eclectic knowledge…and was useless for just about everything church related.
At some point I concluded that this haphazard, follow the current wind approach wasn’t working—no, not quite—it DOESN’T work. All it did was made me a windbag, full of hot air.
Paul gives me a clue, a direction: “I decided to know nothing, but Christ crucified.” He didn’t describe any of the “eye-candy” of the time like: “I decided to know nothing, but the love of Christ”, or, “I decided to know nothing but the Spirit of Christ”, or prosperity, charisma, or church polity, etc. etc.
What did I find? That in Christ crucified, exemplified in the Cross, all of these “subjects” fit in a certain way. Like an artificial Christmas tree where I put the branches in the proper hole on the trunk, everything has a place, a proper place, and the tree (the Cross) is beautiful. I use the metaphor of the Jewel to likewise represent the Gospel.
The purpose of today’s post for me is to remember the crux of the Faith: The Cross; the crucified Son; the Atonement for my sin and the sin of the world.
I may offend some folks along the way…Ok, the Word says that message of the Cross is foolishness and an offense to some…can’t be helped, I suppose. It is an intrinsic by-product.
I decide daily to lay down my life, including my thoughts, to the foot of the Cross, in order to take my thoughts captive and to renew my mind.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, big subject, small and ineffective words. What I wrote above is peanuts to the power of the Cross. Please make this attitude grow and become effective for you. AMEN.