Grateful Fool?

For Those of us Who Feel Unworthy

1 Corinthians 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

This letter began, “I Paul, invited to be an Apostle, by the foreknowledge of God…”  He did not consider himself to be worthy.  If you doubt that, simply read Romans 7:7-24 or 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.  Paul always felt inadequate for the task he was assigned.  His life journey took him from a prideful Pharisee, to nearly despairing of ever being worthy, to final acceptance of his total unsuitability for the position…BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD.  There are two types of Christians who cause me to shake my head.  One is always frustrated by the flaws and mistakes of others and gives no allowance of their human weakness and is apparently unaware of his own.  The other simply says, “Nobody can live this life so they shouldn’t even try.  God will accept us as we are because we can’t succeed anyway.” 

Both of these attitudes are wrong.  First of all, it is not our responsibility to judge others in their walk with God.  True, we should be teachers and encouragers along life’s road.  Scripture says, “reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (2 Timothy 4:2).  It also says that we ought to be workmen who need not be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).  We are not worthy but we still ought to help one another make it and live as perfectly by His Word as we can and not as we might want.

People who allegorize and rationalize scripture miss one very important part of it.  God wants to be involved in our lives. He wants to make Himself known and real.  The fact that we so rarely see that sort of thing in our lives is due to our attitude and level of surrender and not to His willingness.  The cross of Christ should have GREAT effect.  It should deliver and move us powerfully.  Drug addicts should be set free and those destroyed by the ravages of a life of sin should be raised up.  In other words; the Gospel of Jesus Christ is actually supposed to work without fancy words and fair speeches (Romans 16:18).

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

If you don’t think that most unsaved people think we’re fools or insane, just read the responses they put in the comment sections of most articles on Christian lifestyle.  We Christians appear to come off somewhere between Jack the Ripper and Isis.  They certainly lump us together with the latter and say that all religions are like that.  The actual doctrine of our faith does not matter a bit to their ‘version’ of the truth. 

As I said in the section above, the word of God should flow with the miracle working power of God.  If it does not then our walk with God needs some serious growth.  The Word is pretty specific about what we ought to be able to accomplish in Christ.  “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark 16:16-18).”  I don’t say that taking up serpents or drinking poison is something we are to do as an act of faith, but if it happens we are bitten or accidentally drink such things, we should survive.”

1 Corinthians 1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

People who call us deluded fools are not stupid or unthinking.  If anything they are thinking so much that they are unable to think further than the world around us and into the world that actually created that world.  I suppose they would tell you that they believe in what they can see and not a fairy tale.  The trouble with this literal “what you see is what you get” attitude is that this world which we live in is more empty space than solid reality.  The very atoms that make up your being are mostly empty space.  The only truly ‘real’ part of our makeup is spirit, which is why Jesus says, “We must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24, 14:16-17, 1 John 5:6).” 

The word for truth is aletheia and means the certainty of reality.  We can live and reproduce and create beautiful things and yet the reality of life is beyond what we see and smell and taste and touch.  We are a spirit.  It is the only eternal part of what we are.  It is also why those who become overwhelmed by the difficulties of life and horrors of their treatment by their fellow man do not help themselves by committing suicide.  Death in the service of God leads to life but death in the hopes of escaping judgment leads only to eternal torment.  God’s great gift is eternity and it is also His great curse.  In those who live for Him it is a gift.  In those who live for themselves and live only in this mortal body it is a curse because judgment will never end.

One of the greatest problems mankind faces is anger in the face of wounded feelings.  Many Christians are not well trained or sufficiently disciplined.  If they were then they would not attack those living in sin but would rather comfort them with the words of truth and love and deliverance.  Because we often react in fear – perhaps thinking we ought to protect our God – we hurl insults toward sinners rather than words of love and grace.  Scripture says that grace and truth came from Jesus (John 1:16).  Because we fail to give grace (unmerited favor) to those in sin, they are filled with anger.  This anger drives them into a desire to attack us intellectually. 

These are not stupid people.  They are thinking and reasoning and often have a wisdom of natural things that exceeds our own.  You cannot win them by declaring the anger of God when they cannot even see God.  You must win them with love and grace and truth.  Those attributes will ultimately bring the real changing force of God…power.  The power of God ought to reside in us and flow through us.  If it does not then the fault does not rest in God or the sinners, but in us.

1 Corinthians 1:20 AMP Where is the wise man and the philosopher? Where is the scribe and the scholar? Where is the investigator, the logician and the debater of this present time and age? Has not God shown up the nonsense and the folly of this world’s wisdom?

One of the greatest frustrations of the modern scientists is the discovery of the Big Bang creation of the universe.  Far from being an attack against Christianity it makes you see even more the wonder of God.  Chuck Missler said in one of his teachings, “First there was NOTHING and then it exploded.”  As God says in verse 20, “Where is your wisdom wise man?  How is it that your knowledge ends so quickly scholar?  Can you answer the same questions I asked of Job?  Well??

Psalm 19 says, “1 THE HEAVENS declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork. 2 Day after day pours forth speech, and night after night shows forth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor spoken word from the stars; their voice is not heard. 4 Yet their voice by evidence goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the world. Of the heavens has God made a tent for the sun…”  God declares that the universe displays his handiwork and without words speaks powerful volumes of the greatness of God. 

The end of verse 4 says, “God has made the heavens a tent for our sun.”  We try to say that those who wrote scripture were ignorant savages with no knowledge of the universe around them but in reality they knew more in many areas than a modern scientist.  The writers knew the world was round like a ball.  Later people who ignored scripture thought it to be flat.  We have spent thousands of years relearning knowledge contained in the writings of scripture.  No religion on earth has more scientific truth than the Bible.  In verse 20, God is throwing down the gauntlet and saying, “If you think you’re so smart…prove it to me!”  Christians and Jews should never fear for the honor of God’s word.  He will always perform it (Jeremiah 1:12).

1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Consider a being greater in size and might than the entire known or unknown universe.  He observes the antics of a small backward planet in a corner of a single galaxy that HE created and hears their arrogant statement that “there is no God!”  Since their small, nearsighted myopic vision has so amused Him He has decided to win souls and save them by the simple expedient of having someone tell a story of love.  What a God.  No arrogance.  Just calm assurance of who He is.

It’s not the people who mock God that bother me since God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7).  He made us eternal beings and promised us glory and wonders if we serve Him and live for Him.  What bothers me is those who deliberately lie for the purpose of proving a theory that they KNOW is unprovable, that they hold onto evolution as the holy grail of their religion.  They accuse us of this all the time and while much of what we believe must be understood by faith, most of it is provably scientifically accurate.  This is more than can be proved in many of Science’s claims.

For this reason, God has not chosen to argue or greatly dispute with the world, but to offer in as simple a manner as possible His grace and love.  Come who will, God is offering His heart and strength to any who will trust, believe and obey.  It’s not our responsibility as Christians to defend God’s Word.  It is our responsibility to live it, model it and tell it to the world.  It is God’s business to empower it and bring it to pass.  What a marvelous division of labor.

1 Corinthians 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

The requested questions in verse 22 are, “Lord, show us a miracle and we will believe,” or “Lord, explain your rationale for what you have done and why and we will believe.”  His answer is, “Thus saith the Lord.”  His examples were the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as seen by hundreds of witnesses.  The reaction of others is, “That was then, show me now,” and “Why blood, why propitiation, why sanctification?  Just tell me how everything works.”

Instead of that answer He replies, “It works because I sent my Word and Spirit and they make it work (Psalm 107:20).  It works because I sent my love and that is why it works (John 5:38-39).  It works because I am the Lord thy God and that is why it works.  It works because it cannot help but work.  My Word Works. 

1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

I’ve spent a day thinking about this verse.  The foolishness of God is wiser than men…period.  The weakness of God is stronger than men…period.  The word for foolishness is “moros” from which we get moron, idiot, stupid.  I have a problem with the idea that God should have a moment of stupidity.  God is not smart, or dumb, or brilliant, or clever.  GOD IS.  We consider a scientist to be brilliant if he is able to figure out how atoms work or how to make a GPS understand where we are on the earth, but God knows where every atom is and how it interacts with every other atom in the universe.  Is He smarter or does He simply know everything? 

He has no age because He is outside of time.  His brilliance is absolute because there is no knowledge that did not come from Him.  Did He calculate the gravitational field of each planet and star or is it just in Him to know.  Does God have a foolish side.  Perhaps that is why there are platypuses, giraffes and mankind.  God just had a moment of whimsy.  The point is that God is greater than any thought we ever might have.  We cannot outgrow Him or become more advanced or smarter than Him.  Scripture says that in the end time the kings of the earth will make war on God (Revelation 19:19-20).  Is it possible that they will believe they have found a way to destroy Him or are they just seeking Israel’s destruction? 

My point is, God is waiting on them to do their worst.  He is already there, at the time, date and place of this great battle.  HE has already fought it in OUR future.  There is no thought you can have that He does not already know.  There is no idea you can come up with but that it came from Him.  There is no hope without Him and no future if He does not allow it.  This is the great God we serve and we do not need to protect Him from any spirit or natural person.  He knows altogether.

1 Corinthians 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

First God says that he uses the foolish things of the world and the weak things of the world to confound the wise and then in verse 26 it says that the CALLED (that would be us saved people) are those who are foolish and not noble.  God didn’t call us because we were so noble or righteous or strong.  God called us because we were weak but willing, foolish but faithful.  We should never think more highly of ourselves than we ought to.  We are not the blue bloods of aristocracy but the blue collar workers of the spiritual universe.  God uses us and loves us because we are absolutely without merit apart from His desire to bestow His love and grace upon us.  We call a dog with several different breeds in it a mutt.  We are the mutts of the world, perhaps of the universe.  We can be loveable or vicious.  The choice is ours and the answer is His.

1 Corinthians 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

We often forget that God is so HOLY and POWERFUL that in our absolute best we are filthy prideful weaklings.  From the most powerful king or potentate to the poorest slave on the planet, none are worthy of God and His love.  For this reason God has chosen to reach those kings and potentates with a word from someone God has emptied of all their worldly value and filled them with His power and ability.  When the two witnesses come and men try many times to kill them they will walk unopposed until the moment that GOD has chosen to allow their death.  The whole earth will rejoice at their temporary destruction (Revelation 11:3-12).  These two witnesses are only ordinary souls but in the kingdom of God they are extraordinary, unstoppable and miraculous.

1 Corinthians 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

We in Christ are rarely the most highly taught or educated.  We study scripture and believe it’s words.  No man or woman can know or fully understand all of God’s Word.  The greatest scholars have barely scratched the surface of its wonder.  God does not choose to keep us ignorant though.  Just the opposite.  He tells us to study to show ourselves as a workman, proved by action and power to serve the kingdom of God.  It is not so much as a lack of desire to fully know God’s Word as it is a lack of ability.  His Word is perfect, flawless and alive.  His Word is light and life and the names of all who die in Christ are written therein.  If you can fully know and understand God then you can fully know and understand His Word. 

No, God does not want us ignorant (Romans 1:13, 1 Corinthians 12:1, 1 Thessalonians 4:13), but He is fully aware that we are unable to live by His Word without mistake.  When we stumble along at our very best and if all things work together for our good it is because He has made it so (Romans 8:28).  Have you ever seen preachers or Christians patting themselves on the back for their holiness and goodness?  Thankfully I have not seen it very often.  I’ve had people tell me, “You’re humble,” as if it is a curse for a Christian minister to be humble.  Perhaps I should wave my title around and see if anyone will fall prostrate on the ground before me.  Probably not the best idea because I can mess up with the best of them.

1 Corinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

I have more than a few times received a check from someone totally unexpected at the exact moment when I really needed a financial blessing.  I very rarely ask anyone for financial help.  It’s not that there aren’t those who would be willing to help me or bless me but because if I look to others for that help then where will God come in.  When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were attacked and defeated, and with them Lot, Abraham went to their defense (Genesis 14).  With three hundred eighteen warriors of his own house he defeated the kings that had defeated the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah.  What a marvelous display of faith.

When he came back with all the wealth of those two cities, the priest king of Salem (JeruSALEM) Melchizedek, came out with bread and wine and Abraham paid tithes to him.  After this, the king of Sodom came to Abraham and said, “Give us the living people you have rescued and keep all the wealth of Sodom for yourself.”  Abraham’s statement reminds me that my wealth or lack of it comes from God and not man.  He told the king of Sodom, “I won’t even take so much as a single thread of a single shoelace.  I will not have anyone say that a man made Abraham rich, but God only (Genesis 14:23).  He allowed his men who fought for him to receive their portion, but would not touch it himself.

GOD IS our righteousness and sanctification and wisdom and redemption.  Without Him I am a blind beggar without future or hope.  Christ’s blood gives me redemption and righteousness before God.  His Word sanctifies me and gives me wisdom.  With these things in my life, I can do all things.  As is often sung in the old gospel song, “Without Him, I can do nothing.  Without Him, I would fail.  Without Him, I would be drifting; like a ship…without…a sail.”  People who always say, “I need,” or “give me” will never discover the joy of God truly becoming their portion.  Do you need money?  God is your portion.  Do you need hope?  God is your portion.  Do you need anything at all?  God is your portion.  When Moses asked God, “Who shall I say sent me?”  God said, “I AM.”  I AM your portion.  If you want to brag or strut or talk big, brag about God.  Tell everyone, “My God is bigger than your God.  My God is better than your God.  My God is badder than your God!  My God can beat your God up!”  Strut that!

1 Corinthians 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

I could have kept these two verses separate but I decided at the last moment to put them together.  What is it that makes a religion?  People worship animals or planets or suns or other inanimate things.  They have no life within themselves.  They are props for this life we live and that is all.  Personally, there are three things that really keep me serving God.  The first is a future.  If I died tomorrow and my life just ended then what does it matter how I live this life.  Paul said, “If there is no salvation to be had, no eternal life, then we Christians of all men are the most miserable (1 Corinthians 15:19). 

Who wants to live holy and righteous and always do the right thing even when it hurts?  This is a fallen world.  The greatest fun you can do in these bodies is to live as many do, in sin.  It’s not that some wouldn’t choose to live lives of nobility and love even without God, but not many would.  The truth is, only God gives us a true reason for the way we live and that we are willing to give our lives to live this way.  Scripture says in many places that sacrificing ones self  for the common good is not a natural inclination, but a spiritual one.  The echo of Christ’s sacrifice for us touches the whole earth and is birthed in many hearts, not just the born again.  Satan’s heart is to kill steal and destroy (John 10:10).  God on the other hand so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so nobody had to perish. 

The second thing that keeps me serving God is prophecy.  God’s word contains thousands of prophecies.  Most have come true and we are not talking about some misjudged action that was not adequately and correctly interpreted.  We are talking about things that could not have come to pass with even a billion to one odds but coming to pass with advance notice.  We’re talking about a God outside of time telling us things that would happen in time but telling us ahead of the time.  This happens with great regularity in scripture and if you listen to His Spirit, in life as well (John 16:13). 

The third thing and the main reason that I came to know the Lord was not for salvation or even for prophecy, though those things have kept me.  The main reason I came to the Lord is that I wanted a better life.  Satan does not promise it.  Man cannot offer it.  We are too greedy, too apt to squabble amongst ourselves and too ready to step on one another to secure our own future.  Those who might have some altruistic attitudes and try to help others often turn bitter and angry when those attitudes are not reciprocated.  None of these things matter to the saints of God (or should not).  We do what we do for Him, not for ourselves.  In return He promises us a great future, either here or in the hereafter.  That was the main reason I came to God, for a life of faith and wonder.

1 Corinthians 2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

Knowing these things, that God desires to live in us and make us strong, powerful, anointed and life changing through our words to others, we are often terrified of failing HIM.  That we fail ourselves is a often daily occurrence.  That we might fail Him is no less frequent an occurrence.  Paul knew the Hebrew scriptures backwards and forwards.  He had it down. Me, like Peter I have a degree in the university of life.  I love God.  I study His Word daily.  I pray about it, agonize over it and grieve for the many hours I wasted when I might have been studying.  PAUL KNEW THE SCRIPTURES!  He knew them and still approached his ministry in weakness, fear and much trembling.

The word for weakness is astheneia and means to be feeble (think elderly or sick almost to death).  Fear is phobos and means the terror of a thing and in this case the thing would be failure.  Paul was terrified he might fail God.  Fear is tromos which means the absolute fear that causes you to shake and tremble.  It is vast dread that you are not good enough.  These are the things that Paul felt in preaching to the church in Corinth.  He absolutely KNEW he was unworthy for the honor and use that God had chosen for his life.  When he was with them they did not see a cocky and arrogant man in complete control.  Paul had one thing going for him though.  He preached the truth and it NEVER failed.

1 Corinthians 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

I’ve heard preachers preach musically, rhythmically, passionately and with rhyming words.  Paul said he did not speak that way.  This thing he knew; that when he spoke the words and turned them loose on his audience…that audience would never be the same.  Those words were living and powerful and sharper than any two edged Roman sword. 

Our faith cannot stand in the wisdom of men. 

The wisdom of men has men worshipping ancestors, the wisdom of men has you worship beasts and planets.  The wisdom of men will even have you worship NOTHING AT ALL. 

Worship God in the power of His Word and in that alone.  Do not follow fables or imaginative lies.  Follow the truth and the truth will make you free.