Rocky Road Devotions

 

Monday, June 6, 2022

When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan.  For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.  I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.  And my message and my preaching were very plain.  Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.  I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.  

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Up to the time Paul came to Corinth he’d had more than his share of difficulties trying to spread the Gospel of Jesus.  It may be that people weren’t interested in hearing more deep thinking about religion and systematic theology of the hypostatic union of Christ.  Paul decided to leave behind all his theology degrees from seminary days with eminent Jewish scholar Gamaliel, and just let the Gospel truth be heard.  And when he trusted God more than Paul, the power of God was unleashed, and the church exploded in growth and impact.

This is a lesson all preachers need to keep on the front burner.  I’m not trashing theological education; I believe it is vital to the discipline of one’s mind and life to study hard, and be accountable to those who have gone before.  That said, the evolution of a preacher demands more and more of heart than head.

The picture of a little girl trying to fix the earth’s crack with bandaids looks ridiculous to any sane adult.  But to those of us who are less sophisticated, we might see only a big heart holding the bandaids…doing what she can to help.  Frankly, that is sometimes the only requirement God is waiting for to start a revolution.  One heart, simply trusting God, and purposfully beginning, is the deep secret of God’s way, hiding in plain sight.

For You Today

If you’ve got a lot of training about God, or anything else, or you’re clever, or got an IQ around 200, how much of that would you be willing to lay aside to speak the plain truth about who Jesus is, and what He did for us all?  That might just be enough to fix the cracks in today’s church.  Jus’ sayin’.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©