For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing
and the power of God for us who are being saved,” (1 Corinthians 1:18-19)
The message of the cross is that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that by believing in Him we might become the righteousness of God (1 Corinthians 5:21). He gets our sin. It is paid for. We get His righteousness, simply by believing Him.
It doesn’t make sense to those who don’t believe. It seems like foolishness.
Throughout Scripture, God asked leaders to do all sorts of foolish things so that His power might be displayed. Some examples:
Moses – heading straight for the Red Sea with an Egyptian army chasing him.
Peter – getting out of a boat to walk on water.
Elijah – building a sacrifice to God on an altar covered in water, with a trench built around it.
Noah – building a boat when the world had never experienced rain.
Abraham – Leaving his home without clear direction of where God was taking him. Also sacrificing the son through whom God had promised descendants.
Joshua – circling a wall, blowing trumpets and shouting so that the wall fell down.
Ananias – going to the house of a known enemy to heal him.
Daniel – defying his government’s law and walking into a lion’s pit.
Rahab – putting a rope outside her window in the middle of a battle so that she and her family would be saved.
Mary – sacrificing her reputation as a good Jewish girl to become mother to the Messiah.
Joseph – marrying a pregnant woman who said she was the mother of God.
God uses the foolish.
God was pleased though the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21). Christ is the power of God; Christ is the wisdom of God.
Leadership sometimes involves decisions that don’t make complete sense to us. Perhaps our passion and our hearts lie with a certain ministry, but God asks us to pull back for a season and remain still outside of ministry. Why would He ask that?
Sometimes an organization seems at the height of new growth, and God orchestrates a change in leadership or provides its leader with heavy burdens that pretty well take one out.
Why would God do that?
We simply have to lean on the Scriptures that tell us He uses the foolish things of the world to shame with wise. He uses the things that don’t make sense to us. And it is often in those very things where His power is at full strength. Leaders are without strength, but God comes with full strength.
I wonder if in those times, His work is for the very purpose of making His power known to us. We see phrased throughout the Old Testament: “Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:6)
The next time you are faced with a situation that doesn’t make sense, ask the Lord to help you walk in faith and to know that He is Lord.
