“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

If we are going to be in a relationship with God, it is going to be on His terms, not ours.  In spite of our sinful nature, we naturally recognize that there is something wrong with the world; something wrong with us.  This is the result of our being created in God’s image along with the echoes of eternity still ringing in our hearts.  

Because of this recognition, people, over the centuries of human history, have taken various steps to fix the problem.  This is part of where religion has always come from.  Even the great atheist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries have, at their core, been attempts to fix what is broken inside of us.

The one thing all of these various movements have had in common is that they all depended upon us.  We had to do this or that and do it right and just maybe we could be at peace.  The approaches may have varied from one another in style, even wildly, but this one theme has been consistent.  It was consistent and it gradually became a part of the common wisdom of humanity.  It can be summed up like this:  We can fix what’s wrong with us if only we will try hard enough and commit enough of our resources (time, talents, and treasures) to the effort.  Disney usually phrases it, “Follow your heart!”

Then came along Jesus, who started a movement proclaiming the exact opposite.  The heart of the Gospel agrees with that nagging sense in all of us that something is wrong, but the solution it offers is the reverse of the world’s wisdom.  The Gospel says, yes, something is wrong, but the only way to fix it is to give over your life to someone else and receive the solution He already worked out without even a drop of help from you.

The Gospel says: If you will by faith entrust your life into the hands of someone else, the demonstration of which is that you begin serving the broken, empowering the weak, resourcing the poor, sacrificing for the hungry, loving the stranger, and so on, you will know the wholeness you seek.

For a world accustomed to solutions rooted in our own effort and in which the strongest and smartest and wisest and wealthiest are celebrated as the ones who are closest to the answer, this is a slap in the face.  It is crazy.  It is offensive.  It is even stupid.  But then we try it when we are sufficiently broken and find that it is totally true.

For the folks who do, they begin boasting in a power that does not come from them.  They boast of their weakness and the sufficiency of Christ.  They boast of being humbled and of not having enough on their own.  They boast of a God who is capable to fix their brokenness and who, more than that, is willing to do it.  This is a God worth knowing.  This is a solution worth receiving.  This is a life worth living.