Just One thing: Christ the Crucified
1 Corinthians 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2(AMP) For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.
Introduction: Welcome to another week of Speaking Scriptures as we learn at His feet.
🙏 I pray that His words will fall upon our fertile hearts in Jesus name.
🤔 Seeing what happens in the Body of Christ in this end times as a pastor who also passed through management classes at school and secular work, I want to share my thoughts after reading the resolution of Apostle Paul from our text today.
⚠️ Church founders, leaders and general overseers employ various strategies in attracting souls to be members to their churches. Churches now compete for souls of men into their ministries as they win souls for their churches and NOT to Christ by using management theories such as SWOT Analysis learnt in management class to evaluate a company’s competitive position. Pastors are given targets for the number of souls that must be brought to their churches and NOT Body of Christ thereby Pastors are trained on management theory of SMART analysis to measure goals as souls are brought to church like customers or commodities as it operates in the Business world.
🛑 Scriptures speak as Apostle Paul told the Church at Corinth one thing that should be known as Christians. This is our focal point this week.
1 Corinthians 2:2(AMP) For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.
🛑 In the Church today, just like typical business man in competition with others, we employ ideologically brilliant human wisdom through Philosophers, scholars and world’s brilliant debaters into different denominations for church growth. Even within the same ministry, parishes compete with each other and snatch members of one another to meet targets for souls. All these will end in destruction as it is evidently NOT from the Spirit of God.
👂Hear what Paul told the Church at Corinth
1 Corinthians 1:19-24(NLT) As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy human wisdom and discard their most brilliant ideas.” So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made them all look foolish and has shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save all who believe. God’s way seems foolish to the Jews because they want a sign from heaven to prove it is true. And it is foolish to the Greeks because they believe only what agrees with their own wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended, and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the mighty power of God and the wonderful wisdom of God.
▶️ By implications;
1️⃣ Human wisdom through Philosophers, scholars and world’s brilliant debaters shall turn to foolishness and become useless
2️⃣ God can NEVER be found through human wisdom. Many pastors who disguisedly swim in sin have not found God but got ministerial job in various ministries. It should not be a surprise if they seem to operate like disciples of Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:14(NLT) But I am not surprised! Even Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light.
3️⃣ God uses seemingly foolish preaching about Christ the crucified to Believers for salvation of souls.
4️⃣ The Jews or Israelites want signs from Heaven as a proof, and consider salvation through Christ the crucified as Foolishness.
5️⃣ The Greeks or Gentiles under which other nations fall, can only believe what agrees with human wisdom. They consider Salvation through Christ the crucified as nonsensical
6️⃣ For Believers among the Jews and the Gentiles, Salvation through Christ the crucified is the powerful wisdom of God NOT worldly wisdom.
👂 Hear again as Scriptures speak through Apostle Paul to Galatians Church;
Galatians 3:1-3(AMP) O YOU poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom–right before your very eyes–Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying the Law and doing its works, or was it by hearing [the message of the Gospel] and believing [it]? [Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith?] Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?
▶️ By implications;
🛑 Anyone who started well as Christian through the conviction of the Holy Spirit on salvation message; Christ the crucified, but along the lines starts to depend on the Flesh as a result of human philosophical nonsense rather than faith in God’s word; is foolish, senseless and being bewitched.
🛑 Salvation message in the body of Christ at this end times has shifted to physical approach. People are made to depend on Emblems such as anointed handkerchiefs and oils, or other physical materials as sources of blessing and deliverance rather than God’s undiluted words.
🛑 Once salvation message shifts focus from Christ the crucified, then what will be seen is bragging right claiming to be the only disciple of Christ and the Anointed servant of God that must not be touched or corrected by the Word of God.
🛑 Scriptures speak about ministers that force anyone by whatever means into their doctrines without teaching about the Cross as the ONLY key to Salvation. They make themselves to be God of men and NOT men of God, thereby making their own disciples NOT Christ’s disciples.
Galatians 6:12-15(NLT) Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason. They don’t want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save. And even those who advocate circumcision don’t really keep the whole law. They only want you to be circumcised so they can brag about it and claim you as their disciples. As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world died long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.
🛑 Eternal life is knowing God through Jesus Christ by the work at Calvary. “Christ the Crucified”.
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
✍ Finally brethren, we are ALL work in progress and awaiting results. Knowing Christ and the power of resurrection and living in conformity to the purpose of His death is key to successful Christian life. We MUST be found or die for this purpose of being like Him as we look forward to His appearing in our Christian race.
Philippians 3:7-14 (NLT) I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God’s law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead! I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
✋ Maranatha