Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5:8-9.

The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth. Psalm 145:18.

We come to our chapter, 1 Corinthians 1, written by Paul from Ephesus to the church in Corinth. Paul is addressing problems within the church that had been brought to his attention and correction was needed. Remember both Jews and Gentiles are coming into the churches and their experiences of life are vastly different. For the Gentiles, pagan worship is literally everywhere. Sexual promiscuity is normal and for those in power – predatory – and again, normal for that time, and if we’re honest, normal for our time as well. I’m watching the PBS series, The American Revolution. The colonial patriots were writing about and screaming for freedom, an “inalienable right”, while facing the uncomfortable truth that they owned human beings. And both were enslaved. While I was reading the introduction to our book, I had the fleeting thought, so what how the people lived in Corinth, what difference did it make? I brought that thought up short! It matters. Our sins enslave us. Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. v. 1-9. Called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord…and before that time of softening of our hearts, it’s as though we live walled within a place of hardness and not caring about anyone’s pain but our own. In God we are enriched and can see what love truly is. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. v. 10-17. Cephas, of course, is Peter. Apollos is an eloquent Christian Jew who sought to have a following. Paul was not remarkable in his appearance, probably very much not appealing, but his mind led by the Holy Spirit, and his love for God and for the brethren…Wow! For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” v. 18-31.

Think of all the sins and hardness of heart toward God and one another in existence since the beginning of us. We are so busy living our lives unconcerned and ignorant of the reality we live in. And for those in power causing pain and suffering and for those who suffer pain inflicted by those in power – what is our hope? From My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, “God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary – nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied. Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature – the nature of Jesus Christ.” God’s love is so much deeper and wider and all-encompassing than anything we who sin can begin to grasp. That’s why He came. Only in Him and Him working in us can we begin to walk with His help and see how beautiful is His Love given so selflessly for us, His children dearly loved, not to be left unknowing and abandoned in our sins. It cost everything. His Life and our Freedom in Him from sin.