Father, I pray that moving our time earlier in the day will help me – a fresher mind and body will be great assets in the work! Use me as You will!

1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (<<click here to read the passage)

Have you ever heard of Lee Strobel? He was an investigative journalist for several newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune through the 1970s into the early 80s. He was a self-proclaimed atheist…and then his wife – in response to a “persuasive” neighbor – got talked into going to church. Through that experience, she accepted Christ as her Savior.

Lee was none too happy about that. He had concluded that the best way to live his life was as a hedonist. “Just pursue pleasure, this is all you get in this world. So, that was my number one goal in life,” says Strobel, “to bring maximum pleasure into my life. And so I lived a very immoral, and drunken, and profane, and narcissistic, really self-destructive kind of a life. That was my life.” (https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/case-for-christ/)

So, the decision on her part turned his world upside down. He decided the best way to get things back to “normal” was to go with her and, through his own research, show that it was a whole bunch of nothing.

Well, that is not how things turned out. Strobel, through his research, proved to himself, that Jesus was the real deal and after a year and nine months, gave his life to Christ as well. He published his story in a book entitled, The Case for Christ, in 1998. The Case for Christ was made into a movie in 2017. (They are both excellent! Click on the titles for links.)

In the 18th verse of chapter one, the Apostle Paul states,

For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God. AMP

First, just because we are “foolish” doesn’t mean that God wants us to stay that way. He is always in pursuit of us because He loves us so. His greatest desire is for us to love Him, as well.

Second, it is not always up to a “professional” Christian – a pastor or evangelist – to usher others into the presence of Christ. In the Strobels’ lives a neighbor, by the name of Linda (Alfie in the movie), reached out to and loved Lee’s wife, Leslie. She invited her to come to church with her and God took it from there!

Many in the world around us might think that the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] because they don’t understand it. God is in the business of opening the doors and windows of our minds, calling us to Himself – turning foolishness into power!

Sept 27th, 2023, Wed, 12:48 pm