Several years ago, the dazed crew members of a Japanese trawler were plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. Every single one of them claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes. Impossible!
They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily taken off for home. Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Some things sound foolish, but turn out to be true. That includes much of what we believe as Christians. "You believe that God somehow caused a virgin to bear a child, a boy who was fully man and yet fully God? You believe that he actually raised people from the dead and walked on water and fed thousands of people with a plateful of food? You believe that, after being crucified and buried, he somehow managed to raise himself from the dead?"
To many people it sounds too foolish to be believed. But it's all true!"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God....For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.....Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (I Cor. 1:18,21,25)
Verses
1 Corinthians 15:57
So let us thank God for giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 18:21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her;
Mark 11:24
I therefore say to you: Whatever you ask in prayer will be yours, if you will only hold the firm belief that you will receive it.
Philippians 4:19
My God will abundantly and gloriously provide for all your needs, according to His boundless wealth, in Christ Jesus.
Prayer
Jesus, You are life’s greatest Treasure as You emptied Yourself of equality with God and chose to be made in human likeness taking on the very nature of a servant. Thank You for coming to us and meeting our most critical need of salvation. May we not be fearful but openly voice Your presence in the public square even as great hosts of angels proclaimed Your earthly arrival in Bethlehem. Your salvation message brings hope to the hopeless, strength to the weak, and release for those help captive in the ravages of sin’s wasteland. You did not descend to earth in order to conquer or enslave, but to draw the hearts of humankind to Yourself through the incredible sacrificial love that poured forth from Your body on the cross of Calvary. What personal wondrous love is this! Amen.
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