Read 1 Corinthians 1:24–28

Let’s return to a subject we thought about earlier this month...the church. Why is it unique? One main reason: it is the church over which Jesus Christ says He rules as Head. He’s in charge.

Not General Motors. Not American Airlines or Google or the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Not the local fire station or local theatre or local police department or city library or county courtroom. Although important and helpful, these cannot claim His headship. Only the church. With all its quirks and faults, it still ranks right up there at the top.

Every Lord’s day the body and the Head meet to celebrate this mysterious union...when ordinary, garden-variety folks like us gather around the preeminent One, who is anything but ordinary! So, why do we get together? For worship. For encouragement. For instruction. For expression. For support. For the carrying out of a God-given role that will never be matched or surpassed on earth—even though it’s the stuff the world around us considers weird and weak. When Christ is preeminent, it’s amazing. Get a load of Paul’s over-the-top evaluation:

Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. (1 Corinthians 1:24–28)

No matter how it may appear to others, if the church is something God has chosen and God is pleased to use, it’s worthy of our whole lives. We are foolish to deny it, and we are wise to embrace it.

Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.

The full devotional can be purchased at https://www.tyndale.com/p/good-morning-lord-can-we-talk/9781414380681.