31 Days of UnitySample

(Re)new: Scripture often highlights the contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. The Apostle Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 in 1 Corinthians 1:19 saying, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Paul goes so far as to say that God’s wisdom seems as foolishness to the world. Things that make sense according to the wisdom of God won’t make sense to the world around us.

Ephesians 2 celebrates the wisdom of God, which uses grace as the means of transforming a people for God’s purposes. The wisdom of God reveals that freedom is accomplished through forgiveness. Healing our broken world is best done through unmerited grace. This wisdom results in not only in our individual forgiveness and salvation but in the formation of a whole community of transformed people ready to do the work of God. Grace is a transforming power hidden from the wisdom of this world.

The world's wisdom believes the best way to shape and motivate people to accomplish a goal is through fear, anger, and selfish motives. Utilizing these tools, we can see how people have built and consolidated political power, built vast empires of wealth, and leveraged the attention of others for their own self-aggrandizement. Unfortunately, we can see how often the church too has relied on fear, anger, selfishness, political power, wealth, and celebrity to try and accomplish the work of God. We have often opted out of God’s wisdom, deciding we know a better way to carry out the mission of God’s kingdom.

The results are, quite frankly, horrifying. The church is known for its division, hatred, power-seeking, and support of violence. Whatever happened to being “created in Christ Jesus to do good works”? We must recover the centrality of God’s wisdom if we are to change the ways in which the world sees the church. The power of the church is deeply diminished when our tactics and practices look just like everyone else’s. What hidden power is revealed through power over others? What new work of God is revealed as we motivate people through fear and anger?

The only path forward to renewal of the church is a path of grace. It is through grace we have been saved and it is through grace that we can do the good work God has prepared for us. Grace is the wisdom of God, and it is time for us to surrender our own wisdom and embrace God’s.

After you read the passage, ask yourself these questions:

• When did you first discover the grace of God?
• When in your life have you extended the grace of God to others?
• What would a community of grace look like? How would it be different than what we see in the world around us?
• Where is God revealing to you the ways in which you are choosing the wisdom of the world instead of the wisdom of God?

Our Prayer for (Re)newal

Create in us clean hearts, O God, that we may learn to be your people, and live in unity with one another. Give us the gift of humility, and strengthen us to live in sacrificial love for one another. May we glorify you by being peacemakers in a world of division. Amen