For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
Wouldn’t that be a tragedy, if, in our preaching, the cross of Christ was made of no effect?
If man’s wisdom can render the Cross of no effect, then what IS this effect of the Cross? …But unto us who are saved it is the power of God… The power and the effect of the Cross is to SAVE. We must understand the power of God exclusively in terms of SALVATION (i). This power comes to whoever truly believes the message of the Cross.
Beginning with justification, when a sinner is instantly justified from their sins by faith in Jesus, this salvation of God will touch everything in the ex-sinner’s life. Saved FROM and TO : FROM sin, the flesh, the world and the devil, UNTO the Kingdom of Christ, TO Him.
We may not be fully aware of it, but as we walk by faith in Jesus, His power will be manifest, according to our faith, to deliver us and save us from sin, the flesh, the world and the devil. I mean, we are not fully aware that HE is unceasingly at work saving and delivering us from everything NOT OF HIM, and preserving us for HIMSELF. He is conforming us to His death, so that we may live with Him in the power of His resurrection.
If we walk by faith in Him, He is constantly renewing our minds and our spirit, by the truth of His Word.
Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Romans 6:3-5
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death… Phil 3:10
I mean, we are not fully aware that HE is unceasingly at work saving and delivering us from everything NOT OF HIM, and preserving us for HIMSELF. He is conforming us to His death, so that we may live with Him in the power of His resurrection.
The issue here is GLORY, His Glory. Sadly, too few of His people grasp this. They associate truth more with a set of rules, than the manifestation of the glory of Jesus : in legal terms, more than in terms of His eternal glory : in reference more to themselves than in reference to Him.
Like, discussing any truth of the scriptures, oftentimes people think in terms of themselves, whether they have an interest in it, and how it affects them, RATHER than understanding that the truth reveals the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
(i) Where there is a “power” manifest, but no salvation from sin, the flesh, the world and the devil, then that is a counterfeit power, and NOT the power of God.
Ian Vincent 
February 28, 2011 at 7:31 pm
“…more than in terms of His eternal glory : in reference more to themselves than in reference to Him.”
The difference is profound. It is critical to life in Him. It is pivotal to not being one of the ones who think we act and do in His Name, and He says He does not know us.