Proverbs 23:9

Don’t waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice.

It is so tempting and easy, and pointless, to argue with people who have no intention of listening to you.

Luke 10:13-15

Some people we may think evil or immoral will actually receive less judgment than those who are seemingly pious, yet in their hearts, reject God thru Jesus.

It seems Jesus is saying that the more that is revealed to you, the more that is expected of you.  Or something like that.  The more of the truth of Christ you hear, the more opportunity you are given to turn to Him, and the more you reject Him and His offer…the worse it will be for you.

Perhaps here He is answering, to some degree at least, that very common question–“What about people on a remote island who have never heard the name ‘Jesus’?”

Proverbs 22:10

Throw out the mocker, and fighting goes too.  Quarrels and insults will disappear.

Just one troublemaker can wreck the unity of an entire family, group, or church.  As someone observed of our ministry, “The Ripple Effect is for everybody, but it’s not for anybody.”  Some are not ready to receive the Spirit.   Some are not ready to give to others. Some are not ready to surrender.  Some are not ready to be called out on their stuff or to pursue God with their whole self.  

I love the tension and mystery in this Michael Scott quote from The Office:

This is a place of welcoming, so you should just get the hell out of here!

Sometimes we need to say that in order to keep it a place of welcoming, I guess…

Luke 9:62

One needed to keep one’s eyes on the path of the plow to keep its furrow from becoming crooked.

Watching and praying on a daily, consistent basis is how we keep from veering off that one degree that will take us horrendously off course down the road.

Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor.

Pursues.

A wise friend told me that life is about doing a few simple things consistently over a long period of time.

A long obedience in the same direction.

Pursues.

Do a couple of things everyday over the long haul, and you will reap wonderful benefits.

Pursue.

Read Scripture everyday.

Pray alone everyday.

Encourage someone everyday.

Check in with a spiritual partner everyday.

Thank God for three things everyday.

You know, things like that…

Pursue.

If you don’t program your mind, the world will gladly do it for you.

Luke 8:15

The seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who will hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a large harvest.

Cling to it.

Without clinging to God and His word for your source of strength, you will not produce a huge harvest.  Your spiritual influence on others is directly proportional to your measure of clinging to God.  Your quality of life is related to your level of surrender.

Cling to it.

Cling to Him.

Hear with a good heart.

Cling.

Patiently produce.

Luke 7:48

“Your sins are forgiven.”

All your wrongs are completely pardoned, restoring intimate relationship with our Maker…

IF you confess & turn away from them. Not meaning you will never slip up in the flesh, but you have truly turned away from what damages relationship.

Do you live in this freedom?

Or do you still live as though you must pay?

Living in guilt toward God is your own fault, not His, not anybody else’s.

Tell Him about it, be done with it, & He does not hold it against you.  Usually we hold it against us.

Usually we hold it against us.

Proverbs 20:27

The LORD’s light penetrates the human spirit, exposing every hidden motive.

Motives.

They are what drive us.  They are related to desire.  What we really want in the hidden recesses of our heart.  This propels us day to day, making the choices we make.  We may not even know our own deep motives ourselves.

But God does.

And when we open to Him, and converse candidly with Him without pretense, He sheds His light on us that we may see who we really are.  We find out what is actually driving us.

Most of us do not go to these hidden places where God wants to meets us and heal us.  Teresa of Avila wrote about this via the metaphor of our soul as a castle, The Interior Castle.   She envisioned it made entirely out of diamond or clear crystal, something very precious, and having many rooms.  Most seem content to hang around the outside of the castle, in the courtyard focused on “external matters”, but never entering.

The door of entry to this castle is prayer and reflection.

Not long ago a very learned man told me that souls who do not practice prayer are like people with paralyzed or crippled bodies; even though they have hands and feet they cannot give orders to these hands and feet.  Thus there are souls so ill and so accustomed to being involved in external matters that there is no remedy, nor does it seem they can enter within themselves.  They are now so use to dealing with the insects and vermin that are in the wall surrounding the castle that they have become almost like them.  And though they have so rich a nature and the power to converse with none other but God, there is no remedy.  If these souls do not strive to understand and cure their great misery, they will be changed into statues of salt, unable to turn their heads to look at themselves, just as Lot’s wife was changed for having turned her head.

And on prayer, she writes:

A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I do not call prayer however much the lips move.  Sometimes it will be so without this reflection, provided that the soul has these reflections at other times.  Nonetheless, those who have the habit of speaking before God’s majesty as though they were speaking to a slave, without being careful to see how they are speaking, but saying whatever comes to their heads and whatever they have learned from saying at other times, in my opinion are not praying.  Please God, may no Christian pray in this way.

What is your motive in prayer?

To connect relationally with God?

What is your motivation in work, ministry, your family, life?

To feel good?

Positive results?

To please God?

Praise?

To help others pay attention to God?

To help others pay attention to you?

Love for God?

Love for people?

Proverbs 19:2

One who moves too hurriedly misses the way.

Speeding through life, you miss the BEAUTY & MESSAGE of the present moment.  I bought a book a while back with a title that says it well > “Too Busy Not To Pray: Slowing Down To Be With God”.

This is one of those things you never regret, like spending quality time with your kids.  When was the last time you heard someone say late in life, “Yeah if just hadn’t spent so much time with my children as they were growing up, I really could’ve gotten a lot more done! Oh to do it over…” [?]

S  L  O  W     D    O    W    N       H u r r y.  i s.  k i l l i n g.  u s.    

B  E.   W  I  T  H.   G  O  D.

Luke 6:12

Jesus went up into a mountain to pray, and He spent all nite in prayer to God.

Oh look, what a coincidence, the gospel reading fits perfectly with the Proverb for the day. God is weird, in the best way…

Jesus could have been the busiest man ever, he had whole towns after Him for what He could give them.  But He always took time to slow down & be with His Father, to just pray to Him.  

We think we are too busy to sit & pray. What a joke. What a victory of deceit for the evil one.

Remember, whenever you say “I don’t have time for something” what you’re really saying is “I value something else more.”

Proverbs 18:9

A person who doesn’t work hard is just like someone who destroys things.

We say that what we do matters. This is a big reason we call this ministry The Ripple Effect.  Because everything we do matters and has an effect on those around us, whether we see it or not.

And conversely, what we don’t do matters as well, and has an effect on people.

For example, when the Spirit brings someone to mind, someone we need to reach out to in order to encourage, and we ignore that prompting, it has its ripple effect.  Perhaps that person is quite low, and a good word would have had a tremendously positive effect on their spirit.  Yet we went about our day, not obeying that little voice, and that person sinks even lower into discouragement.

It’s not that it’s totally on us to accept responsibility for another’s well being, but look at the blessing to both that was lost!  Our laziness causes us to miss out on so much that God has to offer.

Not using a talent toward the “healing of the nations” is, in reality, a “robbing of the nations.”

None of us should be thought of as anything less than the potential to change the world.  -Killswitch Engage

Holding back in some way is the same as stealing from others.

Luke 5:11,28

They abandoned everything and followed Him.

And he abandoned everything, got up, and followed Him.

Luke 5:36-39

It’s amazing how many people “prefer the old way” of doing things and like to throw Jesus’ name on it.

We preach against the very thing we say we are preaching sometimes.

According to the New Testament, there are no more hierarchies, no sacred spaces, no special days, no things we aren’t allowed to eat, no rules that we HAVE TO follow…

Jesus did not come to add something on to what everybody was already doing, to put new wine into old wineskins.  He came to put new wine into new wineskins.

He came as the fulfillment, the transcendent replacement, of the Law, the Temple, of Israel!

He IS Law.  He IS Temple.  He IS Israel!

We no longer follow the Law, worship at the Temple, look to Israel for who knows what.

We follow Jesus, worship at Jesus, look to Jesus for EVERYTHING.

At our best sometimes, we focus on following Jesus, more than Jesus Himself..

Proverbs 17:19

Whoever loves to argue loves to sin.

People with a lot of drama in their lives invite said drama themselves, most of the time.

Law of attraction.  Laws of the universe.

If you love arguing, then you love strife.

Very rarely, if ever, is someone else the problem.  If you step up and just accept that you are the problem, it is actually quite empowering, for then you can change.  Your life changes, even if your circumstances do not.  Until you admit that you must be the change you want to see in the world, nothing progresses.

You can keep on complaining about everybody…see what that does for you…

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus is tempted by the devil.

One of the most common and compelling temptations is, “Do this good thing without consulting God first.”*

Scripture tells us that Jesus did and said only what He heard from His Father.

Think of all the good He could’ve done.

He could have founded the most amazing hospital ever.

He could have started quite a joy-filled orphanage.

But Father knows best.  Humbly, He did what He was commissioned to do.  And He stayed tuned in well enough to hear it clearly.

It seems to have turned out pretty well.

There’s a million good things we can do.  But what do you hear the Father asking of you?

Are you listening?

*We are here of course not talking about those daily acts of goodness that are presented in front of you-loving your neighbor before you. More, the big undertakings, like starting some group, organization, things that will take much of your energy, time, margin. It is important to ask why you are doing so. Calling or craving? Or maybe both! Which is cool.

Proverbs 16:2

All one’s ways are pure in one’s own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.

Why do you do what you do?  Anything you do…?

What is in your heart toward someone when talking with them, when acting toward them?

Even while doing something nice for someone, it is most important what is in your heart toward them at that time.

Luke 3:22

YHWH told Jesus, “I’m delighted in you.”

Therefore, YHWH delights in us because of what Christ accomplished.  We are worthy and approved of by God Himself, not because of anything we’ve accomplished ourselves or had to earn, but because of what God declared.

Therefore, living as tho you are unworthy of God’s love denies who He is, who you are, and leads to sin…always.

You are cherished by God.  No one can take that away from you.

We are becoming more like Jesus everyday that we seek Him.  It feels as tho we experience the delight of God more and more as we are conformed closer and closer to the image of Jesus.

*Something to chew on (bonus)

Chun-An shared last nite something he came across:  that many say love is the great motivator.  But it’s not.  It’s longing.

What do you long for?

Proverbs 15:7

Wise people use their words to spread knowledge.

Do you do this?  Do you spread truth and goodness with every interaction?

Proverbs 15:22

Plans fail without good advice, but they succeed with the advice of many others.

I am beyond blessed with a plethora of wise counsel in my life.  If I make a dumb decision, it is sooo my own fault for not consulting the wise, godly people I have around me.

The devil loves it when you isolate yourself.  That’s when you’re weak and stupid.

Luke 2:19,51

Mary is such a wonderful example for us.  How can you not love this woman?

She treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.

That’s so it, right?  Do you find yourself doing your “One Minute Devotional” then quickly moving on?  Or maybe you do the “Zero Minutes With God” gift edition devotional…That’s a pretty crappy publication…I saw it once…

Treasure everything from God.  Treasure His word.  Ponder it in your heart all day.  He gives life thru His word.

Taking ten or twenty minutes everyday to just sit and think of God is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

Luke 2:52

Jesus grew wiser as He grew taller, gaining favor both with God and with people.

We are made to grow, to create, to gain wisdom, to know God more everyday–not to remain stagnant.  Or one of my favorite lines, to “tread water in a sea of mediocrity.”  We were made for so much more!

Are you growing in some intentional way everyday?

Proverbs 14:9

Fools don’t care if they sin, but honest people work at being right.

You are in a very dangerous place if your heart is hardened to any sin.  If there’s anything you’ve grown accustomed to and stopped fighting, take a step back and look at it again through God’s eyes.  We are not made to just live with certain sins, to walk through life with a limp of undefeated disease.

We are more than conquerors through Christ.

He likes you and desires for you to live in victory, release, peace, and freedom.

We do not believe for one second it is His will that you live in failure. To live alongside that which robs you of joy and abundance.

Luke [overview]

 Luke, the longest book in the NT is the most comprehensive & precise of the Gospels. The combined books of Luke & Acts

constitute 28 percent of the NT, making Luke the most prolific of its contributors (2,138 verses; Paul wrote 2,033). Not only

was this gospel carefully recorded & documented, but it was also written in the most refined Greek in the NT- only the

Epistle to the Hebrews is comparable. Luke’s large vocabulary & great breadth of expressions & constructions give his

work a literary richness & beauty that make his gospel the favorite of many. Luke alone contains the four beautiful hymns

commonly known as the Magnificat of Mary (1:46-55), the Benedictus of Zacharias (1:67-79), the Gloria in Excelsis of the heavenly host (2:14), and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon (2:28-32).

 

-from Talk Thru The Bible

 

 Luke 1:68-79

Jesus has dealt with and defeated our enemies–the cosmic forces that would seek to keep us from full fellowship with God.

His power is now our power for the taking and relying upon.

His kingdom can and will reign thru us who appropriate His resurrection power in this world now in order to usher in what He started two millennia ago.

As stated above, the only reason to live in defeat is choice–choice to ignore God’s redemption and victory, our refusal to rely upon that which is all powerful and all loving.

Choose to live in the victory that has been won for you already.

Believe.

Trust.

Rely.

Follow.