Proverbs 25:2

It is the glory of the Lord to conceal things.

I believe the truths of God to be simple yet profoundly deep and below the surface.  The “truths” of this world are more up front, easier to see, don’t require much effort in searching out.  As we often say, “Whatever something costs you, that’s exactly what it is worth to you.”

Yoda wisely told Luke that the dark side is not stronger, but “easier, quicker, more seductive.”  This is a good description of the world and its “answers” to life’s troubles.

When discouraged, getting plastered is easier, quicker, & more seductive.  When frustrated it is easier, quicker, and more seductive to turn to porn and/or give your body a release to temporarily feel better.  It is more effort, but worth it, to turn your heart to God in those hard moments and experience the reward of His presence, His peace that He promises & offers whenever we really go to Him from a sincere heart. A little extra effort and search will always prove worth the work.

The most common reason we do not return to joy from these tough moments is that we are not accustomed to stop and seek Immanuel-Shalom when we are upset, discouraged, or frustrated. We have not trained our brains to do this.  We have formed the life-robbing habit of taking the easier, quicker, more seductive path that keeps us in the cycle of frustration and dissonance.

Luke 12:4-5

Fear no person, only fear God, for He is the only one who really even has the power to do you any true harm-harm to your soul.

Jesus does not guarantee that he will protect one’s physical life; this is not prosperity theology.  God may require martyrdom of his disciples.  The premise of this remark is that God has sovereign care of life after earthly life.  Without such a view of care and justice, Jesus’ remarks make no sense.  

-Darrell Bock

In the Bible the word fear means more than fright; it’s any kind of awe and reverence that causes us to subject ourselves to something or someone else. Biblical counselor Ed Welch explains:

   “Fear” in the biblical sense…includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.  However you put it,…the fear of man can be summarized this way: We replace     God with people. Instead of a biblically guided fear of the Lord, we fear others.

-From What Are You Afraid Of? by David Jeremiah

 

 

Proverbs 24:33-34

Just veer off one degree from the right path, and one day you will suddenly notice you have drifted far off the peaceful course of life and onto a course of destruction.

It starts with missing a gathering here and there, skipping time with God, reading the word less and less…next thing you know, you’re a mess.

There really is something about a disciplined life that goes a long way.

Luke 11:24-26

The danger of ridding yourself of something toxic without filling that space with God.

Even worse will be its return if it finds room left to inhabit that was not given to a new Tenant.

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?