Proverbs 26:2

Curses will not harm someone who is innocent.  Curses that are undeserved never stick.

A.W. Tozer made a resolution to never defend himself, but rather to fully trust YHWH to defend him.

There is no need to defend yourself when your heart is right and your intentions pure.

Humbly risk being misunderstood for Christ.  Not only will you learn humility, but also to trust in our good King.

Matthew 26:41

Watch and pray so that you don’t get pulled down into the time of testing.  The spirit is eager, but the body is weak.

1) Consider the occasions and advantages your sin has taken to exert and put forth itself, and watch against them all.

Take note of when, where, and in what state you fall into repetitive sins–tired, alone, stressed, in a bar, online at nite–and avoid whatever you need to avoid.

If you sincerely want to kill your sin for good, you will take this step (tho not perfectly of course).  If you’re not actively crucifying your flesh, then you are making allowance, and it could be that you have no real desire to be done with it yet.

2) Rise mightily against the first actings and conceptions of your sin.

Don’t let it get the least ground.

Turn from it as soon as you realize what is happening, or else you’re pretty much screwed.  And over time, we are probably getting better and better at recognizing it early.

Don’t say, “I’ll give it this much allowance, but go no further.”

It is impossible to give bounds to sin.

Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.

-John Owen

3) Stop being surprised by your fundamental moral ambiguity.

That may sound odd at first, but it has been a paradigm-shifter for me this year, so let me explain.

At some point on this earthly journey we simply must accept the fact that we are, on some level, dualistic creatures living with a mixture of the propensity for both good and evil. In our flesh exists that seemingly constant pull to the dark side. Now I will be the first to tell you that as we grow in Christ, it does get better, we do grow stronger, and we recover more and more quickly. But we are fools to think temptation and the ability to do that which is awful ever goes away for good in this life. The world, the flesh, and the devil will always keep coming back for us, even after long periods of victory and freedom. Those are the times it really sucks, because we can’t comprehend how we can still “go there,” and we understandably feel defeat and shame.

So we must be vigilant.

But we must not be surprised.

It is when we are no longer surprised at still being tempted or at having awful thoughts of others, that we can see more clearly and recover more quickly.

I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to me to simply stop being surprised at my likeliness to sin. It’s a fairly easy attitude to adopt once you decide to do so. And it just changes completely the way you look at temptation. It takes the fear away. We always say it’s not wrong to be tempted, only giving in, yet we are bombarded with shame for feeling allured to that which is wrong, destructive, ugly. But what if we rob the enemy of the power of shame?

To simply say, “Yeah, I’d like to do that. So what. It’s tempting. That’s my flesh for ya. I know who I am though. Who I belong to. What I really am. What I really want.” And say this to Christ Himself.

Give your flesh permission to be tempted (not to give in of course) and feel the freedom, baby!

Until we arrive at the point of not being surprised by such moral reversals, we are not going to do much in the way of damage control.

-Michael Casey

Proverbs 25:12

A wise warning to someone who will listen is of very great value.

We can give wise warnings, but if to the non-listening ear, it is a notch above pointless.  Always have your listener in mind.  Don’t speak just to hear yourself talk, or make yourself feel better.  Speak out of love to genuinely help the person in front of you.

Matthew 25:40,45

Whatever we do to or for the least significant person here on earth, we do to or for God Himself.  And whatever we don’t do to or for the least significant person here on earth, we don’t do to or for God Himself.

May this take away from us any judgment of any person based on value we assign them according to our own system of how important they are to us–how much they add to or detract from our feelings of significance.

Let this destroy our false perceptions that some people are not worthy of our time and full attention in the moment.

How we treat the most annoying person, or the person who can do nothing for us, this is exactly how we treat our King.

I remember once going to visit my kid in prison after going months without seeing him.  He was crushed when I did not visit him for such a long time.  And he was utterly elated when I walked in to see him after the layoff.  Why did I go so long without visiting?  Was it because it was so easy not to go?  Because I get nothing from him in return [or so I think]?

Horrible.

Oh God, I pray I have learned from You in this passage of Your word.

How I treat him, I treat You….Forgive me.  Thank You.

Proverbs 24:26

An honest answer is as pleasing as a kiss on the lips.

Guess it depends on who is doing the kissing, but let’s take the lesson and simply be honest with each other.  Don’t hide behind a mask today.  Give honest answers to everyone and experience the freedom it brings.

Matthew 24:1-14

The beginnings of birth pangs of the rise of Christianity.  A birthing of the new age was upon them and the pains of birth would come with it.

The Temple would be destroyed in about 40 years signaling the new age that has dawned with no Temple needed because Jesus is our Temple now.  He is our Temple and Law.

It was going to be rough yet necessary, in death and resurrection fashion, to bring in this new age of the Messiah.  The age of Law and Temple was past.

Proverbs 23:7

As he thinks in his heart, so is he.

We are that really, both to God and man, which we are inwardly; and neither religion nor friendship is worth anything further than is it is sincere.

~Matthew Henry

Who we are is the product of our thoughts.

Our character isa the sum total of our thoughts.

Good thinking yields good fruit.

Bad thinking yields bad fruit.

Wanna change your life?

Change your thinking-reprogram your mind-and your life will change. Guaranteed. This is surely why the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write about our thinking in Philippians 4 and Colossians 3.

People judge us by appearance, but God judges us by our hearts, our inner most thinking, as we see in I Samuel 16:7. This is either frightening or relieving for you.

God has granted to us the power of thought and free will which we can use to endlessly torment ourselves and reap the destruction thereof; or we can reap joy and abundance through the cultivation of right and good thinking within the garden of our mind. I read once that 1,400 is the number of words the average person has going through their mind per minute! “We are either strategically tortured by this mass of words or we learn to use them as a strong current that powerfully flows from God’s heart to ours.” In this sense, we are the “makers of ourselves,” but only due to the potential God has granted to us in His good and loving creation of us.

It is you who can and must decide the kind of day you will have, or else the world will be more than glad to do that for you.

Living each moment surrendered to God, thankful for all He brings, is key to happiness.

Matthew 23:25-28

First make the inside of the cup clean, and then the outside will be clean as well. 

On the outside you appear to be virtuous and law-abiding, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

We constantly get the cart before the horse.

The wisest person who ever lived on earth says to FIRST make the inside clean.

THEN the outside will automatically be clean as well.

Pursue God from the depths of your heart. Seek Him with all your soul. Then through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, action will come (super)naturally.

Here is evidence, spoken by Jesus, that being trumps doing.

Someone sincerely seeking God with all his or her heart will naturally bear fruit. Fruit-bearing (doing good and offering truth and self) then need not be the focus, for how can one who is seeking God with all his or her heart not bear the fruit of it?  You simply seek God first, trust Him, abandon all outcomes to Him, and then do what comes naturally from that root. And what comes naturally at that point will be really, really good–because you are seeking the Source of all good. Rumor has it that God will even help you.

But someone who is focused on doing good works (external) may or may not be seeking God in his or her heart. You can still do good works without a thought of God or doing it for Him at all.

More than what we do, it’s why we do it, and who we do it for.

Proverbs 22:17

Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise; set your heart toward my knowledge.

The student is encouraged to approach the teacher’s instruction with a receptive attitude: “set your heart toward.”  One must be predisposed to wisdom in order to benefit from it.  -Tremper Longman III

What are you predisposed to today?

What have you set your heart toward this day?

Who have you determined to be today?

Proverbs 22:18

It will be good to keep these things in mind so that you are ready to repeat them.

It has been said that one learns most when teaching others. No doubt this is due, at least in part, to the preparation and assimilation that must take place in order to teach something well.  We may also say that one learns most from someone when truth is modeled.

Truth sinks into our innermost being thru its repetition, reminding, and memorization.  And thru the integration of it.

Again, we like Longman’s commentary here:

Verse 18 begins to give a motive for why students should be receptive to the teaching.  They will have good consequences if these sayings are internalized.  The term rendered “innermost being” in v.18 is literally “stomach.”  To guard them in your stomach is a picture of integrating them into the inmost part of a person’s being.  The integration of the teacher’s wisdom is prerequisite to its use in the student’s own life.  In other words, appropriation into students’ character is then followed by their own ability to express the wisdom: “Have them ready on your lips.”

This is what we do for each other daily.

Proverbs 22:19

So your trust will be in Yahweh, I will inform you, even you, today.

Verse 19 gives the theological motivation for the teaching of wisdom, the increase in trust in Yahweh.  This gives the teacher the urgency to impart instruction to the pupil.  It is not made explicit how the teaching will increase trust, and so we are left to speculate.  Perhaps the idea is that as the advice works in life, then it breeds confidence in its ultimate author.  Or perhaps it is calling on trust in Yahweh as the first step toward implementing the advice found here.  As one practices trust by following the advice, which may direct one in a not so obvious way (for instance, to be generous in order to grow more wealthy [11:24]), then one grows in trust as the unexpected consequences come.

-Tremper Longman III

Matthew 22:22,33,46

They were astonished.  No one was able to answer Him a word.

This chapter shows Jesus’ superior wisdom.  Listen to Him above all other humans.

These guys were playing “Stump the Messiah” and lost horribly.

Jesus was perfectly in tune with the Father while He walked the earth.  No one else was or is.  So listen first and foremost to Him via the Holy Spirit.

Only He has the words of life.

Proverbs 21:5

Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

Don’t look for shortcuts.

Nothing great comes without great effort.  Prosperity doesn’t happen by itself.  You can maybe cut down the days it takes to become something (engineer, piano player, professor), but that’s only by increasing the hours/day put in.

Hard work. That’s what it takes.  That is one of the laws of the universe God put in place.

Death and resurrection.  That’s another one.  Die to one thing in order to rise to something else.

Yet there is one shortcut, isn’t there?

Jesus.

Jesus is the shortcut to God, to Life abundant and free.  He paid a price and did a work (great effort) that we cannot possibly do, nor do we need to do.  We cannot labor our way to God, make Him like us more, or obtain better scores with Him due to our performance–unless by performance we mean merely serving others and living in the delight of the Father.  The Bible is clear that we will be judged by our works, but nowhere do we see that we will be judged by the results of our works.

Aren’t the results up to God?

Isn’t He the Mighty One working thru us?

It appears we are do to good, flowing from our connection to Him, and then trust Him for the outcome>>>abandoning all outcomes to Him.

If we serve others out of love for God, sincerely, and love for others in a desire for their flourishing, do you think you will still be judged harshly if those we served did not end up choosing Life and doing well?  Is that really up to us?

Trust.

Love God.

Serve God.

Trust God.

Matthew 21:18-22

Whatever you ask for in prayer, you’ll get it, if you believe.

If you believe.

If you believe.

If you believe.

If you believe.

If you believe.

I believe this.

Here is some helpful commentary from The Gospel Transformation Bible:

This teaching of Jesus on faith and prayer should be interpreted in terms of what he has already said on these topics in 17:14–20. There Jesus emphasized that the power of prayer lies not in the power of the believer but in the power of God. In addition, in 17:14–20 the context of Jesus’ teaching made clear that Jesus was talking about prayer for the accomplishment of God’s purposes, such as the defeat of the demonic world.

Here, then, when Jesus speaks of faith versus doubt, he also refers to trusting in the power of God, and the subject of the believer’s request in prayer is not just anything imaginable but something that furthers God’s purposes. Jesus’ example of ordering a mountain to throw itself into the sea uses hyperbole to illustrate colorfully how powerful God is (for other examples of how Jesus used hyperbole in his teaching, see note on 5:29–30).

Believers who pray unselfishly for the things they think will advance God’s merciful and saving purposes should also pray boldly. They should have faith that God will either do what they ask or will work in some other way that he knows will accomplish his purposes more perfectly (cf. 1 John 5:14–15).

Proverbs 20:4

Those too lazy to plow in the right season will have no food at harvest.

Nothing great comes without great effort.

This applies to the spiritual life as well.  If you are not doing the work it takes to get closer to God, to be conformed to the image of Christ, do not expect to wake up some morning automatically a mature man or woman of God and totally tuned in to Him and His every whisper.

You do not become intimately close to anyone without intentionality, including Jesus.

Part of intimacy is intense listening.  How else do you tune in to someone, or get to know them?  How else do you know and understand what they enjoy?

What does God want from you?

How do you know?

Belief without action does not transform you into greatness.  Believe and read about something all you want.  Without practice, you do not grow.  Without actually listening to the Master, you master nothing.

Matthew 20:26-28

Jesus did not come to earth in order to have servants to obey Him, but rather He came to serve others.  This is the upside-down kingdom path to true greatness.

Who do you serve?

Forcing people to obey you is tyrannical.  Many have this false impression of God.  But Jesus revealed what God is really like.  Serving all out of love even when they give you the finger–that is powerfully moving.  And can only be done when empowered by the Spirit, when brimming over with the indwelling love of YHWH spilling over on to others who hurt us.

The greatest in God’s kingdom is the one who serves the most.

Proverbs 19:21

Make your plans the same as God’s plans and you will have the truest of success.  You will be working for what God already wants done.  How will you not succeed?

And what does He want?

Merely for people to come to Him, to love Him, to live closely with Him from the heart each and every moment.

How amazing that He chooses us to do some of His work.

I really like Tremper Longman’s interpretation and commentary on this verse:

Many plans are in people’s hearts, but the advice of Yahweh, that is what will succeed.

People have many strategies, but unless they follow the advice of God, they will not come to fruition.  This observation discourages the idea that human strategy can lead to success.  We must depend on God.

Matthew 19:29

Giving up anything for the sake of following Jesus is really no loss at all.  In fact, it is the hugest of gain.

You could say that the mathematics of God’s kingdom state that u-x will end up being equal to u+100x, where u is, well, you, and x is whatever you give up for Christ.

Makes no sense, I know, but that’s the beauty of our wonderful generous God and His upside down kingdom.

Holding on to stuff we really don’t need, now that’s loss.  Great loss.  And all we really need is God.  The rest is taken care of.  Seek Him first and we will be fed and clothed (Mt.6:33).

This is a promise.  This is absolute truth.

Proverbs 18:9

A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things.

Proverbs 17:19

Whoever loves to argue, loves to sin.

As Jesus followers, we are not to be ones to argue our theology, to argue what you are suppose to believe.

When did that ever change someone’s life for the better?

Loving someone, modeling the unconditional love of our Creator, now that has changed lives!  And it has done so thru the Ruach Elohim flowing thru us.  Don’t think for two seconds that you can be the unconditional love machine you were made to be on your own power alone.  You must be filling yourself with Christ via time with Him in conversation, adoration, and thinking of Him often, as well as the all-important practice of listening to Him.  Then you will be empowered with the supernatural capacity to love others without expectation.  You will be able to delight in others with no thought of return. That is agape love.*

And that is the love of Christ that transforms lives.

Everyone needs to be delighted in for who they are.

Jesus does. Jesus delights in people simply for who they are, simply because they were created in God’s image for God’s glory.

How are you helping others realize this?

*We all do have this in us already, but it must be tapped into if it is to truly flow out onto those around us and heal the nations. You have everything in you that you need to be pure awesomeness today. Will you pray it into the reality of your actual lived experience? The choice is yours alone. No one can decide for or against how you will live this day.

Matthew 17:20-21

If you have faith, nothing will be impossible for you.

If you have just a grain of sincere faith in you, things will move.

I have experienced this.

Are we living way under our potential?  We have access to the power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Do we believe this???

Truly believing this moves people, ways of thought, obstacles.

Following Jesus is not merely about a better way of life, tho it includes that.  He has granted us power from on high.  Living into that truth, in real faith that God will do things is key and non-negotiable for this enactment of power to move things.

God’s love is unconditional, yes, but for Him to move in this way does seem to require our devotion and diligence in following Him. (Tho we never want to take away for a second His omnipotence and sovereignty!) Again, do we really believe this?  That He will move things, help us, actually, tangibly?  Surely the Christian life is not to be one of constant struggle with little to no power.

No.

We believe it is to be a life of peace, release, victory, and freedom.

God has given us the ultimate power of free will and thought.  We can determine our own perception as well as much of our life, thanks to Him.  It’s as simple as a choice, followed up with diligent action following Him.

Try this.  Craft a simple “I am” statement and then pray it everyday in all sincerity and see what happens.  For example, “I am a joy-building father/friend/husband” or “I am totally free from ‘X'” or even “I am loved unconditionally at all times.”

This is real.

God wants our good and is ready and willing to grant us good things.

Now remember, this is not health and wealth stuff.  This is God’s will stuff–things we know He wants already, and we know better as we follow Him more closely( We believe, for example, that He wants all to follow Him and experience His peace).  Also, He will most likely not grant us things He has empowered us to do already, or He may answer with showing us the path to what we ask for.  For instance, I did not just pray for God to grant me a super huge butt.  I used my God-given potential to workout for many years to achieve that!

Thank you, Lord.