Proverbs 18:2,13

Fools do not want to understand anything. They only want to tell others what they think.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Seek to know why someone is asking something before just firing off an answer. It is imperative you know what someone means by what they’re saying before attempting to answer. We now live in a reality where most of the words we use can each mean a thousand different things. I guess 7 billion people and the social media vacuousness that pervades us will do that.

Jesus answered questions with invitations to go deeper. Rarely, if ever, is it ever recorded that He just straight up answered the question asked. This demonstrates how much He cared for the inquiring person, how tuned in He was to the heart. He did not fall into the cheap and not-so-helpful rattling off of an answer to show His knowledge or superiority.

Proverbs 18:19

A brother who has been insulted is harder to win back than a walled city, and arguments separate people like the barred gates of a palace.

Be patient and gentle, for one word of judgement or criticism can undermine everything you say to someone.

Once a person feels judgement or condescension, they typically shut down and stop listening to you. Or it’s possible they literally cannot hear anything else you say at that point because of the relational circuits of the brain being disengaged and shut off.

So begin with the end in mind. What do you really want from the conversation? If you want goodness and reconciliation, you will speak to them as a person on your same level, not as someone beneath you (with contempt).

Luke 5:39

No one after drinking old wine wants new wine, because he says, “The old wine is better.”

Watch that you are not holding on to traditions simply because you prefer them. Be open to the truth of the living God.

Test everything to see that it is His truth and not the mere tradition of men.

“This is the way we’ve always done it.”

God is not boring. In my experience, God is not the same ole thing over and over again. He is exciting and new all the time, ever greater, every moment.

Proverbs 17:3

A crucible refines silver and a furnace  gold, but the LORD refines hearts.

Perhaps our trials and sufferings are just the means to purify our hearts. Burn off all that does not lead to God. Melt away anything that is a distraction to our thoughts of God and on what is good and right.

What if we looked at every trial of life big or small as God’s loving action to bring us closer to Himself? What would that do to our thinking? To our mindset?

Accept and embrace what is instead of fighting and trying to simply alleviate pain. It’s been said that we will make little effort to attain pleasure, but we will do almost anything to avoid pain. Tho it does  seem that we go to great lengths to gain pleasure at times, I wonder how often the pleasure-seeking is actually just a means to avoid pain?

What if we accepted everything that came our way as something to learn from and make us more like Him? As opposed to just stewing about how much we don’t like it…

Luke 4:10-12

“For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect and guard you and they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.'” Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You shall not test the LORD your God.'”

The most effective temptations will have a good portion of truth attached to them. Here, Satan quotes from Psalm 91.

Remember to always look at the big picture, God’s whole story, all of Scripture, not just isolated bits and pieces.

How deep is the mind and mystery of God. How foolish we can be at times to think one verse of the Bible can describe Him or what He is up to. One verse, because it is from God, has great power, can cause Satan to flee, and can give immense comfort, but it must always point to the ineffable greatness of God and that He may be up to a  million things at any given moment that we cannot know or comprehend.

Proverbs 16:1

People may make plans in their minds, but only YHWH can make them come true.

Dependence is not the excuse for laziness but the spring of active energy.  -Charles Bridges

Proverbs 16:16-17

How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; whoever guards his way preserves his life.

Whoever guards his way preserves his life.

To guard our way…to preserve our lives…right now…where we always are and where we always inhabit, get understanding. This is wisdom. This is true riches and wealth (gold).

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who were all to obviously merely human, little babies in the Messiah. I fed you with milk, not solid food, because you weren’t ready to take it–and you still can’t, even now! You’re still determined to live in the old way! Yes, wherever there is jealousy and quarreling, doesn’t that mean you’re living in the old way, behaving as any merely human being might do? 

-1 Corinthians 3:1-3

The obsession with erotica in book, film, play, and entertainment signals entrapment in the sensation center. The carnal man is blatantly in the flesh and lives and walks according to the flesh. Yet many committed Christians who decry the rampant pornography of our sensate culture still dabble discreetly in the fleshpots and paralyze the power of the Spirit in their lives! An ambivalent “prudence of the flesh” seeks a sort of gilded mediocrity where the self is carefully distributed between flesh and spirit with a watchful eye on both. Paul calls these “men of imperfect spiritual vision.” They have received the Spirit, but they remain spiritual men in embryo because they do not subject themselves fully to the domination of the Spirit; they yield to sexual passion and other drives, thus confining themselves to an infantile spirituality.

–Gentle Revolutionaries  Brennan Manning, John Blase

As Russ Hudson began working with Don in the late 1980’s, they began to realize that the means of moving people up the levels of Development was the depth and quality of Presence that could be awakened in the person. Concomitantly, the lack of Presence, the lack of awareness of what one was doing and feeling in the here and now, was the primary way by which one became trapped in increasing identification with the images and defenses of the ego structures. It also followed that using the Levels to alert people to behavior that indicated that they were losing Presence could function as an “alarm clock” to call them back to the present moment, and thus, move them up the Levels.

From The Enneagram Institute’s Levels of Development

www.enneagraminstitute.com

Luke 3:2-3

John received the word of God and went throughout the region of the Jordan announcing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

This repentance John called for was a reorientation of thinking, (and therefore lifestyle and deeds) and it paved the way for the forgiveness to be brought on by the Messiah. It was a prerequisite for salvation.

Jesus would then undergo a baptism not because He needed to repent, but rather to repent for us. It takes a perfect awareness of our sinful condition (conviction) as well as a perfect telling of this truth to YHWH (confession) for salvation. Jesus, being outside of sin, therefore making Him the only human able to see the sinful human condition perfectly, underwent perfect conviction and perfectly confessed for us.

This is deeply mysterious, but should cause us to realize how hopeless we are without Jesus’ paving of the way for us to have right standing relationship with YHWH. There is nothing we can possibly do about our condition. We can only yield. We can only surrender and be thankful. We can only be immersed into Trinitarian fellowship. Like the tax collector who did not compare himself to others, we throw ourself on God’s mercy.

Proverbs 15:7

Wise people use their words to spread knowledge.

Proverbs 15:10

People who hate to be corrected will die.

Proverbs 15:12

Those who make fun of wisdom don’t like to be corrected; They will not ask the wise for advice.

Proverbs 15:22-23

Seek wise counsel.

Not only will it be beneficial to you, but also a blessing to the person(s) you ask. It is a blessing to know that you have been a help to someone.  I don’t care who you are, everyone deep down loves to be a help to someone. It’s good for the soul and feels fantastic.

Don’t deny others a blessing by your pride of not seeking assistance.

Luke 2:29-32

I have seen your salvation which you have prepared for all people. He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!

Jesus is God’s rescue plan.

He fulfilled Israel’s destiny by being a light to reveal God to the nations. All the world would be enlightened by Israel’s true King. Now the whole world, not just Israel,can see, touch, and experience God.

Jesus revealed YHWH’s personality in human form. Get to know Jesus, and you get to know God.

He is love and forgiveness and healing.

Some say the opposite of love is fear. There is no fear in perfect love, only trust.

And yet, the fear of YHWH is the beginning of wisdom. This kind of fear seems to be somewhere between mere reverence and absolute terror–at the mysterium tremendum et fascinans*. A healthy fear of something means that it exists. It means that you definitely believe that it is real. Either a real threat, a real consequence, it is real. Perhaps this is some of the wisdom of fearing God. It shows you believe, but it’s only the beginning!

* A mystery which causes both trembling and fascination.

Pictured above is The Helix Nebula NGC 7293.

Proverbs 14:4

There are no oxen where the stall is clean, but an abundance of yield comes by the strength of a bull.

The meaning of this verse is that a productive life is messy. One desires a neat and tidy life, just as the ideal stall would be clean. However, a stall by the nature of things would mean an empty stall since oxen do not have to be in a stall long before it is messy. However, without oxen, there is no productivity. After all, as colon 2 points out, crops do not appear magically out of thin air but rather as a result of much hard work. For instance, animals are typically used to plow the ground in order to plant the seed that produces crops. Another related way of construing the meaning of the line is to take it to mean that one must spend (acquire oxen) in order to get ahead (produce crops).  -Tremper Longman III

Proverbs 14:13

Even in laughter the heart may feel pain, and in the ned joy may turn to sorrow.

What we see on the surface of many people is not always the reality going on inside. This is timely with the death of Robin Williams this week. We don’t say any of this judgmentally, but rather compassionately, to remind ourselves that many people are hurting and don’t feel they can show or even know how.

We as Jesus followers, loving others deeply, must be on the lookout for those who are hurting and in desperate need of heartfelt companionship. We must be looking beneath the surface as best we can.

This is not always fun or comfortable, which is why many avoid it or are frightened by it I guess. Visiting my guy in prison is not always the funnest excursion on the planet, but it makes his day and it is ALWAYS worth it. He longs for my visit. And whatever we do to the least of these, we do to God. So I imagine, “Lord, when were you in prison and I visited you?” And He may say, “Whenever you visited Reese, you visited Me.”

Do you know anyone who is in any way alone? Perhaps it is not obvious from the outer appearance. But looking beyond what is easily detected, do you see someone who is not seen or known? They are crying out, I promise you, if only from the inside. Reach out to them today, there’s no telling what you may heal or save the world from.*

Robin Williams once said,

“I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”

Luke 1:19-20,45

Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.”

You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.

From what I understand, a turning point in Billy Graham’s life was when he was alone in the woods one day with His Bible and God. And he told God that he believed, and would believe, everything God said in that book. From that day onward, his life and ministry were radically changed.

Your greatest power is belief. What you believe in you follow. Whatever you accept as true either limits or expands your possibilities.

We our little selves have the ability to put God in a tiny container or else release Him to infinity. Nothing is impossible with God, so why do we lock Him in a room and go out to do it all on our own? Why not take Him with you by acknowledging His eternal presence and power…?

*All of the people who commit mass shootings-do you think they are seen, know, accepted, and loved?

Proverbs 13:3

Proverbs 12:3

Doing evil brings no safety at all, but the root of the righteous will not be disturbed.

“One of the marked differences between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day decedents seem concerned only with the fruit.

 This appears in our attitude toward certain great Christian souls whose names are honored among the churches, as, for instance, Augustine and Bernard in earlier times, or Luther and Wesley in times more recent. Today we write the biographies of such as these and celebrate their fruit, but the tendency is to ignore the root out of which the fruit sprang [Pr.12:12]. Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear. We demand the fruit immediately even though the root may be weak and knobby or missing altogether.”  -A.W. Tozer

Proverbs 11:17,25

People characterized by covenant love benefit themselves, but cruel people harm their own bodies.

Those who bless will themselves be refreshed, and those who satisfy others will themselves be satisfied.

Here we have the paradox that living for others means a better life for self than living for self. Verse 25 does not specify whether what is given is help, money, or advice, so it may refer to all of these. We do indeed reap what we sow in every area of life.

“There is a harmony between enlightened self-interest and the common good.” -William McKane

Community and the individual are not always pitted against each other. I spend time alone in prayer and the Word not just for my own personal peace, which is fantastic of course, but also in order to be more of a benefit to others. And in benefitting others well, I am benefitted, and so on and so on…

Mark 14:3-9

“Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me?”

This is such a good picture of the principle to “perform for an audience of One.” This woman takes oil that costs the equivalent of what a common worker would earn in a whole year, and anoints Jesus with it.

She didn’t seem to care what anybody else there thought of it. She was focused on Jesus and expressing her love for Him. It hearkens to Luke 10:38-42 where Mary did the “one thing necessary” which was to pay attention to Jesus.

Jesus even affirms her extravagant act as opposed to using the money she could have sold the oil for to help the poor. There were probably many who were poor with no land in this area.

What I take from this is to always please Jesus over people. It will always be worth it. Keep your focus on Him more than people. More than any other person, and your life will be full.

Also, perhaps we can even glean the importance of loving Jesus more than loving acts of kindness or helping others. You will no doubt perform kind acts and help those in need if you truly love Jesus, so there is no need to love those acts more than Jesus Himself. It’s not difficult to fall in love with helping others, so always check to make sure you love God first, then people themselves, not just the act of helping people.

Loving God and loving others really helps people, because God’s supernatural love will be flowing thru you to them. And that is pretty amazing and transforming to the world.

Proverbs 10:8

Proverbs 9:3