Proverbs 22:17-18

Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips.

It will be pleasant IF you keep God’s word within you.

IF His word is always on the tip of your tongue.

Some things are conditional. We of course know that God’s love for us is not one of those things. But a life well lived here on earth is conditional upon our ingesting of God and His truth.

Ingesting.

Not striving.

Not rule keeping.

Not a checklist fake spirituality.

But truly assimilating God and His ways into our being, into our way of seeing and living. Then we start to live life as it was meant to be lived. The memorization of Scripture is necessary, powerful, and good not because of the mere accomplishment of it, but because of the fact that it is a sure way to get God’s truth into us. The more we chew on it, the more we will know it and live it. And living it is pleasant.

It’s hard for me to accept that Jesus came to earth, revealing YHWH, doing all He did, suffering all He suffered, so that we could now have the right belief system and know the seven things we should do everyday. It seems to me, and I sure as heaven hope, it is much, much deeper than that!

What is pure awesomeness is the experience of the presence of God in your daily life. Immanuel–>God-as-glad-as-glad-can-get-to-be-with-you, no matter what your circumstances. To be guided by ultimate love, ultimate wisdom, ultimate power, ultimate care. This is what Jesus brought to us. The enablement to live this life very well-in His kingdom, where what He desires done is done.

If reading our Bible or going to church [“going to church” what a silly, non-biblical phrase] does not affect how you live your life, or how you think, or result in peace, then what is the point? The end of it all is union with God thru Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Whatever you or I have experienced, there is so much more. And I believe YHWH wants us to experience more as we follow hard after Him as we are able to handle it.

John 13:35

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The newness of the new commandment can be understood only in light of the finished work of Jesus. God has always called His people to a life of neighbor love (Lev.19:18), reaffirmed by Jesus as the second great commandment (Matt.22:36-40). But the new commandment presupposes a new paradigm. The greatness of Jesus’ love for us in now the motivation for our loving others. If we love Jesus truly and deeply, we will love what and whom He loves–the unlovely, the oppressed, those very different from us, and those whose actions have damaged us.

This confirming sign of our discipleship is not a badge of our commitment to Jesus; it is rather the beauty of Jesus’ commitment to us. Discipleship is not a program for which we sign up; it is a whole new way of life for which we have been raised up.

-from the Gospel Transformation Bible

This new commandment is washing other people’s feet because you know who you are, where you come from, and where you are going.

Proverbs 20:9

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am cleansed from my sin”?

Oh to have  a heart of nothing but pure thoughts…!

This is my prayer, to only have pure thoughts of others-no jealousy, no anger, no frustration, no judgement,,,only love and patience.

Unconditional love is the great power of the universe.

The patient, unconditional love of God.

John 11:20-27

Look how Martha is vindicated here in such a huge way.

In Luke 10 we tend to bash her a little bit for being too busy to just sit and listen to Jesus. Yet God is all about redemption. Here, we see she is one of the first people in recorded history to confess Jesus as the Messiah! [after Peter] Not bad for the ol’ ministry resume.

“Do you believe this?”

Such a poignant question from the Master.

Proverbs 19:2

Even zeal is not good without knowledge, and the one who acts hastily sins.

Making it a habit to slow down and think for two seconds is life changing and life giving. For this brings a heightened awareness of your surroundings, of people and their feelings [mindsight], of the beauty of nature, of your own life.

To slow down and actually take in your life, to stop and smell the roses is to live at a higher consciousness. To practice the presence of God, to live each moment in purposeful attention to His being with you, is to enjoy life at the level Jesus broke open for us.

God is in each moment communicating with you. It is up to you to “tune in” to His frequency and hear Him. It is the ignoring of this fact that plunges us into apathy, despair, and discontent. God is there in the midst of every single minute detail of your day and life. Acknowledge it. This is the comforting game-changer.

John 10:10

“I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

Jesus came to earth so that His followers would have abundant life. A life of abundance flowing into others’ lives.

It is good to ask ourselves from time to time, “Am I living a life of spiritual and emotional abundance?” If not, why the heck not? That is what Jesus brought for everybody to have access to. Whatever the reason we may not being living abundantly, we know it is not His fault. though there is much out of our control, we can always respond to life out of abundance.

Always.

Abundance-

1. An extremely plentiful or oversufficent quantity or supply

2. Overflowing fullness

Proverbs 18:4,21

The words we use are very important.

We need to be semantically, as well as theologically, sound.

May our words be few and full.

John 9:11

“Well then,” they said to him, “how did your eyes get opened?” “It was the man called Jesus!” he replied. “He made some mud; then He spread it on my eyes and told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went, and washed, and I could see!”

God is faithful and His promises are all true.

Act on them as if they are true.

As Anselm said so long ago, we believe in order to understand, not the other way around. Understanding comes from belief. Believing is seeing. It is only when you step out in genuine faith that your eyes are opened and you finally see what has been there all along.

I love the simplicity of this verse:

“He told me what to do, I did it, and I was healed. I could see! BOOM!”

[my translation]

Jesus tells us what to do. Do it. And you will see.

Like never before.

Proverbs 17:3

A crucible for silver, and a smelter for gold, and the Lord is a tester of hearts.

The crucible and smelter were small clay vessels in which metals were melted at very high temperatures to refine them. To be tested is to be evaluated to see if something is genuine. The process of testing can bring about purification.

I hear God saying to me, “It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t do a million things for Me as much as it matters to Me that I have your heart. That’s what I really want.”

Scripture, I believe, is best read on the spiritual level, or heart level. Don’t get me wrong, I do think good, solid Bible study has its very rightful place, to keep us from going too wacky with it, yet missing the heart of God in Scripture is detrimental to our growth as human beings made in God’s very image. I try to ask myself every verse I read, “What is God the Holy Spirit [ the Author] saying to me thru this?” What is He saying to my heart?

Please note this is different than “What does this mean to me?” That’s when you can easily venture into some dangerous territory, e.g. “I don’t think Jesus really rose from the dead, people just saw visions of Him because they were so distraught and wanting to see Him.” Just a little elementary study of Scripture will show clearly that that’s not what the evangelists who wrote the gospel accounts were trying to convey. Asking “What is God saying to me thru this Scripture?” is a quite different approach and mindset. In this posture, you are open, willing to hear from God, and ready to obey what He may present to you, as opposed to just thinking about what something might or could mean–there’s plenty of scholarly McScholartans out there for that!

John 8:12,31-32

“I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life…If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The light refers to God’s revelation, or disclosure, of Himself in the incarnation. Jesus was the perfect revelation of God, our Creator. Waking up to this heavy reality takes us out of sleep walking thru life and into the truth, and therefore, freedom. Freedom because you no longer have to grasp for the meaning of life, stumbling around in the dark, in danger of stepping on Lego pieces which hurts like hell! (OK, I’m alright now, just had a flashback.) The light is there for you, and turning towards it is as simple as flipping a switch on the wall. Just turn around.

Reminds me of the time I went canoeing on a youth trip. As many of you know, I’m quite hydrophobic, and as fate would have it, my worst nightmare did in fact occur–the canoe tipped over. I was flailing about like an octopus on speed, struggling to get above the water and breathe when my buddy Todd said, “Just stand up!” I was in about three feet of water. “Oh, right. I’m OK now.”

So simple, and we make it so difficult.

What if God’s essence actually walked the earth in the form of a human being for thirty-some years at a definite point in history? If that is really true, are we not obligated in the most profound sense to pay the utmost attention to this “man”? Not only His life on earth, but His Spirit now?

There is no reason whatsoever to stumble thru life anymore, wondering what we should be doing, how we should be living. The light has been revealed and is to be followed. THEN the path is made clear, guaranteed, because it is God’s promise, and from what I understand, He never ever lies ever ever.

See Proverbs 3:5-6 also.

Proverbs 16:1-3,9

Real power, real truth, real peace comes from seeking God and His wisdom, not our own mortal and futile answers to life.

The great concerns of our souls must be committed to the grace of God, with a dependence upon and submission to the conduct of that grace (2 Tim. 1:12); all our outward concerns must be committed to the providence of God, and to the sovereign, wise, and gracious disposal of that providence. Roll thy works upon the Lord (so the word is); roll the burden of thy care from thyself upon God. Lay the matter before him by prayer. Make known thy works unto the Lord (so some read it), not only the works of thy hand, but the workings of thy heart; and then leave it with him, by faith and dependence upon him, submission and resignation to him. The will of the Lord be done. We may then be easy when we resolve that whatever pleases God shall please us.

If men devise their way, so as to make God’s glory their end and His will their rule, they may expect that He will direct their steps by His Spirit and grace, so that they shall not miss their way nor come short of their end. But let men devise their worldly affairs ever so politely, and with ever so great a probability of success, yet God has the ordering of the event, and sometimes directs their steps to that which they least intended. The design of this is to teach us to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that (James 4:14-15), and to have our eye to God, not only in the great turn of our lives, but in every step we take. Lord, direct my way, 1 Thessalonians 3:11.

-Matthew Henry

John 7:14-18

Then the Jews were amazed and said, “How does He know the Scriptures, since He hasn’t been trained?” Jesus answered them, “My teaching isn’t Mine but is from the One who sent Me. If anyone wants to do His will, he will understand whether the teaching is from God or if I am speaking on My own. The one who speaks for himself seeks his own glory. But he who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”

I resonate with Jesus here as I never finished college or had any formal Bible training. But guess what, it does’t matter at all because we all have access to the best teacher. That is where our learning should actually come from, not just what others tell us, tho that can be efficacious as well.

We must quit trying harder (trying everything besides God) and start pursuing the person of God Himself. It is insanely good and powerful!!! I have found this to be so true that if you resolve in your heart to do God’s will and not your own, He will show you truth and you will know it.

Whose glory and reputation am I seeking to promote?

If mine, forget it, if God’s, your ministering will penetrate hearts and change lives. I have witnessed this.

Streams of living water will flow from our hearts via the Holy Spirit only as we seek Him alone [vv.38-39].

For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence. [2 Cor. 2:17]

Proverbs 15:12

Mockers hate to be corrected, so they stay away from the wise.

Isolation.

Here it starts, in the heart. You don’t want to be corrected. You don’t want to be challenged. So you withdraw so as not to face truth. This is what we fight in our culture because it is so easy to hide in our very non-communal society.

I’ve seen this over the years. It is one of the easiest things to detect. It’s as simple as not seeing someone for a while at church, or group, or hearing from them on the phone. Most every time they are withdrawing and are not in a good place.

Isolation is the inevitable human reaction to being in a place of bad thinking and heart sickness. We do ourselves a double disfavor because YHWH created our brain to need both good thinking and joyful relationships.

In our left hemisphere of the brain is where we process correct and good thinking, and in the right hemisphere we grow in the context of joyful relationship- someone is glad to be with us. If we are healthy in only one of these areas, we are only half the person we could be, who God created us to be.

So when your thinking goes awry, and you get down in the dumps, you need someone to lift you up, ultimately God, yet He also works thru other people in some sort of community aspect. Therefore withdrawal in these times takes you even lower. Conversely, if we are abundant in joyful relationships with people with bad thinking and ungodly lifestyles, well, we know what that looks like-many people’s college and younger years I guess. Like maybe you belong to a swinger’s club and it’s a real tight knit community, but…you see what I’m saying.

John 6:40

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and trusts in Him may have eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day.

Like those in the OT who had only to look upon the snake fastened to the pole to be healed, so we only have to look to Jesus fastened to the cross with the eyes of our heart, the gaze of our soul, and we will be healed in a way only He can perform.

We can live a life of peace and freedom only thru divine intervention.

There is no plan B.

Do I really trust in Jesus as God’s ultimate plan of mediation and salvation?

Do I look to Him for everything? Or do I find myself still trying to do much on my own? Striving to do that which I cannot do and which only comes thru divine action. [We’re not talking here of praying to God to supernaturally pick up my spoon and put cereal in my mouth. He has equipped me to do that myself (tho it’s only because of Him that I can), but anyway…]

There is the mystery of divine sovereignty. And I wonder if I have truly given myself up to that. To the God I believe to be infinitely good and who knows what He is doing.

Trust.

He says He desires my trust.

So this speaks to me that whenever I am worried or frustrated about something, especially with regard to people, that I am not ultimately trusting Him who has everything, who sees everything, who can do anything.

The Holy Spirit is telling me, “You’re feeling responsibility to make happen what only I can make happen. You just do your portion. Rest in the work I give you to do. Listen to Me and only to those people who listen to Me. One tiny but genuine amount of faith is the most powerful action in the universe, because that is how I work, thru your faith.”

How many times I have prayed in earnest about something, consistently over time, believing God would act, and I witnessed His powerful action. This is the inimitable time saver and stress reliever. Amen.

John 5:14

“Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

Here Jesus presumes the common Jewish view that illness was a punishment for sin. But later, when His disciples ask Him why a certain man had been born blind, He denies that it had anything to do with the sin of either that man or his parents (John 9:3). Instead, it was to manifest God’s glory. Thus, sometimes healings undo a punishment for sin; other times there is no relation between health and obedience, or between sin and sickness, beyond the general observation that all evil came into the world through original sin.

-from Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels

John 5:41,44

“I do not accept glory from men…How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that comes from God alone?”

Perform for an audience of One.

The divine nod of approval is completely sufficient.

Proverbs 14:6

A mocker seeks wisdom and does not find it, but knowledge comes easily to the perceptive.

A mocker’s pride keeps him from finding wisdom, but an open person, humbly searching, will find what YHWH has made readily available to all.

We’ve all known people (sometimes ourselves) who are always struggling with others, with money, with drama…and many times it can probably be traced to this here. We search the world for its wisdom before going surrendered to God.