Sunday, November 23, 2014

Wise guys (Proverbs 3.7): What to do when God doesn’t make sense to us!

Wise guys (Proverbs 3.7): What to do when God doesn’t make sense!

➣What you acknowledge will govern you. It shapes your values. It determines or limits your actions.

What governs our lives?  Pleasure? Guilt? Entertainment? Money?

  • Truth wants to govern our lives and make them potent. 
  • Truth applied = Wisdom...when birthed out of reverence for God
  • This is counter-intuitive

Adam & Eve lost wisdom in the Garden. 
  • Their intel became internal and sensory-based
  • It wasn’t until the arrival of the holy spirit that we were enabled to be filled inwardly with God’s Holy Presence & power.

Acknowledge = YADA: to perceive, understand, acquire, knowledge, discern, sexual intercourse, to appoint. To know by reflecting and revelation.  

"I knew (Yada) you before I formed (Yatsar) you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you... Jeremiah 1:5-7


Do we see God? Potential purpose

Acknowledge (beyond casual acquaintance): Follow~Assimilate into God’s plans

Association: Guild, coalition, volunteers who enter into agreements
Acquiesce: Accept reluctantly but without protest 
Acquaint: Knowledge or experience of something, make familiar, firsthand experience
Acknowledge Admit or accept the truth of something, allow, roger that (telecommunications), concede, give someone a preferred or recognized status, make known the receipt of
Assimilate: Absorb, incorporate


They that wait (serve) the Lord....When it was counter-intuitive

Joseph The Carpenter: Matt 1.20; Matt 1.24; Matt 2.13; Matt 2.19; Matt 2.22

(Emotions: Anger/Embarrassment/Resentment/Pride/Fear/Helplessness/Homelessness/Marginalized/Inconvenienced)

  • Samuel: Speak...I’m waiting for instruction
  • Jehoshaphat...We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are one you
  • Moses...if you don’t go with me, I won’t go
  • Jesus...I do what I see the Father do

So What?

Purpose is God-ordained/ That message of purpose is conveyed to us via scripture, the voice of the Spirit and community/ The response to the intel is wisdom or folly. 
  • Wisdom is the path to purpose, authority, fulfillment and powerful/meaning living.

Our purposes are short-lived and thwarted when we live from our own limited perspectives rather than God’s perspective.

  • We are mortal: weak, self-centered, fickle

  • We are limited by our own experience or the experiences of others
  • As mortals we are driven by our need for relevance (connected) & significance (meaning)
  • We can NEVER see things the way God does unless the are revealed
  • Following that revelation is an act of wisdom and begins with respect for God.


God has been God forever and human for 33 years. Why wouldn’t we want to benefit from that experience?

Next Steps: Make a Wise Move

➣You’re worth too much to merely be a loose canon. You were created to be a dangerously strategic part of God’s plan for healing, loving and transforming the world.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Sage Wisdom (#Perspicacity Series)

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (12-Steps 1 & 2)
*There’s a lot of foolishness going on! (Let’s come to terms. 2-sided guilt)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

November 9: Sage Wisdom    Job 12:12 (NIV)
Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?

Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. Ecc 4.13

The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old. Prov 20.29


SAGE noun
1. a profoundly wise person; a person famed for wisdom.
2. someone venerated for the possession of wisdom, judgment, and experience.

Taste (Latin)

sagacious [suh-gey-shuh s] adjective

Sage= Perspective (keen insight) + Life Experience + Knowledgeable

1. Having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd:
a sagacious lawyer.

Origin = wise + taste
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34.8


Ministry Aim: Learn to solicit and apply the wisdom of experienced people
Examples of Sage Wisdom:

➢Biblically

  • Jethro to Moses: You need to delegate or it will kill you and the people
  • Nathan to David: “You’re the man!”

36 Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 Moreover David said, “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”

➢Practically
  • Pastor Ford: “Same salt that preserves a hog will preserve a pig.”
  • Pastor Ford: “If everybody likes you, you’re doing something wrong.”
  • Mother Evans: “If you’re going to go high in God, you need to learn to go low”

➢Historically
  • Mahalia Jackson to MLK Jr. “Tell them about the dream”

➢Scripturally
  • If you can’t run a sound home you can’t lead a sound ministry ~
  • don’t be unequally yoked (contracted) with unbelievers ~
  • Never curse the king, not even in your thoughts, nor the rich man, either; for a little bird will tell them what you’ve said. (Ecc 10.20)
  • For a dream comes through much activity,
  And a fool’s voice is known by his many words. (Ecc 5.3)


1 Corinthians 4:15New International Version (NIV)

Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father(A) through the gospel.

#Perspicacity Recap from 1st Sunday

I refer to #Perspicacity as the Practical Art of Spiritual Living and Spiritual Art of Practical Living.

Smart: Showing mental alertness, calculation & resourcefulness. Characterized by quickness.

Intelligence: The ability to comprehend. To understand. To profit from experience. Gathering of information.

Knowledge: The psychological results of perception & learning & reasoning.

Wisdom: Is not mystical insights or deep revelation. In scripture it comes from the a Hebrew word with means “skill of living.” It is the practical application of truth. 

*Wise & Intuitive
*From Latin roots meaning “Seeing Clearly”~ which leads to informed action.

Wisdom:
  • More valuable than gold (Prov 3.15)...used for exchange
  • Wealth is associated with is...it increases in worth and offers dividends
  • Jewelry: You’re adorned with it (Prov 3.22)
  • Helps one to succeed (Ecc 10.10)

Opposite:
  • Folly ~ Destructive destiny. Purposeless living (Prov. 5.23)
  • They end up as the guest of Hell (Prov 9.18)


IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

“Whereas the path of folly is a downward slide toward destruction, the progress of wisdom is toward something better...”

i.e. “the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which shines bright and brighter until full day.” (Prov 4.18)

*Looking for it is futile...it’s the mind of God!

*Prov 1.7 states that  the beginning point is “fearing God...”

Sunday, November 2, 2014

#Perspicacity ~The Practical Art of Spiritual Living and The Spiritual Art of Practical Living.

New Series Title: #Perspicacity

Message Title: #Perspicacity= The Practical Art of Spiritual Living and The Spiritual Art of Practical Living.

Psalm 111

Smart: Showing mental alertness, calculation & resourcefulness. Characterized by quickness.

Intelligence: The ability to comprehend. To understand. To profit from experience. Gathering of information.

Knowledge: The psychological results of perception & learning & reasoning.

Wisdom: Is not mystical insights or deep revelation. In scripture it comes from the a Hebrew word with means “skill of living.” It is not for a selective few. It is common to street smarts or common sense. It has very little to do with what one knows, but rather what one does with that knowledge. It is the practical application of truth. 


*Wise & Intuitive
*From Latin roots meaning “Seeing Clearly”

➤Goods v. Guts
➤Good detective shows act on clues and 

November 2: Wisdom Begins Here    Psalm 111:10  (NIV)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. 

He recommends the holy fear of God, and conscientious obedience to his commands, as the most acceptable way of praising God, Ps. 111:10.

Good success have all those that do them (so the margin), according to what was promised to Joshua if he would observe to do according to the law. Josh. 1:8; Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and shalt have good success

Ministry Aim: Grasp the importance of the meaning and application of wisdom
Wisdom:
  • More valuable than gold (Prov 3.15)...used for exchange
  • Wealth is associated with is...it increases in worth and offers dividends
  • Jewelry: You’re adorned with it (Prov 3.22)
  • Helps one to succeed (Ecc 10.10)

Opposite:
  • Folly ~ Destructive destiny. Purposeless living (Prov. 5.23)
  • They end up as the guest of Hell (Prov 9.18)


IVP Dictionary of Biblical Imagery
“Whereas the path of folly is a downward slide toward destruction, the progress of wisdom is toward something better...”

i.e. “the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which shines bright and brighter until full day.” (Prov 4.18)

*Looking for it is futile...it’s the mind of God!
*Prov 1.7 states that  the beginning point is “fearing God...”


There is a place for intelligence, smarts, and knowledge. 
It’s just that when wisdom speaks...it trumps those things. It overrides them.

Wisdom is the big joker, Royal Flush, Right Bower, 

Transition To Table......

➤Listen long enough to hear plan AND strategy
➤Rec’v direction and assurance and become resolute
➤Wisdom provides a necessary corrective adjustment to your trajectory
➤Exodus 13 God protected Israel from Israel
➤Exodus 14 God protected Istael from Pharaoh

➤Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord