February 26, 2022
(Singing) Rejoice the Lord is King! The Lord and King adore. Rejoice, give thanks and sing and triumph evermore! Lift up your heart! Lift up your voice. Rejoice again I say, rejoice!
Thank you for a new day. Thank you for waking me up. I will rejoice because you are the King! (Thank God – because if someone else was, we were doomed! Doomed I tell you!) Why does misery like company? Why, if someone knows they are going down a bad road, they want to drag others with them? Satan is the ultimate example of that. And plenty people, too much people emulating his behaviour.
Yahweh I pray for the people of Ukraine and Russia (why is Russia always involved in something?) Sigh. It’s not easy waking up to the sounds of war. I don’t know why this has happened, but I do know that you are King. That even in the midst of war, you are working. Even in the midst of war, you give people a choice. Yahweh, I pray that they will choose you and find the peace that comes with living a life in you. Baptised, sealed, by your spirit. Thank you for working even when we don’t see it. Thank you for fighting for us. Thank you for who you are.
Ephesians 1:8-12 – He poured out his kindness by giving us every kind of wisdom and insight when he revealed the mystery of his plan to us. He had decided to do this through Christ. He planned to bring all of history to its goal in Christ. Then Christ would be the head of everything in heaven and on earth. God also decided ahead of time to choose us through Christ according to his plan, which makes everything work the way he intends. He planned all of this so that we who had already focused our hope on Christ would praise him and give him glory.
There is, I believe, a difference between knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge: Facts, information and skills acquired through experience or education.
Wisdom: the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgement.
It’s the difference between eating the fruit and now knowing that Satan is deceitful and wants to enslave the world. And understanding that though he tries, Yahweh has already won the battle. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but without the wisdom to apply and understand it, it does not make sense. The Holy Spirit is wisdom. He is what takes our knowledge from a head thing of facts etc, to a heart thing of understanding and working it out in our lives. It’s through the Holy Spirit, I can understand why a country would attack another. May not like it ehhh. May not be able to physically be there to do something about it. But I can understand it. I can understand why it happened in the overall context of the course of this world. And I can understand why a good God would allow something like this to happen. Because he is a good God and does not force us to worship him or honour him. Neither does he trick us. Once we ask of him he gives us wisdom (the Holy Spirit) to see past the tricks of the devil.
Proverbs 4:7 – Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.
It’s a process of knowing the facts, but when you get the Holy Spirit, you understand. In a weird way, the greatest thing about understanding is peace of mind. When your mind is at peace, it is unshakeable in the storm. That’s not to say that it doesn’t know that the storm is there or doesn’t feel the effects of the storm, but it understands the purpose of the storm. It understands who controls the storm. It understands who will calm the storm and it does not fear.
Thank you Yahweh for your wisdom and understanding. For choosing us and giving us a choice. For choosing to share who you are with us and a connection with you so that we can understand. To judge well (discern). Thank you for today, for your love for us. For your love in us. Because we need you in us. Not just around us (though that’s good), we need you in us. Thank you Yahweh, thank you
Partnership
Hmmmm. Random thought. You truly believe in partnerships:
Goodness and Mercy
Wisdom and Understanding
Taste and See
Glory and Honour
Wisdom and Power
Faith, Hope, Love
The beautiful thing is love is present in all (even if not stated). For the greatest of these is love. And we know 🙂 we understand that God is love. Thank you for being the embodiment of love.
Not gonna lie. I like my Saturday morning breakfast. Today was oatmeal and cornmeal porridge and it was awesome! Even better because it rained last night and it is cool this morning. Now I want to wrap up back in bed because it’s warm and nice. Thank you ehhh. I won’t take it for granted.
Yahweh works in hilarious and mysterious ways. Our theme for today is “Rivers of Living Water.” For the afternoon we were headed by an actual River to spend the time there. But it has been raining. The problem is when it rains you don’t go to the river (as they say, river does come down): it’s dangerous. But even though it’s raining, the church that is the alternate location has River in its name and in all of that, we are surrounded by water. Ahhh the ways of Yahweh.
I think that we truly underestimate young people. For a programme I’m planning in April, I wanted a panel discussion. Two older folks, two young. I said to the young man today that I wanted to ask him to do something. He sighed, “Please not scripture reading and prayer. I’m tired of doing that.” The thing is, he’s willing but it’s only been asked to do certain things. I told him I would like him to be a panellist and told him what the topic was. He was surprised, not expecting such a rule. I told him to think about it. We’ll see what he decides, I pray that he accepts.
