Written by
His Grace,
July 22,
2004
Main
thought: to explore the contrasts between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of man
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the
weak things of the world to shame the strong. (Whole Chapter: In
context: )
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards
of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.
(Whole Chapter: In
context: )
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. (Whole Chapter: In
context: )
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when
I am weak, then I am strong. (Whole Chapter: In
context: )
Matthew 9:11-13
11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why
does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 12On
hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but
the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not
sacrifice.'[1] For I have
not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each
esteem other better than themselves. (Whole Chapter: In context: )
Strength
through weakness, Knowledge through ignorance, Wholeness through brokenness,
Health through sickness, Esteeming others more highly
than ourselves, no wonder God Himself tells us in Matthew 7:13&14 Enter through the
narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to
destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and
narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. The way of Life is not of us at all.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Whole Chapter: In
context: )
And another good verse
which depicts our state of sin is here in The
heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
(Whole Chapter: In context: ) Every person who enters heaven will
have absolutely nothing to boast about due to the fact that the nature of
Christ is not the nature of sinful man and to enter glory, His nature must be
in us. To
them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of
this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Whole Chapter: In context: ) It’s amazing how we’ll deny ourselves
many comforts if there is physical wealth to be had through much effort and
discipline and yet we’ll fail to realize that the riches of Glory in Christ far
surpass all the riches of this world. Oh how we need to take time to listen to
His Word, which is able to shed light into the dark places of our
understanding.
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Whole Chapter: In
context: )
It is not the quantity
of our words or the mightiness of our activities that determine our greatness
in eternity. It is the position of our hearts before Christ and then others.
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his
height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks
at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
(Whole Chapter: In
context: )
The happiest, most
content people of all eternity will be those who continue to grow in their
understanding of Who He is for these are the ones who say as John the Baptist
said here in He must become greater; I must
become less. (Whole Chapter: In context: ) Those who have experienced the joy
of loving someone else in this world can remember when their heart raced and
how their every thought was how to fulfill and thrill the person they loved.
Heaven will be such a place, where each person’s focus will be for each other
and not ourselves. There will be absolutely no concern for life or limb for the
One Who is Life will fill each one and fulfill our every need. For the time
being, sin must run its course but there is coming a day when the pride,
arrogance, and selfishness of sin will be of the past. Praise God for that day!
It’s through the trials that we presently have to go through that the trueness
of our character is revealed. Are we people who desire life through the death
of our own pride and arrogance or are we like the character of satan who became so consumed with himself that he couldn’t
see beyond himself anymore? It seems that all pain is bearable IF we can see
what is beyond the pain; For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us. (Whole Chapter: In context: ) Here again, we can see the importance
of listening to His Word for it’s only in the hearing of His Word that Light is
revealed into our understanding. And, it’s only in the discipline of prayer
that the understanding He reveals to us keeps its proper place within our
hearts. For we are so wicked that we’ll go from taking pride in our sin to
taking pride in the revelations He brings to us. It seems that satan loves to take those things that were meant for our
good to bring us to destruction. He caused the Jews to make the law their god
and they totally missed the God of Creation when He appeared to purchase their
salvation. Satan even causes us today who have come into the revelation of
Christ to make the knowledge of His Word our ambition rather than Knowledge of
Him. Oh how very very sad to have a form and
technique of righteousness down to perfection and yet the fire and passion of
our hearts to be dead and gone. God help us to learn the art of Loving Him
Daily, of bending our hearts before Him to hear His voice and wisdom so that we
may live. May He ever teach us how to press deeper and deeper into His presence
and to apply every Word He speaks into our being; James 1:22-25 22Do not merely
listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone
who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at
his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and
immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But the man who looks
intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not
forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
For we are not
struggling for those things that are here and gone, but for an eternal
inheritance that will never ever diminish in beauty and wonder. Heavenly
Father, ever be the Fire and Desire of our Hearts to daily rise and seek Your
Heart and to do your Will with all of the Faith, Hope and Love You give us. In
Jesus Glorious, Matchless, Beautiful Name, Amen.
To return to the Main Page please select the
following link, The
O'Connors/Williamsons Main Home Page
To return to the Food for Thought link, please
select the following link, Food
for Thought
If you have comments or suggestions email me at rubornagain2@outlook.com