god

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Deuteronomy #2: Love is the Answer

If we could summarize God’s law in just a few words, those words would be this: Love is the answer. In Deuteronomy 6:5 we are told, “and you shall love the lord your God with all our heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,” and this is the heart of the law, the foundation, the fulcrum upon which all else balances.  1 John 4:16, states, “And so we know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him,” and Christ tells us this in Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

It’s by following God’s laws, we show our love, we tether ourselves to Him, giving over our hearts, trusting with total abandon, and in return we experience His faithful and steadfast devotion. Romans 13:8 states this; “let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.”

The song “Love is the Answer” is stuck in my head, and like a broken record that keeps skipping and repeating these words keep playing in my head:

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer…

And when you feel afraid…Love one another
When you’ve lost your way…Love one another

When you’re all alone …Love one another
When you’re far from home…Love one another

When you’re down and out…Love one another
All your hope’s run out…Love one another

When you need a friend…Love one another
When you’re near the end, love
We got to love, we got to love one another

Funny how god uses whomever he wishes to bring his Word to us, and I wonder how quickly Todd Rundgren wrote this song, and if he felt the power of the Spirit upon him when he did.

~SLM

And in case you’ve never heard, or don’t remember it…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QZjJU-mtFU

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Proverbs 6:12-19 The Shit Disturber & The Big 6

After telling us that we should be as hard-working as the ant, Solomon advises which direction that industry should take. Wisdom dictates that unless we want our lives to be ruled by ruin and catastrophe, we need to avoid talking out of both sides of our mouths, saying one thing and doing another, cooking up devious plots to bring disaster on others, and being a “shit” disturber.  He even outlines six behaviors that the Eternal One despises. They are:

  • People who look down on others,
  • A liar,
  • Those who hurt the innocent,
  • People who harbor evil in their hearts,
  • Someone who willing takes a wicked path,
  • A false witness.

Wisdom calls us to look upon others with compassion and love, never in haughty arrogance, or from a position of superiority.  Liars and those who would willingly make up stories about others are people who cannot be trusted. Someone who harbors evil desires in their heart and who would harm the innocent are faithless reprobates, and are not the kind of people the wise associate with. These are all behaviors that God hates, that speak against God’s laws, and that open up a world of hurt and misfortune for those who follow their teaching.  And, as if to underscore what he had just said, he adds the “shit” disturber to his list.

Wisdom calls on us to follow God’s laws, to write them on the tablet of our hearts, to live our lives every day according to His will, to seek Him first among all things.

~SLM

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Proverbs 3:13-26 Obtaining Peace

True understanding and its application to our daily lives is a commodity more valuable than silver or gold and more precious than rare jewels. Nothing we can accumulate can serve us better than wisdom. She forces us to turn inward, to be introspective and to understand the difference between those things which we can and cannot change. When we accept the unchangeable, the unknowable, and rely on trust, on the omnipotence of God’s plan for all things, and have faith in his ability to provide, then we can walk securely, we can sleep soundly, we can have no fear of wickedness when it visits, and we will sit in the seat of sound discretion with confidence.

When we find wisdom and have true understanding, exercising it daily with all whom we meet and in all that we do, our lives become a blessed expression of the holy spirit of God, a sacred song of compassion and love. For it is wisdom which guides us through the obstacle course of life and through her we find peace.
~SLM

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Proverbs 3:1-8 It’s a Matter of Trust

At first glance, this chapter seemed to me a repeat of the first 2, a rehashing of the concepts previously discussed. I’m not fond of covering ground twice, so I glanced ahead a few chapters, and I discovered that chapters 1-10 cover a lot of the same principles. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent girl, and I’m not opposed to expounding on a theme, but, on the surface, the reiteration looked rather excessive to me, and had this been a novel, I’d have stopped right there. But this is not a novel, and I have committed myself to this study. I wondered what could be so important. There must be a reason that Solomon found it necessary to repeatedly stress the concepts of faith, love, and the fear of the Lord. I decided to take another tack.

I find that writing verses in my own words can provide insight into their meaning. So I set about writing the verses, praying over their meaning, asking to be given awareness, knowledge, and comprehension of their deeper meaning. And then I slept on it, as is my habit when I’m really engrossed in trying to understand.

This morning, it dawned on me (quite literally, in fact), it’s a matter of trust. Verses 5-6 cover trust, and what my closer look showed me is that until you really, really get the concepts of faith, obedience, love and “fear of the Lord” embedded into your very being, it’s very hard to really, really trust. When we’re children, it’s so easy to trust, but as we grow and mature, we tend to get the trust “experienced” right out of us. We learn to be skeptical, suspicious, and faithless. We have to get the ideas expressed in verses 1-4 so ingrained in us that they are “written on our hearts, as if they are written on stone,” before we can move on to trust. Verses 3-4 are about love and faithfulness, but before love and faithfulness, we have to learn to keep the teachings of wisdom, the commandments of God, which must first be written on our hearts.

Verses 1-2 look more closely at wisdom’s teaching. It’s through the keeping of God’s commands, by writing them on our hearts, that we can remember the teachings of wisdom, and by following wisdom’s guidance, we can live long and prosperous lives. Such a simple concept: Live by God’s commandments, remember them, write them on your heart, and by doing this you open yourself to God’s wisdom, and opening ourselves to wisdom enables us to practice discernment, helping us to consider who we associate with, and how we can live honestly and fairly. Living this way leads to prosperity, not just physical prosperity, but more importantly spiritual prosperity, brought to us through love and faithfulness.

Verses 3-4, to me, convey a very good description of what Christian thought is all about – Love and Faithfulness. They are core concepts and you should be so attached to them that you and they are inseparable, that they become second nature to you, that you express them in everything you do. They are an outcropping of keeping God’s commands and the remembrance of wisdom’s teaching, a natural result listening to the voice of wisdom. By showing love and faithfulness in everything you do, you will find favor with God, and be held in good esteem with him, and by your friends, acquaintances, and mankind.

And all this leads to trust. It’s all about trust. Trust God with all your heart, with all your being. What does this mean? I think that it means to be able to say “Lord, I know you see this situation, and while I have no idea how it could ever resolve itself, I know that you do, and I’m putting the ball in your court, you take, because I know and have faith that you can and will provide for it and work it out according to your plan.”

And, after all that, verses 7-8 warn us about the importance of keeping our own greatness in perspective. It reminds us that we shouldn’t think too much of our own genius, because when we get caught up in our own idea of how brilliant we are, we are usually setting ourselves up for a little slice of “humble pie.” We should reverence the source of our “wisdom” and give credit where credit is due. By humbly acknowledging that we are merely the channel for God’s spirit, we bring sustenance and strength to our very beings.

It’s funny how, when you really take the time to study something, how much more that can be seen, than when you make only a cursory glance, like seeing the individual threads in the tapestry, and how they work together to make a complete picture, an image that would not appear the same, if just one of the threads were only slightly different.

I guess I had a lot to say about it afterall! 🙂
~SLM

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Proverbs 1:20-33 When Wisdom Speaks…

This portion of Proverbs 1 conjures up such mental images for me. I’m reminded of the scene in The Matrix, where Neo wants to run, and Trinity opens the car door and tells him he’s free to go. The camera pans toward the open door, and a long dark road can be seen through the pouring rain. As they both look toward the deserted road, Trinity says, “is this what you really want Neo? You’ve been down that road before, and we both know where it ends.”

Even though the scene in the movie is a dark and deserted street, I see a correlation with the description in verses 20-23. I can just see wisdom standing at the end of a bustling street, shouting for all she’s worth…”listen, listen to me.  Don’t do it, don’t go there, you won’t like the result! Turn back now, while there’s still time! Listen, LISTEN!”  And, as the people all rush past her, they look at her as if she’s totally lost her mind and her insanity is a contagious disease that they might contract by being near her.  But later, when all of her predictions have been realized, they lament their predicament, and ask where she was when they needed her, why was she not there to help them? Both of these scenes are about choices, about listening to that inner voice that wants to “pour its heart out and make its thoughts known.” Wisdom was there all along, they just didn’t recognize her as they rushed past with a disgusted look on their faces, and they never took the time to stop, to seek, or to listen.

So this is what I think the riddle means: When seeking wisdom it’s so important to stop, to consider, and to listen.  Seek the counsel of God, of your parents, your trusted friends. So many times we rush head-long into situations, never considering the consequences of our actions, and when it all turns out wrong, we’re ready to blame anybody, everybody, but ourselves. We wonder why Wisdom (or God), seems to have abandoned us, and in reality, we never sought her out, or if we did, we didn’t heed her direction.

The chapter ends with “but he who listens to me will dwell in safety, untouched by the terror of misfortune.”  Such truth these words speak. To live a “wise” life, we must seek wise counsel, be still and listen, hear what Wisdom (AKA God) has to say about it, and do not turn from the truth because it presents itself in a form that we may not recognize.

~SLM