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Solomon

If my vote counted, I would say that he is one of the most prolific, yet practical writers in all of Scripture. His writings don’t really tell stories, but rather it’s as if he is having a heart to heart with his readers, well except for his books of songs which is more like him sharing the love letters between him and his lover. Anyhow, reading through the book of Ecclesiastes again, I don’t see as much of a paradox as I used to, but rather I see him coming for my life like no other book has, which is part of the reason I understand his quite large number of lady friends and acquaintances, but back to the matter at hand. I mean he really makes you question like everything about you life, even the people in it.

Really listening the heart of Solomon, we see how vastly different his philosophy of life is compared to the world’s philosophy today of humanism and happiness. Now, not that Solomon discredits that type of thinking, but he warns us about it. If pleasure and happiness and money are all we are after in this life, our life will count for nothing; it’s vain; it’s meaningless. Furthermore, with that type of life, there can never be any satisfaction, and if you look around, he was all the way right. What we see today are people indulging in what they find pleasure, living for self, and though they get a temporary smile, they are still left empty and broken and at some point come face to face with consequences they never imagined and a life ruined, and die and wake up in Hell because they didn’t recognize their need for a savior or make it to Heaven sad that they didn’t do more.

On the flip side, living for God and following His commands as Solomon described, should make up the most satisfying and invigorating life. Following Christ is not boring and mundane, because if you know His character, He is all about the element of surprise and astonishment, causing you to take those giant leaps of faith often times blindly, step out of your comfort zone, bring you into a place to face your fears, constantly molding, shaking, pressing, purging, breaking, and building you to be all He meant for you to be, and above all else develop a personal and ever-growing, ever-changing, deepening relationship with the One who created the universes with His very word and died to spend an eternity with you.

The treasure that the world seeks can in no way ever measure to what a life in the Lord has to offer and Solomon over time came to understand this. I mean after all He was stupid rich, indulged in any pleasure he desired, and literally had the world at his feet, but still found himself miserable, and one of his realizations was that things will come and go, everything has a season, but God is the only thing constant in life. Nevertheless, life should be an adventure with the people put in place by God to venture with and alongside of you as you do whatever it is that brings your soul satisfaction, not just work that provides a paycheck, but rather a passion or calling to the person fearfully and wonderfully formed by the Creator in your mother’s womb that gives you a life that money cannot buy, discovering and using the strengths and gifts divinely given to you.

So, live a life that means something for eternity, and if you have the opportunity to splurge or fulfill nonsense pleasures in the process, go for the gold, if not, Heaven’s glory will welcome you when your number is called. But still, it makes me think of a verse in Psalms and one in Matthew, reminding us to delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart, and always to seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. Follow Solomon’s candid approach in sharing what he learned, following the Lord and keeping His commandments, and get ready for the time of your life. Be you for eternity’s purpose.

 

Zero to Hero

hercules

As I was eating Chipotle and admiring the voices of the muses, the story of Hercules is one that isn’t necessarily uncommon, but watching Disney’s rendition I just wanted to reflect upon and prayerfully encourage you in the process.

Although Hercules was born a god, we were made in the image of God purposed for the extraordinary, but the Devil, like Hades, has other plans for our lives and does all he can to destroy us and mess up God’s plans, ultimately trying to gain control. Through the temptation that led to sin, we were stripped of our immortality and we are always at war with the Devil who tries to rule, though he is well aware of what will happen to him in the end, similar to the movie.

Nevertheless, I want to continue with Hercules, as seen in the movie from the beginning, his parents knew something was special about him and as he grew up his strength grew, yet still he was immature and lacked self-control. As a result, others weren’t too fond of him or took well to his gifts and so he was often left out, misunderstood, and put in awkward situations. Sounds like me, and I’m sure sounds like you, even a little bit, which makes me so thankful for those who encourage me, pray for me, and help me to nurture the gifts and strengths I have. Then there are the times when people doubt what you are able to do time after time again in addition to training like Hercules, praying, fasting, and seeking His face. But you have to remain faithful, even when the Lord shows you glimpses of the hero you will become. And yeah, there are times we get anxious, get in way over our head, forget some of the things we learned, but victory is not always perfect and pretty. This takes time and a decision to develop and become all of who God intended you to be, and usually when you are least expecting it to happen, God opens a door and people begin to believe who you are and the power of your gift, whatever it may be, but beware of the Achilles’ heel of pride.

As we see in the movie (I won’t spoil it), the greatest way to demonstrate and or mirror the image of God, is humility. Jesus himself was the humblest and greatest hero in being the ultimate sacrifice for us as wretched as we are, in the same manner we have to die to ourselves daily and put others’ needs ahead of our own.

All in all, I just wanted to encourage you to stay the course and don’t run from your gift or your God-given strengths no matter how misunderstood you are or how little confidence others have in you. Take the story of Hercules and know that your time is coming, but it will take heart and patience to truly be you for a purpose and be what Heaven intended.

Enemies

You can’t live a life of any type of significance without making enemies, or haters, if I may use that word. Now using these terms, I am not talking about people that legitimately just don’t like you or people that just don’t care for you as a person, because not everyone meshes well with everybody, you learned that in pre-school. We each are drawn to different types of people, and the people you hang with may not be my cup of tea. These people are not your enemies. Rather, enemies are those who seem to be on an assignment to destroy your life or disrupt your road to fulfilling God’s purpose for your life, and the scary part is that they don’t always show their true colors right away, and some we don’t recognize before it’s too late, because their maneuvers are very subtle. Of course, the Enemy and all of Hell’s demons become your enemies once you surrender your life over to Christ, but I don’t want to talk about them specifically.

So where is all this coming from? Well I have been reading Max Lucado’s book, “Facing Your Giants,” which goes through the life of David, and he pointed out that during the time David was on the run from Saul, there was an incident when he cut off a part of Saul’s garment without him knowing it, and later felt bad about it. The lesson learned is that even though our enemies are our enemies, they still belong to God, no matter what position they are in, whether they are friends, co-workers, parents, ministers, siblings, or even those people you really can’t fathom how or when they became your enemy. For David, Saul’s pursuit was driven by jealousy and envy, which in my opinion is the common determining factor, meaning that people out of their own misery and insecurities do what they can to bring you down with them or try to get over you.

Nevertheless, recognizing who our enemies may be, it’s easy to begin to talk bad about them, build a false sense of pride, and if you let it, you begin to hate them. The problem here is that hating someone the Bible classifies as murder, God vividly says He hates pride, and slander is always condemned in scripture, so obviously, should we get to these points, we need to reevaluate our heart and motives, because if the Lord truly is trying to elevate us and use us in ways that only He can, we must get rid of all these things. If for no other reason, James reminds us not to tear them down, even though these persons are our enemies and may have truly done or said some terrible things, because they, like us, were made in the image of God.

Furthermore, because of that understanding, as Lucado explained, they are still a part of God’s plan especially in your life, which could be to develop patience, mercy, forgiveness, faith, and or love, yet in the same way, He has a plan for them too, for the simple fact that they are alive. This means that even though they are behaving like anything but a child of God, they are not out of reach to be redeemed by God. So with that being said, in dealing with our enemies we should be bearing fruit, honoring God, especially love since we are commanded to love our enemies. Likewise, it got me thinking some more as it relates to how we pray.

If you haven’t discovered this on your own, there are some scary prayers in the Bible, especially by David, that petition the Lord’s judgement and wrath on our enemies. So as a disclaimer, there is a time to pray those types of prayers, but I doubt your life is as insane as David’s so I can’t imagine you having to pray those prayers on a regular basis, just use wisdom with pure motives. On the other hand, because we acknowledge the fact the even our enemies are made in the image of God who still has the ability to change their hearts, our prayers should be more compassionate, because they may be in a spiritual war that they aren’t even aware they are in or deeply struggling in ways we aren’t privy to knowing. Your prayers can truly save their lives, which would make yours less difficult, allowing the possibility of a friend. To put it another way, if how you pray about and over your enemies they pray for you, would your prayers change? This is important to consider because you have been or still may be an enemy to someone.

Bottom line, your response to your enemies can change lives, just let the Spirit of God lead you in dealing with them in whatever your situation may be. It’s definitely something worth mastering, because being you for a purpose will always draw attention and create a response, both positive and negative.

Lessons from Eden: Part III

So recently in a weekly group I attend we’ve discussed the first three chapters of Genesis, creation and the fall of man, and oh my, there is so much more to the story. I have written in the past about lessons from the Garden, but there are some more that I want to share that my eyes were just opened to see.

tree of the kgeFirst off, one of the lingering questions in the story is where Adam was during the whole conversation between Eve and the Serpent. Well in reading, the Bible does assume he was there, but how close is up for discussion. Nevertheless, lets assume that he in fact was there beside Eve as she was talking to the snake. The first lesson here is that silence is not always golden. Especially considering that he was the leader of that home, he should have spoken up when the Serpent began to misquote God’s word, but he didn’t because maybe he was just shocked that the snake was speaking or intrigued by what it was saying. Still, as we often do today, he didn’t speak up because he possibly didn’t see the threat in the lie that Serpent was speaking or in the Serpent himself who was said to be subtle and cunning. This very act of silence that we see here has shown it’s effects on our society. These subtle lies and doubts that the Enemy has whispered in our ears to make us question or reinvent the Word of God has desensitized us and confused even Christians as to what is right and wrong, and our society has greatly fallen because of it. It emphasizes our need to have continuous fellowship with God, as they did in the Garden, because for that brief time they were apart from God for one reason or the other, Satan slipped in and well, here we are today. God’s word is the truth and we must speak up for Christians have been silent for far too long and sin has prevailed in this society because of it, but yet we want to be popular and accepted and don’t want people to look at us weird or call us names, yet that is what was promised when we signed up to be followers of Christ. Now more than ever we need to not only speak up with the Word of God no matter how small or trivial the matter seems, but live a corresponding life showing that right is right and wrong is wrong.

As just said, for that brief moment Adam and Eve were not walking with God as they had done pretty much every day, so what happened? I don’t know, but what I do know is that we all miss the mark at times and for one reason or another we get out of touch with God. That doesn’t mean we just become heathens overnight, but perhaps we get too busy or life gets so chill that we forget our need for God, yet it’s that time we are out of fellowship that the Enemy likes to attack us and makes us question who God is, who we are and what we are supposed to do as he did with Eve. Our priorities get mixed up, we become anxious and worrisome, questioning the power and provision of God, pride sets in, and or we become apathetic, and before we even realize it, our thinking begins to change and that space between us and God thickens, our language changes, and sooner or later we fall into sin, whether worry, cussing, fornication, getting drunk, pride, bitterness, anger, jealousy, or whatever your vice may be.

So we mess up to some degree or another and feel so icky that we do the worse thing and pull away from God completely out of guilt, like Adam and Eve. We try to hide ourselves and our sin as if God doesn’t already know. We are afraid to pray, stop listening to devotionals, block out people from our lives, stop going to church because we feel so ashamed of what we did or how far off track we’ve gotten, because we don’t want people’s perceptions to change about us or let down those that looked up to us. So like Adam and Eve, we go under a rock or hide in a bush and put on a mask so no one can really see us. But God in His awesome love, grace, and mercy went out looking for them even though he was well aware of what they had done. He does the same with us, we just have to be willing to respond like Adam. God didn’t jump on their case or write them off from history because of their sin, but instead he covered them, though there were still consequences. As a body of believers, we should have the same mindset of God and should someone go missing from church or you notice a different pattern of behavior or attitude, reach out to them and show them the way home without automatically condemning or judging them, but show them the same grace, mercy, and love God showed to you. Yet, we neglect to do that far too often for a long time now and so many have slipped through the cracks and have been forgotten. So as much as you are able, check up on each other.

The last thing I want to point out that was pointed out to me is that God said not to eat of the tree originally, yet Eve told the Serpent that they were not to touch it nor eat it. Credit to her. Why? From Eve, this simple recall shows a great sense of maturity that we can apply today by not touching sin. Far too often we tease sin and put ourselves in compromising situations because we want the experience or we want to see how far we can get without actually sinning, but how much does that go as planned. More times than not we go further then we desired and do what we said we wouldn’t do and things get messy. We just wanted to touch it. This lesson from Eve urges us to just completely abstain from sin as much as we can, whatever is in our control, the choices we make every day. Though we can only control so much and get tempted, through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God we are able to not touch, preventing us from tasting the fruit.

This is one of the more lengthy posts I’m sorry, but I’m glad I was able to share and I hope and pray it blessed and encouraged you. Take these lessons from Eden and use them every day to more and more be you for a purpose.

If you want to check out other lessons from Eden, check them out on the links below:

Lessons from Eden

Lessons from Eden: Part II

Jewel of the Garden