Daily Wisdom

 1Co 13:4-8a  "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends...”

As a house can only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on; only love can be legitimate, lasting, real, and satisfying when it’s without restraints, conditions, obligation, or guilt. This is the Father’s love for us, all that it needs to be and is! Tell me how much you know of the sufferings of your fellow man, and I will tell you how much you have loved them. Thus, remember the Father Omniscient, He knows all our sufferings, thus His love is real and all sufficient!

Everything was and is defeated before and without the Father’s love; love conquerors all (1 Cor 13)… HSAY  

Daily Wisdom

 Psa 107:1-2 “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.” 

We only enter the fullness of life when our faith gives thanks. Because how else do we accept His free gift of salvation and His great love if not with humility and thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance and acknowledgment of the grace and goodness the Father gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace. Everything is defeated and dead without the Father’s great love (Jn 3:16)… yet His promised fullness of life is received by His abundance of grace (Jn 1:16). Thus, the soul sings, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.”  Grace garners our Thankfulness and provides our fullness. 

Thankfulness unlocks the fullness of life; it turns what we have been given into enough. It can turn a meal into a feast, house into a home, and a stranger into a friend… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Col 4:5 “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.”

The "spiritual show business," which has incorporated itself into church view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from the gospel and scriptural discipleship. It’s instilled in too many believers to think that we must do exceptional things for God; we have not. We must be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy with a concrete gospel on concrete streets among a people who stand on unsolid ground (Mt 7:24-27). The church today is lacking a gospel that is both concrete in scriptural truth and lived-out and preached on concrete streets.

If one had the cure to cancer I feel confident it would be endlessly shared; why is physical death more motivating than spiritual death… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Psa 127:1 “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

The problem that we are facing in the church today is that we have so many who have made a decision to believe in Jesus but not a commitment to follow Him. The church has believers who are planning to, meaning to, trying to, wanting to, going to, it just doesn't have many Christians who are doing it. It matters not how I build my life/family, if it’s not built by the Lord’s plans and in His purpose, my labor is in vain, and I’ll fail to experience the abundance that only the Lord can provide. May my commitment be not in my plans, but in Lord’s and making Him my highest priority and “Masterbuilder( 1 Cor 3:10)” for my life.

May we be committed though never seeing the final plans, that’s the difference between the Masterbuilder and us, the laborer in His plans… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Gal 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” 

Just as I came to the Cross, my burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off my back, and began to tumble down the hill, and so it continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher. There it fell in, and I saw it no more! And though the sepulcher could not hold everything within, my sin and burden did not escape. Only the grace that was afforded to me miraculously came forth into the light of day… declaring, I told you I love you! 

Bombs, sadly have kill-radiuses; churches should have love-radiuses--anyone within twenty miles of a church should know it… HSAY 

Daily Wisdom

1Pe 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”

When a believer shares their faith story of Jesus’ great love, provision and faithfulness, the beauty is that others get to listen without working; they rest. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to labor in. And another soul is quietened as they listen, certainly burdened. . . but still resting in the knowledge that the same promise of hope is indestructible and unmovable in meeting their need as well. It needs only to be nourished and released in the same manner they’re hearing it. Spiritual success is greatly measured when one’s faith story begins to change others’ lives eternally.

Let others know how Jesus transformed your test into a testimony, mess into a message, and your misery will become a ministry – lives will be changed eternally… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 2Ti 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Wycliff makes a strong point… Christianity (Christ likeness) is intended to prove all things by the Word of God: church body, ministers, teaching/preaching, doctrines, choices, all practices. This is God’s purpose in us, prove all by the Word of God; measure all by the measure of the Bible; compare all with the standard of the Bible; weigh all in the balances of the Bible; examine all by the light of the Bible; test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which cannot abide the fire of the God’s Word, reject, refuse, repudiate, and cast away. This is the flag which He nailed to the mast. May it never be lowered!

The Word of God doesn’t conform to our choices, our choices are to conform to Christ… HSAY 

Daily Wisdom

 Heb 12:28 “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.”

The practice of being grateful - eucharisteo... is the way we practice the presence of God. Staying in His presence and worship is a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see, only the way we see it. How our eyes see, perspective, is paramount in seeing what the Father sees. If my spiritual eyes have God seeping up through all things, then I can give thanks for anything; be it good things, hard things, and absolute everything. Then I will find my gratefulness knowing that my Father is in control of all things, and thus I can worship in His presence and promises.

Fixing my eyes on Jesus stops me from trying to fix everything myself, and simply worship Him who can… HSAY 

Daily Wisdom

 Isa 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.”

The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose. The Father surpasses our dreams when we let go of  our personal plans and agenda to grab the hand of Christ and walk the path, He has for us. Our spirit will continually be dissatisfied in and with this world until we grasp that the Father’s plans are higher than our ways; not because he is less compassionate than we are but because he is more compassionate than we can ever imagine.

The true battle in life is between hanging on to what you think, or letting go to what God knows… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Psa 32:7  “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.” Selah 

Faith is the acknowledgment and recognition of the cross as the substitute for man’s inability to save self. Faith saves, because the cross affords the complete salvation of another, and not because man contributes anything to that salvation. Today everybody admits that something is wrong with the world, and the critics of Christianity are the very people who feel this most. The most violent attacks against truth come from those who are most anxious to change the world, and yet they attack the very truth, that like generations past has rescued the soul of man from life’s difficulties. The truth of God’s Word is the only hope man has against life’s troubles.

Losing faith is losing strength; we are twice armed when we fight with faith… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Psa 73:26 “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Our greatest fear as believers and as a church should not be failure in our efforts of faith; the Father knows our failure thus offers us repentance and His mercy to move forward. Through that process of working out our faith we grow and mature in the Lords’ strength. But our fear should be succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter, it offers a false hope and a measure of worth that can blind us to our need for Jesus. It’s a good thing to meet opposition and struggles in our faith; We should fear when we don’t, because we’re probably not living in our faith.

The moment one realizes this world cannot sustain them, they are left with two conclusions concerning hope; life is simply cruel or Jesus is greatly real… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

Psa 119:165  “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

Man has always longed for peace of mind. Here’s my clear-cut instruction on how to attain it: If I love God and obey His Word, I’ll find "great peace." It’s the cross that the Christian is challenged to seek after: no path of redemption can make a detour around it. Seeking alternatives is where we lose our peace of mind. We all have the best in us, Holy Spirit; and it’s up to us to submit to Him. My submission comes through His Word which leads me straight to the cross and Jesus, and all that I long for.

As Jesus went willingly to the cross, my we willingly approach the throne of grace; obtaining His great peace… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Act 14:22 “Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

Life tempts me and at times persuades me to take the path of less resistance. Yet doing so doesn’t always provide the most rewarding results and only softens my spirit for self. I begin to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in, instead of standing out with Christ. I start to look at earth as "home." Before I know it, I am calling luxuries "needs" and using my money just as the unbelieving world. I begin to forget the wars and suffering. I forget people are perishing. Missions and unreached people evade my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace and salvation. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God has done. It is a terrible sickness I can be prone to. And I thank God when life has forced me again and again toward a mind-set of tribulation. Then I immediately see the cross and realize that it wasn’t comfortable/convenient, nor a path of least resistance, for Jesus to go to the cross for me!

Tribulation often squeezes the artificiality out of me, making room for the Holy Spirit work… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Act 12:11 “When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod….”

Often our greatest obstacle is overcoming self and humbly turning to God. Just like the prodigal son in (Lk 15) as compared to Peter here in Acts, when we humbly “come to ourselves” great peace and provision comes with it; the old saying know who butters your bread. Humility drives the soul to thanksgiving and provides patience in the Lord’s provisions. Thanksgiving can’t be an annually scheduled dinner to practice humility, but rather practiced daily by “coming to ourselves” and knowing our provisions are promised only in Him who provides them. 

Humility doesn’t promise a place of perfection, but a place of perseverance in His promised hope… HSAY  

Daily Wisdom

 Acts 11:26b “…  And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

The disciples after being in Antioch for a year ministering to the gospel and others were first called “Christians,” depicting Christlikeness. However, although every Christian is a believer, not every believer is a Christian. A believer is only a Christian when he “acts like one. We need to realize a Christian isn’t a description but a depiction, a believer is a description. Being a “Christian” requires one to depict Christ-likeness. May we live in a way that depicts Christ and doesn’t describe us.

A big difference between description and depiction, one verbalizes the other illustrates… HSAY

Daily Wisdom

 Heb 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money (world), and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated: “The gospel preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.” The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith; choosing to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark because the value of a temporal infinitely worthless world, in the hands of man, is given infinite value over the Christ.  

Leave it all in the nail scarred hands that were pierced and wounded for you… HSAY 

Daily Wisdom

1Pe 4:12  “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

We don't have a soul. We are a soul. We happen to have a body. That body is for the edifying of Jesus Christ and His glorious love for us. And yet for this to be displayed through us, we must stand in faith amidst life and its trials for the likeness of Jesus to be seen in us. No trials no faith required, no faith then others can’t see Jesus in us (Jms 1:2-18). Likewise, life trials strengthen us for the battle, allowing us to exercise our faith and be an example for others to walk in Jesus. 

Suffering provides the gym equipment on which our faith can be exercised… HSAY