Back to Wisdom

Back to Wisdom

Well I thought I had run out of thoughts on the Wisdom/Knowledge discussion but Troy Dobbs spoke an amazing sermon this morning that rocked my world a little bit. Troy was in Matthew 7:24-27. It is where Jesus is speaking and says, “Let he who hears these words I teach and puts them in to practice is like the wise man who build his house on the rock.  Most people just know of this parable as the story of the wise verses the foolish. But if you only think about it as a story you really miss the point of what Jesus is saying. Never are the words of our Christ to be taken lightly. Troy said let us take the word house and put life in its place. This would bring about a whole new meaning to this would it now.  The key to all this is still the “variable of ‘puts them in to practice’”.

     Two things from all this you can gather about the wise. First: The wise hear the words of our Lord and apply them to their lives.  It doesn’t say that the wise hear the words and debate them. It doesn’t say the wise hear the words and say this is how I would apply them. It says, “He who puts these words in to practice is like a wise man....” I am the worst at hearing a sermon, song, or bible study and saying well I don’t agree with this part of it or that part of it. Now not to say that this is a bad thing BUT it is a bad thing if it keeps us from “hiding thy word in my heart o Lord so that I might not sin against thee.”  Far too often I don’t remember certain things I am taught because I am to busy saying what I think about them and because of this satan takes them away from me.  I can hear some people now saying, “Why would I store something away in my heart that I don’t understand or agree with.” Let me answer that one. WE DON’T KNOW IT ALL AND NEVER WILL.  We are always learning something new and learning new perspectives on the things we have already learned. If we aren’t growing and learning more about our Lord each day then we are truly seeking after God’s own heart because none of us know it all.

     Second: The wise are not with out storms. Just because we put our “lives” on the rock doesn’t mean we are going to be without storms.  The wise understand this fact and they absorb the storm instead of letting it blow them down. It is too easy and we are taught to some extent that you can “cast your burdens on Jesus” and everything will be fine. Well this is true but at the same time just because we cast them on Christ doesn’t mean we won’t have others later.  

     So hear again I have learned something about being wise. Sometimes we may not understand all we are taught by the elders but they are our elders for a reason and sometimes we should just apply their teachings, seeing that they are teaching the words of our Lord, to our lives and learn the wisdom of their teachings as we go thru this world.

Differences of Belief

Differences of Beliefs

This past week the church I attend, Crestwood Baptist Church, found out that our pastor was leaving for another church. This whole situation got me to thinking about the tension between Christians, churches, and denominations. It got me thinking about this because I was upset about his parting. This was obviously a selfish thought but none the less it crossed my mind. I do not feel I am alone in this thought either. I bet that inside most of the members of Crestwood are not happy about this situation. Mostly because we are human and don’t like change and the coming months and years are going to be about change. God never wants us to be to comfortable and it could be possible it was too comfortable at Crestwood.

So after spending some time being upset at myself for my selfishness I was led down the path of are denomination bad or good? but I am not exactly sure how I feel about this situation so it is hard to really talk about it. On one hand I understand the particular need, in style and presentation of the gospel, that different churches and denominations fill. But in same, how is a clearly defined division healthy for the Kingdom of God. Shouldn’t we all be putting up a united front instead of divide front to the “world”? One of the biggest problems is that we let the non-kingdom defining differences drive us to a point of dislike for each other. Some might say I am wrong but they are just not opening there eyes and really seeing what these differences are doing. What differences? I will name a few.

1 Is the bible the literal word of God?
2 Is Baptism a requirement for Salvation?
3 Can and/or should women be ministers?
4 Is the church equal to, higher, or under the authority of the bible?

Now I confess that some denominations I do not understand. How they come up with some of their views and theology that they teach is beyond me. But I also attend a Baptist church and really agree, mostly, with the theology as taught in most Southern Baptist churches. But some denominations are so closed that they think they are the only one with the opportunity to go to heaven. Obviously they aren’t reading from the same bible I am.

So the basic question is can people who can’t/don’t agree of things such as the issues listed above put up a united front and not seem hypocritical. The surface answer is no. But chew on this. All Christians are hypocrites. Dave Matthews Band has a song that I think has one the best descriptions of Christianity I have ever heard. But basically it says that what we are is something we can never be because we can’t give life. Christ gave us life and no matter how many people God allows us to witness to we can not give them life, we can only show them the path. So could one say that the term Christian is fundamentally flawed since Christ gave life and we can never give this? And thus in this do we have a common ground and a possible place to set up a united front?

So I am back to a previous statement because I still haven’t figured out what I feel about separation of churches and denominations so I am just going to stop there.

Move In

Well we are all moved in. we still have a lot of un packng too do but it is all here. Paise God because he has blessed this entire project from start to now and I don.t for see that changing.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Extreme Home Makeover

Well it is friday and the extreme home make over is almost done. We actually stayed here last night since I got the bathroom finished yesterday. We have two completly finished rooms. only thing, excluding moving is the closet doors and cleaning the house.
It is starting to set in. we own a house and that is a little overwhelming

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Keepin it goin

Well back to the old grind..we got the office wallpaper off and the master bed room painted. Today I have to finssh the master bedroom and bath. I also have to get the office ready for paint. this requires sandin,priming, and painting. Got my work cut out for me again.


[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Only

oooo forgot one thing. my wife only picked three colors praise God because that will make this project much smoother.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Another day on the Job

Another day on the job     

Well Crystal and I got the keys last night and the house was in a little rougher shape than either of us remember.  So we decided last night to get started. Last night we taped off all the rooms we could that didn’t have wallpaper on the walls. We stripped off the wallpaper in the bathroom and I got a good idea of why they put up the paper in the first place. The wall was in rough shape. I spent some time mudding last night and I am sure I will spending more time in there today so that when I Kilz it will be a smooth wall and then will take the paint well. Hopefully after today we will have the master bedroom painted, the wall paper off the wall in the guest room and the office, and the primer on in the master bathroom.  Got a busy busy day. Pray for us as we are a  little overwhelmed with everything.

on the move

Well my wife and I have bought a house and this past week and a half has been crazy trying to get ready and the next week and a half will be the same so i have made a decision to cancel my study into knowledge and wisdom and just log a little everyday about what I am doing. I will make one comment on wisdom and knowledge....They are different and the thing I desire most is to learn all the knowledge I can so that as i grow older I can turn this knowledge in to wisdom.
Today is crazy. We have just about everything packed up and I am going to help the people we bought the house from move their riding mower at 6 tonight and we get the keys to the house at that point. Crystal and I have a big night ahead of us because we have to pick paint colors tonight so we can buy them in the morning. I am going to send her to Home Depot while I go and get a trailer and some other things so we can get started tomorrow getting everything ready for the move this coming weekend. We will be sleeping at our new house starting tomorrow and will be sleeping on an air mattress for a couple days until our new bedroom arrives on Wednesday. Well that is a brief explanation of what is going on here and that is all I got to say.

Who

Anybody who has ever done any amount of writting knows that you have to have the 5W's and the H. The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. I am going to address each of these in individual post to keep them short for myself and for anyone who reads this.
I have already answered the who in a lot of words in previous post. So the main question is Who can gain Godly knowledge? Some might say I am forgetting something. Who is the author of knowledge but in my previous post I stated that answer. GOD. God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He was before the world began and will be after the world ends. He created the world thus He created Knowledge. Some would argue that point but I don’t believe anything is in this world with out God putting it here. I believe we as humans do not have the “knowledge of God” on how to use everything that is on this earth. Case in point is Marijuana.
Question : Who can obtain Godly knowledge?
ANYONE but….. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,”(Pro. 1:7) The first thing to gaining Godly knowledge is fear of the Lord. Well what does it mean to fear the Lord. To realize God is God. He can do what ever he wants, to whom ever he wants, to whatever he wants, when ever he wants. But all he ask us to do is in realizing this we obey his commandments. “Fear the Lord you God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.” (Deut 6:13-15) If we truly fear him and keep his commands then we could not help but fall to our knees before him worshipping the One and Only God.