Enrolling in God’s Wisdom School

By Richard Lineberry

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Proberbs 3:5-6

Wisdom, or getting God’s viewpoint on things, is sometimes hard to come by. It’s easy to get people’s opinions, they are offering them all the time. Newscasters and “experts” are plentiful. Just turn on a talk show.

God’s wisdom and direction comes from His Word, not only through the scriptures but through the promptings and revelations of the Holy Spirit. Prov. 2:4-5 says that if we “search for it as a hidden treasure,” we will find the knowledge of God. Furthermore, He is really willing to give it out.

The question then is are we willing to listen for it? Will we search the scriptures and pray for answers to tough dilemmas? Then, even if we feel He has spoken to us, are we willing to act on what He tells us?

God’s Word is not just “another opinion.” When His Spirit speaks to us, there is authority in what He says. His wisdom confounds the “wisdom” of this world. It can turn confusion into crystal clarity.

When the prophet Daniel interpreted the king’s dreams and Joseph foretold the future of Egypt, their wisdom put to shame the counsel of the traditional experts of the royal courts.

God’s wisdom is not just reserved for special people or those with unusual giftings. He offers it to all who need it and, most importantly, want to passionately put it into practice. All too often we only seek it when we are desperate. How much better would it be if we learned to live by it daily. Many of the desperate prayers would be unnecessary.

My prayer for you today is that your heart and mind be open to the special kind of wisdom that draws you closer to God, increases your love for people and helps you to become an wise example for all those that are watching you.

How to help Children through their crisis.

Based on When a Hug Won’t Fix the Hurt, Karen Dockery

Accept. Express. Respond. Together.

~ Accept children’s pain so they don’t feel forced to suffer alone. (walk together through the stages of grief/ loss/mourning)

~ Anger is a sign of fear and pain. Anger is scary to children. Show them how to “not let sun go down on anger.”

~ Don’t stuff feelings but guide them to God-honoring ways to release feelings. How to “be angry but not sin.”

~ Their actions and words are an invitation or call for help.

~They need the 3 A’s. Affirmation, Affection. Attention.

~ Build them up, they need encouragement, not criticism, expectations or harsh exhortations.

~ Be honest with them- about your own pain and unanswered questions. Especially the “why?” question.

~ Help them manage their pain; don’t try to just take it away. Talk about how you hurt and model forgiveness.

~ Don’t try to “logic” or “lawyer” them into a position, feelings, words or actions. Let a child be a child-don’t expect them to act adult.

~ Pain and fear and treatment (physical or spiritual) exhausts them so they will need to rest.

~ Serve them- help with chores or homework.

~ Don’t ignore or avoid people’s handicaps, hurts, disabilities, weaknesses. Acknowledging feelings helps them accept themselves and feel accepted by others. They are not defined or labeled by them but may feel isolated because we feel awkward or uncomfortable and end up avoiding them or their need. In other words talk with them about injury, wounding, disability, crisis or divorce-don’t just ignore it and them.

~ Acknowledge “I don’t have the answers but God does.”

~ Lead them into Encounter Prayer.
What am I feeling now? What do I remember about where, when or how this may have started?
What thoughts or agreements might I need to change (“lie-based-pain). Identify the devil’s lies.
What is God saying to me about me? My past? About others? (TRUTH IN LOVE).
What does God want me to do?

-PD

2011 A Year of Tending: Focus, Faithfulness and Fruit

To Love God is to love God’s Word
(logos and rhema)

Jesus is the Eternal, Living Word (logos) of God made flesh (incarnate) to restore us and creation to God’s image and love. Jesus is the only means for us to be delivered from God’s holy and just wrath toward all sin. But more than just be “safe” from hell, we want to know Jesus now, today, personally, and to grow in relationship with him (walking the journey with him). His written word feeds and helps us. Jesus said to some religious people, “You search the Scriptures but won’t come to Me for life.” We want to do both—search God’s commands and ask His grace and presence to help us.

One way Jesus lives in us and works through us is by us receiving the Word with intention: intention to be changed and change the world. God does this in us as we meditate in it, then speak specific words of Scripture (rhema). This paragraph from Ted Sandquist’s book, “It Is Written” stirred my faith not only in Jesus who is the Word (logos) made human for us but in the Word of God (rhema) which is living and active to divide soul from spirit in our hearts and minds (Heb 4:12-13); which Jesus used to defeat the Tempter’s lies (Matthew 4:4); is ready to be in our mouths and increase faith (Rom 10:8,17); is the sword of the Spirit in our prayers (Eph 6:17-18).

The Word of God is more than a standard for everyone and everything at all times. The Word of God is what holds everyone and everything to account with God. It does the work of dividing between flesh and spirit-temporal and eternal-wherever it is applied in faith by God's faithful. That means whatever nations, city, neighborhood, family, relationship, and whatever generation it is applied to until all His enemies are beneath His footstool. Nothing is hidden from Him. Nothing is shielded form His Word. His Word blesses. His Word examines. His Word judges. His Word unveils. His Word protects. His Word rescues. His Word redeems. his Word washes. His Word casts out. His Word welcomes. His Word binds. His Word looses. His Word calls forth. His Word creates. His Word destroys. His Word exalts. His Word abases. His Word sets in. His Word removes. His Word accomplishes everything for which it was sent.

It has been my hope that as we meditate and contemplate God’s Word this Lent we would grow in love for Christ, for others and for ourselves, in all our weaknesses and needs. Live and love The Word. Speak His Word. -PD

A Tale of Two Churches:
One “Aband-o-lized”
By Robert Miller

Saturday, hoping to show my family a bit of their history, I took them to see where I grew up. They saw my grandparent’s home and their church. Their church started at a tent meeting where many people met on a hill and after prayer and worship decided that on top of this hill was where God wanted them to worship. So they moved an old church building from five miles away and these farm families came here and worshiped.

My grand parents are long dead and their home has been locked many years. Their church, though full of praise in its day, has remained empty in recent years. When we were there, we saw that someone had broken in and torn up the place.

Sunday morning at breakfast my five year old son said to me “Daddy, on our field trip I wish repair guys would have pulled up right next to us and fixed everything.” I had to ask what field trip he was talking about. He said the one to the “aband-o-lized” church. Aband-o-lized, I had never heard that one. He was running the words abandoned and vandalized together. He asked if his great-grandparents house had been aband-o-lized too. I said no. It was just falling down because people were not working to fix it. I then said that once some people took some things from the old house that didn’t belong to them. He asked how. I said I guessed they just pushed hard on the door; the whole house was not as strong as it used to be. He said “One day they might not have to push that hard”. He was concerned about what kind of people would do such a thing, but that is another conversation for another time. The wonderful things kids say.

When I went to church, I noticed the contrast between my grandparents’ church and our church. One a cold empty space where the only sound was the wind blowing through the broken glass that once were windows. The other was a place full of life and the presence of God. One a sadly quiet place where a hymnal lays open, pages flapping in the breeze. The other was a place where praise to God was sung out for all to hear and there was dancing before the Lord. The one was a building standing high on a hill, where it could be seen for miles, surrounded by wheat fields that have many harvests in their season. The other was a building without a wheat fields, or a hill, but one that will have a great harvest in the right season and that the harvest will be seen for miles around.

Our church has definitely NOT been aband-o-lized. It is full of people seeking God’s will, full of God’s presence and God can be seen everywhere. But what about the world outside of our doors?

We live in a world that does not know Christ. They feel like they have been left alone, neglected and forgotten. And as bad as that is, it gets worse. While they were out there, the enemy has kicked in their doors and torn up or taken what is not his. They have been aband-o-lized! They need someone to help them, to remind them that they are not alone. To remind them that life to it’s fullest can be theirs. To let them know that God loves them.

These people live and work a stone’s throw from our church, our homes, our schools, and our work. But even so, don’t throw stones, that’s what the world thinks about church. Or maybe they just think of old buildings with steeples sitting on a hill. The church is not what the world thinks it is, it is not the building. It is all of us, and God’s love within us. We need to take the church to them. We need to flood the streets with His love. We need to let them know that God heals the broken and makes the old new. We need to come along beside them and let the people know that God loves them and they are not aband-o-lized.

Robert Miller is a member of our Elders Resource Group

The prophet Haggai called the people to not just tend their own house but to come together and focus on God. Then they would know he was with them and they would be blessed.

2011 A Year of Tending: Focus, Faithfulness and Fruit

Journey To Jerusalem With
Christ and Close Companions:
Contemplate Jesus’ feelings journeying with his disciples

Luke 3:21-23 share his baptism as Beloved son/daughter
Luke 4:1-15 His temptation and ministry to those in need
Luke 4:16-30 rejected by hometown
Luke 4:31-5:28 Disciples fascinated at first
Luke 6:1-11 Criticized by religious leaders
Luke 7:35 Jesus’ ministry questioned by John the Baptist
Luke 9:41 until the end his disciples begin to doubt
Luke 9:54 Jesus rebukes their bad spirit toward others
Luke 9:57-62 People reject his invitation with their excuses
Mark 3:21 His family thought he was “out of his mind”
Mark 8:17 Rebukes his disciples for their hardness, unbelief
Mark 8:32 Peter “rebukes” Jesus
John 6:67 asks his disciples, “Will you also leave me?”
Luke 22:45-46 Why are you sleeping? Rise, watch, pray.
Mt 28:17; Mk 16:14 Even with them post-resurrection some still doubted.

Jesus Is the Son Of Man

Jesus felt emotions like us, including frustration and loneliness. Jesus wept over Lazarus and Jerusalem and in anger cleared the temple. Jesus as a real boy, teen and man. His favorite name for himself was “The Son of Man.” I wrote a song, “Jesus is the Son of Man.” Jesus walked, Jesus ran, Jesus is the Son of Man. He laughed out loud and cried real tears...

Jesus' willingness to please the Father by submitting to water baptism and facing the Tempter showed us what restored humanity can be. He came out in the power of the Holy Spirit healing the sick and hurting. He went to his hometown and was rejected (they tried to kill him). He was spurned by religious leaders. His own disciples went from prideful excitement to bewilderment to confusion to forsaking Him in the hour of his greatest need. When Jesus said, "Blessed are you poor, hungry, humble and hurting..." He knew what they all felt. He embraced poverty, pain and chose to be powerlessness to protect himself. He was hungry, alone, imprisoned and even homeless. So He could say, “In as much as you fed and helped the poor, and visited those in prison you did it unto Me.” (Matthew 25:40) -PD

2011 A Year of Tending: focus, faithfulness, fruit
Rev 2:5 to restore First Love for Christ and for one another

ask grace to remember, repent and redo.