Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

 Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unploughed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you. Hosea 10:12 (NIV) Hosea was married to an unrighteous woman. Their marriage was a picture of God's relationship with His people. We are unrighteous by nature. God doesn't give up on us. We reap what we sow. So God calls us to sow righteousness and to reap the fruit of unfailing love. We need to be honest with God about our unrighteousness. We need to seek Him and His righteousness to be credited to our bankrupt spiritual accounts. We're not to be self-righteous. Religious people try and earn God's acceptance. Spiritual people realise that we are accepted by seeking after God and His kingdom and His righteousness. We need to get our priorities right and put God before our physical needs. 'LORD, we seek after You. Thank You for Christ's promises that if we seek the gift of Yo...

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Matthew 5:43-44 (ESV) The law came through Moses, but grace and truth come through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus raises the bar higher than Moses. Moses told us to love our neighbours; Jesus told us to love our enemies. Anyone can love their neighbours, that's no big deal. To love our enemies however is divine. When He was crucified for our sins, Jesus prayed, 'Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do'. Jesus commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He asks the impossible of us. Yet nothing is impossible for Him. When we're persecuted, our good reaction is to try and defend ourselves and to strike back. Jesus calls us to pray for our persecutors. This takes much more strength than to simply lash out. 'Dear Lord, please help us to be defined by love, not just for ou...

For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” Isaiah 41:13 (ESV) God doesn't want us to be afraid. He metaphorically holds our hands. Spiritually, He's there for us.  To help someone is humbling. A help is a servant. A helper has to stoop down to get alongside the one they're helping. The Lord isn't so proud as to be unwilling to help us. He's gentle, lowly and happy to help. He's powerful and able to assist in whatever we're going through. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He's eternally faithful to help us with the salvation we need. He'll never let us down. 'LORD our God, please hold us by the right hand spiritually. Help us not to be afraid, but to trust in You to come through for us, in the powerful name of Jesus we pray, amen'.

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 1 Chronicles 29:11 (ESV) God is great, although it doesn't really need religion to tell us that. We can see echoes of His greatness in the heavens and in the earth. All He had to do was to speak it all into existence. The Lord is omnipotent, He's all powerful. His word has power. He's glorious and worthy of universal worship. The victory is God's. Christ has even defeated our final enemy of death. Nothing can separate us from His love. The Kingdom is God's. It's not ours. He's the One who is exalted as head above all. 'O LORD, You are great, powerful, glorious, victorious, majestic and exalted, and we worship You, for You are worthy of our praise, now and forevermore, amen'.

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12 (ESV) Life is a spiritual battle. Satan wants to drag us down to hell with him. God wants to deliver us, and has made deliverance possible through Christ crucified; we just have to believe. The deliverance God offers is received by faith. The devil tries to destroy our faith in Jesus, but we need to fight the good fight of the faith. God calls all of His people to enjoy eternal life. It's not just 'pie in the sky when we die'. We can enjoy it right here and now as we trust in Christ. Timothy was appointed as a pastor/elder/Bible teacher by the Apostle Paul. He gave his testimony in front of many witnesses. Paul urged him not to give up, even if he was tempted to do so. 'Father God, please give us the gift of faith and help us to fight spiritually against the spiritual forces of evil. Than...

 1 Samuel 2:2 There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides You; there is no rock like our God. ESV Hannah knew that the LORD is the One True God, whether He gave her a son or not. In His grace He answered her prayer with Samuel. She responded with prayer and praise. No one is holy like the LORD. He is set apart in His righteousness. I'm reminded of Isaiah who witnessed the angels declaring that God is thrice holy; the whole earth is full of His glory. Not only is the LORD holy, but He calls us to be holy as well. By His Holy Spirit this is possible. He can transform us from sinners to saints. There is no rock like our God. 'On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand'. Anything and everything else will let us down, but not the Faithful One. 'Sovereign, Faithful God, we worship You for Your beautiful holiness. Please wash us clean in the blood of the Lamb, and sanctify us by Your Spirit inspired word. In Your Son's name we pray, ...

 I heard a shockingly insensitive discussion about the Californian wildfires out in the public by a couple of strangers. They described them as 'cosmic karma' for rich people getting what they deserved. I suspect it's common for poor people to assume that it's wrong to be rich, but is it really? Jesus famously told the rich young man to sell everything and follow Him. Is that necessary for every rich person? I'm not sure it is. Jesus knew that for that particular young man, riches were his barrier to faith.  In fact, Jesus went as far as to say that it's harder for the rich to enter His kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  Surely then it's wrong to be rich? Not necessarily, because Jesus went on in context to say that what's impossible for us is possible for us. By implication, it's possible for rich people to go to heaven. The Bible doesn't simplistically say that being rich is wrong. It doesn't even say that money is...

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exodus 20:8 (ESV) There's ten commandments, not nine. Because most of us aren't Jewish, most of us are tempted to disregard the Sabbath. Yet at it's heart, this commandment is about taking time to rest. We're not robots. We're not machines. We need to take time to rest. Even God Himself, who doesn't need to rest, rested on the seventh day of creation to set us a blueprint for our times. This commandment isn't burdensome, it's for our good. We're not to get legalistic, Pharisaical and Seventh Day Adventist about the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, which was made for our good. We weren't made to bend over backwards to keep legalistic restrictions. 'Lord our God, we thank You for being our Sabbath rest from striving to earn our acceptance with You. Please help us to take time to rest physically from the labours of the week. For Your honour we pray, amen'.

For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:20 (NLT) Taken in isolation, this seems a nice verse. In the context it's rather uncomfortable. Contextually, Jesus is talking about confronting sin. If we're to confront sin, we're to start off one to one. If that doesn't work we're to take along one or two others. If that doesn't work it has to be taken to the whole church. If that doesn't work, it's excommunication. Excommunication sounds like something out of a horror film or a cult or something. Basically though, if someone claims to follow Jesus, they have to live like it. If not, they have to be kicked out of the community of faith. Even excommunication doesn't have to be final. It's more like a marital separation than a divorce. The aim is for restoration: the excommunicated person will hopefully be shamed into repenting and seeking to be restored to fellowship. 'Lord God Almighty, we thank You ...