Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

 2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.      By the time you get to my kind of middle age, you start to feel the reality of this verse. Things start going wrong physically. We begin to get weaker.  There's nothing wrong with new year's resolutions to keep fit for example, but we need to be philosophical about physical decline. Even as we begin to break down in our bodies, we can be renewed spiritually. We never need to lose our spiritual zeal and fervour. We don't so much renew ourselves as much as we are renewed by God. Yet we're not to be passive. We're to partner with God to renew ourselves. Spiritual renewal is 100% of the Lord. Yet we need to be all in too. If we don't want to be spiritually renewed, we won't be.   'Lord God Almighty, please renew us spiritually, and help us not to lose heart, even as we waste away physically. In Christ's name we ask,...

 Genesis 2:23 ESV   Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”    I heard a preacher joke that Lamech was the first rapper in the Bible. He murdered someone and made up some dirty about it for his wives. Yet I would suggest that this verse reveals Adam as being like the first rapper ever. Some people describe rap as standing for 'rhythm and poetry'. There may not be rhythm so much here, but there's poetry. Adam was so overjoyed at the creation of Eve that he overflowed in praise. Lots of people assume that because Eve was created after Adam, that makes her out to be inferior. Yet as the commentator Matthew Henry said, she was created out of Adam's rib to be close to his heart as his intimate equal. She wasn't from his head as his superior; or from his feet as his inferior. If anything, the creation of Eve gives women dignity. Adam was incomplete without Eve; humanity w...

 Psalm 1:2 ESV  but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.    Most people don't associate the Bible with delight. They picture a dusty old book in some crumbling old building. Yet if we were to actual dust if off and read it, we would find it to be delightful.  Many assume that happiness is found in a crowded place, going with the flow down the highway to hell. Psalm 1 teaches us that happiness is found in God's word. Not only does it tell us how to live, but it shows us in Christ. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. He is the image of the invisible God. If we want to get to know the Lord, we need look no further than him.  Biblical law isn't just some Judge condemning us. It's a Father instructing is, and 'laying down the law', teaching the right way to go. Instead of thinking how to gratify the flesh, we should be thinking how to feed ourselves spiritually. 'Heavenly Father, may we delight in your word as is rig...

 Genesis 1:2 ESV  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.    As we enter 2026, it feels like the earth in the beginning: formless and void. The future is in darkness: we can't see what is to come. We don't have a crystal ball. One thing is certain as we embark on a new year: the Spirit of God is hovering over, as he was in the beginning. It's not just Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. His Spirit is too. We don't need to fear an uncertain future. God goes before us to create new opportunities and a wonderful destiny. Ultimately, he's going to inaugurate a new creation when Christ returns. Maybe 2026 is the year of Christ's return. Even if not, may his Spirit fill us to live for him, whatever life throws at us. Life is tough, but God is good, and he's with us by his Holy Spirit. 'God our Lord, we're grateful that you've ...

 Isaiah 43:18-19 ESV  Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.    Isaiah isn't saying to have amnesia or to be blinkered about the past. He is saying to not let the past to define us. We're not to be so preoccupied with how we've got somewhere that we can't see where God is taking us.  God's people found themselves in a bad place. They were captive in the wilderness of Babylon. Isaiah urged them not to despair. We as God's new covenant people aren't instantly beamed up to glory. Instead, we find ourselves feeling like we're deserted in this spiritually barren world. We're not to despair. The narrow path of life cuts through the wilderness. God sustains us on the way with the water of life which is the Lord Jesus himself, by his Spirit. We may have been through a lot, but 'it'll be r...