Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

 1 Timothy 4:12 ESV  Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.     They say forty is the new thirty, but I still don't think I can call myself a youth: I'm well into middle age! In ancient Israel, Levite men started active service for God aged thirty, as did the Lord Jesus himself. So I suspect Timothy was probably in his twenties at most. Even if we're no longer youths, we can still obey the Apostle Paul's charge here. We're still to be exemplary. We're not just to be good when we're young, only to derail ourselves later in life. Our speech doesn't have to be exclusively religious Bible quotes, but it does have to be seasoned with salt. It's not enough to just talk about the weather or our favourite sports team. Our conduct is to be holy and pure, like Billy Graham refusing to be alone with a woman who wasn't his wife.  Love is to define us. Paul fleshes out what ...

' Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. ' Psalm 6:8 ESV David wasn't perfect himself. He was guilty of grievous evil. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband Uriah. David was repentant of his evil. He literally cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard the sound of his penitential weeping. We're all naturally evil, but not all of us repent and renounce our wrongdoing. Evildoers were like vultures with a carcass with David and his public fall from grace. They never let him live down what he had done. Nevertheless, he 'shooed' them away because the Lord was on his side. God knows our hearts. He knows if we're truly repentant for the evils we have done. If we are, we can have confidence that God is for us, not against us. 'Lord, we're so grateful that you hear the sound of our weeping. Help us repent and renounce evil, and to trust in you to deliver us. For your honour and praise w...

'O Lord , in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. ' Psalm 5:3 ESV God doesn't just want the fag end of our days as it were, a hasty prayer at the end of the day by our bedside. He deserves the first-fruits of our time. The Lord should be our first thought in the morning. King David was a busy man no doubt, running the nation of Israel. Nevertheless, the Lord heard his voice in the morning. It seems his practice was to pray 'out loud'. We don't have to just pray 'in our heads'. No doubt it was a sacrifice for David to give up the first hour or so of his days to the Lord. Yet he knew it was worth it. He started his days out right, by consulting with the One who orders our time. Prayer isn't just about presenting a 'shopping list' of requests to God. He isn't a divine slot machine. We're to devote ourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, as the Apostle Paul put it. 'O Lord, m...

 Psalm 103:2 ESV   Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,    We are to bless the Lord. We're not just to pay him lip service. Our very souls are to bless his holy name.  Benefits have a negative connotation in the UK, which has a relatively generous welfare state which arguably many people exploit. Lots of people are on state benefits who should be working and benefiting the greater good by paying taxes. Spiritually, if we receive God's benefits, we're to bless others. It's not enough to scrounge benefits from God and to be miserly with them. If he forgives us, we're to forgive others. If he's a Father to us, we should treat others like family. As Jesus said, if we want to be forgiven, we need to forgive. We can't earn the benefit of forgiveness. Having been forgiven however, we should benefit others with forgiveness. 'O Lord, we bless your holy name. May we always remember your benefits to us, especially forgiveness. In Christ's...

 John 15:4 ESV   Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.     What does it mean to abide? Jesus goes on to illustrate what it means. As a branch abides in the vine, so we must abide in Christ. We're not very agricultural nowadays, so an easier illustration might be that of an arm within a body. As an arm is connected to the body, so we are to be connected to Christ. We can't bear spiritual fruit apart from him. The Apostle Paul talks about people who have a form of godliness, but deny its power. That's like a snapped off branch boasting of its fruit. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. A severed arm can't boast if it's holding a tool by rigor mortis. It's only in connection with our Lord that we can be spiritually effective. We don't just abide in him to bear fruit, but because he is our raison d'etre, the meaning of our lives. 'Heavenly Father, may ...

 Hebrews 13:16 ESV   Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.    I think when we come to know the good news of salvation in Christ crucified, the danger is that we can become like spoilt children. It's not enough to be saved: we're saved to serve. If we're truly saved, we will progressively become less selfish and more 'otherish'.  We might be tempted to neglect to do good. If we don't need to earn our salvation, we might think we can remain bad people. Yet if we don't start to become better people, we betray the fact we haven't been truly saved. There needs to be evidence of our salvation. We need to do good and to share what we have. There's no room for miserliness or stinginess in the Kingdom of God. I appreciate that the writer admits that to be sharing and good requires sacrifice. He acknowledged that it's hard to be like this. Yet if it pleases our Lord and Saviour, sacrificial generosit...

 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV  So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.   Elsewhere, we're told that the Kingdom of God isn't a matter of eating or drinking. Yet there are ways of eating and drinking that glorify God. For example, we're not to be greedy or get drunk.  When it comes to food sacrificed to idols, the Apostle Paul has a nuanced approach. Of course, food sacrificed to idols isn't poisonous. Yet he wouldn't have us to partake in pagan, demonic worship.  For the sake of unbelievers, if they specify that food is halal for example, I avoid it. For their own sakes, I don't want them to think that I'm okay with Islam as a demonic religion. I'm not hostike to Muslims, but I wont flatter or deceive them that they're okay as they are, and I'm unashamedly anti Islam. We're to eat and drink to the glory of God. He's a jealous God. He won't share his glory with another. That's why I won't eat fo...

 I prompted AI to write this story... The Prodigal’s Mother She heard him before she saw him—the gate complaining on its hinge, the old sound of return. The servants ran. The father ran. But she stayed where she was, hands wet with flour, the dough cooling under her palms. He stood in the yard thinner than memory, a man-shaped apology. Dirt clung to him as if it had chosen him. When he lifted his eyes, he looked first for his father, then—hesitating—for her. The father embraced him with the clumsy relief of a man who had rehearsed grief too long. “My son,” he said, as if saying it might stitch the years together. Orders flew. A calf lowed. Sandals were fetched. A ring found its way onto a finger that had known other weights. Only then did she step forward. She did not touch him. “So,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “you’ve remembered the road.” He opened his mouth, closed it. The speech he had practiced collapsed like a tent in wind. “Mother—” “You left hungry mouths here...

'In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord , make me dwell in safety.' Psalm 4:8 ESV I'm not wishing to belittle insomnia. Yet sleep is a gift of God. I don't regularly suffer from insomnia, but at times I have I have literally gone mad, like any of us would if we didn't get enough sleep. Without wishing to generalise, I think a lot of insomnia is down to doubting that God helps us to dwell in safety. If that's us, we can ask him for the free gift of faith in him. If we get a good night's sleep, or any rest at all, we should be thankful to him. I think insomnia can lead us one or two ways. It can drive us away from God in despair, or towards God in prayerful dependence for the rest we need. I'm sure David had plenty of sleepless nights in his tumultuous life, but he trusted in God to give him the rest he needed. When David was a fugitive, on the run from murderous king Saul, or even as a king battling enemy kingdoms, he must have str...