Start Smart

Proverbs 1:7 
"Knowledge begins with respect for the Lord, but fools hate wisdom and discipline."
  
Do you know what "Plagiarism" is?
The dictionary says it is "to put forth as original to oneself the ideas and words of another". Imagine how "cheesy" (if not criminal!) it would be to take the credit for something that you did not originate. And yet, people all over the planet are doing that on a moment-by-moment basis, claiming as original their ideas, concepts, theories, and theses, without acknowledging that, in fact, ALL knowledge is derived from a Source that pre-existed them. To have true knowledge, we must ac-knowledge! To be original, you need an origin, and the Bible says that respect for God kick-starts your smarts!

Now, that may ruffle your hair a little bit, to think that the Originator of all things registered His "patents" way before you did, but in order to help us save face, and to not come up looking like fools, God gives us the opportunity to respect Him. Respect is the antonym of familiarity, and saves us from pirating God's ©'s!

My 17 year-old said the other night that, "Familiarity is thinking that you are equal to someone." That's a fresh thought. A good one. Where respect is rooted in humility, so familiarity is rooted in pride. Boy, we could be saved from some presumptuous errors (red-faced, fool-moments) if we simply respected Yahweh. Let's remain humble as we grow in knowledge, and let's not be frauds, parading with pompous self-indulgence the "... ideas and words of Another" as if they were our own. We are not His equal.

Even the collective human intelligence of the planet cannot scratch the surface of God's wisdom and knowledge. In humanity's degeneration, as captured in Romans 1, it says that in, "Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools." And Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Be careful of being an agnostick, especially if you can't spell the word!

PRAYER:

Dear God, please help me to reverence and respect you as the Originator and Source of all life, wisdom and knowledge. Please forgive me for stealing the credit for stuff that you started. Please be the well-spring and fountain-head of all of my knowledge. I want true intelligence. I choose to START SMART by respecting You. Thank you Lord. Amen.

Jomba and Ruth Wedding Blessing

Jomba and Ruth
“In Black and White”

What is black and white, and red all over?
Ruth and Jomba covered in the blood of Christ on their marriage day!

The visual representation of Ruth and Jomba is a prophetic picture of a number of blessings that I felt God wanted to bring thru to your marriage:
1. When we say that something is “in black and white”, we mean it is as clear as day – the truth. So the first thing for me that your marriage represents is that it is built on Truth – the Word of God
2. In South Africa, we speak of cross-cultural relationships as “Top-deck”, which is a favourite chocolate from Cadbury’s combining white and black chocolate. For me, this speaks of God sweetening your relationship as time goes on: Song of Songs 2:3 "Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
3. When i considered your marriage i thought of a game of chess, with the checker board, and for me that spoke of the two of you being skilful and strategic as you advance in the “game” of life, moving towards the win. Remember that in the “end game”, Pawns can become Queens, and there will be an end-day in your lives when Christ coronates you as His Queen!
4. I considered your relationship as Paul McCartney wrote, “Ebony and Ivory, side by side on the piano Key board...” Your relationship is going to be musical; there is going to be a wonderful harmony from God as he orchestrates a never-ending song thru your lives. You will sing, but you will make others sing also.
5. Then there is our local team, the Sharks – “We are Black, and we are White!” Or, if you would like to play it differently, we are Pirates supporters! But both teams spoke to me about God making you into a dream team. Teamwork would be key for your marriage to work! Ecclesiastes 4:9 “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.”
6. In Matt 5:36, Jesus says that our words have got to be black and white. For me, this spoke about keeping promises, being sincere in what you say, without speaking out both sides of your mouth – always be truthful: Matthew 5:36-37 “And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
7. The above scripture also spoke to me about “duration”, i.e. age will make both your heads white, and God will be faithful to give you long life together, and you will be filled with memories
8. And then there is the scientific principle that “opposites attract”, and you can’t really get further poles than black and white, and so God is going to give you such a solid, magnetic attraction for one another. You will have to learn to honour one another in your differences, because variety is the spice of life, and you always want to keep that spice in your marriage. You have the opposite end of the spectrum of colour, and you encapsulate the rainbow, so I felt that God was going to bring vibrant colour into your marriage, maybe even some little coconuts!

JUDGE MENTAL

JUDGE-MENTAL

Is it true that when we judge,
A reputation could be smudged?
What if God, kind and fair,
Never wanted His kids to go there.

Imagine if His gentle nudge,
Was all we needed to budge our grudge,
A jaded heart is the price we pay,
When we say others don’t make the grade

Prejudice justified,
Is the deflective skill of trying to hide,
The truth of who we are inside,
While we gloss over our destructive pride

Fault-finding is very blinding,
It’s our own beam we should be minding.
The narcissism of criticism will boomerang –
And split the atom of harmony with a “boom” and a “bang”!

Mistakes and errors and sins and more -
Was that your chance to close the door?
To write people off with a slam in the face,
And disempower Divine grace.

Kindness and mercy, forgiveness and care
These will triumph in Love’s courageous dare
No one ever gave us a Judgement Seat;
So, give someone the chance to find their feet.

The 10 Commandments for Eternal Life

The 10 Commandments for Eternal Life:

1. There is only one God (Isaiah 43:10)
2. There is only one way to God (John 14:6)
3. There is only one faith (Ephesians 4:4-6)
4. There is only one name (Acts 4:12)
5. There is only one Saviour (1John 4:14)
6. There is only one Bible (2 Timothy 3:16)
7. There is only one Lord (Ephesians 4:5)
8. These is only One who is Good (Mark 10:18)
9. There is only one who gets the Glory (1 Timothy 6:16)
10. Jesus is the ONE! (Acts 5:31) You're not the one!

How to Share the Gospel

10 Gospel Facts:
1. You're not a good person (Romans 3:23), and you are not a child of God (John 8:44)
2. Jesus Christ is God (John 1:1)
3. God humiliated himself by becoming like you (Philippians 2:7&8)
4. If you believe in justice, then everything you've done wrong has a pay day (Hebrews 9:27)
5. The payout for your sin is death (Romans 6:23)
6. You cannot stop sin, and you cannot fix it (Romans 7:19)
7. God paid for your sins by becoming your death on a cruel cross (Philippians 2:8)
8. God's death became the full satisfaction of Divine justice (Hebrews 2:17)
9. You need to say thank you for that, because you're not God, and you can't do a better job (Romans 3:22)
10. You need to say sorry to God for messing up His plan (Isaiah 53:6), & if you can say sorry, it's because He granted that to you (Acts 5:31)

Because God the Father is completely satisfied with His Son's sacrifice, you receive from Him as a gift, His purity, His forgiveness, and His adoption of you as a child into His family. You don't deserve it, and there is not a single thing you can do to earn it, not now, or in the future. God gives it as a gracious gift to His enemies. Your humility receives that gift with gratitude.
Welcome home!

THE CROSS

John 19:17-18 17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own CROSS, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18 There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
DEVOTE:
The cross is the humble hinge of history and humanity – God in human flesh dying for the sins of the whole world – “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”. (Philippians 2:8)
“He poured Himself out to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12)
When we look at the Cross, it is the culmination of the Incarnation – the epitome of humility. Crucified in weakness (2 Cor 13:4) between two thieves, Christ’s intercession for the “losers” of this world is the manifest humility of heaven, and indeed, the hope of all the earth! “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Christ’s identification with weakness, distances those who are the so-called “achievers” or “winners” in life. “How can the cross be a win-win?” they ask. “It just doesn’t make sense.”: 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
If you can choose today to not be ashamed of the cross, then the weakness of God becomes the power for you to live a strong Christian life.
PRAY:
Father, “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14)

THE SUFFERING

John 19:3 and they began to come up to Him and say, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and to give Him slaps in the face. [30] They spat on Him, and took the reed and began to BEAT Him on the head. [31] After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.
DEVOTE:
Jesus said, "It was NECESSARY for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" (Luke 24:26)
Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer?
Hebrews 2:10 tells us, “For it was FITTING for God … in bringing many sons to glory, to PERFECT the author of their salvation through sufferings”, and Isaiah 53:10 says, “But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering...”
So, Christ had to suffer as a guilt offering because:
1. It pleased the Father (Is 53:10)
2. It brought many sons to glory (Heb 2:10), and
3. It was patterned for you and I (1 Peter 2:21)
Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned OBEDIENCE from the things which He suffered.” Suffering is like the chisel of a master sculptor being driven into a block of granite. Whereas others see “rough edges”, He sees the polished masterpiece! (Eph 2:10 and Phil 1:6)
Philippians 1:29 says, “For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake”, because “You have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)
Suffering develops the meekness of OBEDIENCE. Suffering chips away at the alabaster jar of our hearts until the fragrance of (and for) Christ is released.
PRAY:
Father, I’ve got some “rough edges”; I yield to Your masterful hands in bringing me through to full, mature obedience.