I have a list of short wise sayings and ideas that I have accumulated over the years, and one of them is:

“Producing or contributing more than you consume is the only justification for your existence.”

I think Jesus is conveying this idea in Mark 10:43-45 when he told the disciples, “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Our nature leads us toward wanting to “take, take, take,” but what we are really here for is to serve others with the skills and talents God has given us. If we really think about it, it is the times our skills and talents benefit others that we are most fulfilled.

Dear Lord, You are the example of service for us. Help us strive to be like you and live lives of service, which how you design us to be. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Have you seen, or possibly experienced the prank when someone loosens the lid on the salt shaker so that when the victim attempts to use it, the entire container is spilled onto their food? (hopefully you weren’t the prankster)

In a similar way, one of the tricks the devil uses to draw us away from God is to manipulate something good into something sinful. We take healthy hobbies and interests and make them our priorities (our god’s) raising them above the importance of God in our lives. We turn good stewardship of God’s natural wonders and put them above God who created them. We take healthy proper intimacy and turn it into pornography. The list can go on and on. The devil can manipulate almost any good thing into something bad that pulls us away from God.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

We need to keep a close watch of our thoughts and actions to make sure we are not being manipulated and led away from God.

Dear Lord, protect us from the devil’s deception. Help us keep our focus on You, thinking and acting in ways that will bring glory to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

CS Lewis the great Christian author, wrote an interesting novel that highlights this manipulation and deception, called The Screwtape Letters. It is written as a series of letters from a senior demon mentoring a junior demon in the art of this manipulation and deception. I would recommend the audio version narrated by Joss Ackland, the English actor. His heavy accent makes the character sound so sinister.

I have written in the past about Pride being the root of all sins, because sin is by definition self centered. For the same reason, Pride is also the cause of conflict in our lives with other people.

Proverbs 13:10 says, “Pride leads to conflict; those who take advice are wise.”

If you think about it, when we have conflict with another person, it is usually because we want something our way, and the other person has a different idea. The resistance to our self centered position causes the conflict. We may know our idea is better, based on experience, or we may be afraid of being being considered less intelligent if someone else’s idea is discussed, but most of the time being patient and listening before pushing our idea will be perceived as more intelligent and helpful. Proverbs 15:28 says, “The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking.”

The Proverb contrasts pride with taking advice. Taking advice requires putting our opinion aside and listening to someone else’s. When two people are open to listen to the other, conflict can be softened, making room for collaboration, and solutions that work for both.

Dear Lord, it is so easy for us to push our own ideas and wants above other peoples, but help us remember that the wise are confident not out of selfish pride, but out of faith in you. Help us live with this type of confidence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus meets a man named Nicodemus, who is a Pharisee, one of the smart/educated men of his time, and tells him he must be “born again” to enter the kingdom of heaven. Nicodemus replies, “How are these things possible?” Then Jesus says to him John 3:8, ”The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

Jesus then said, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” John 3:10-12

Aren’t we like Nicodemus on many occasions. Though we all know there are many mysteries in our world, we often will reject the things we do not understand. However, it is the things God tells us that we don’t understand that are the critical things to accept. Things like, Grace, Eternal Life, the Holy Spirit’s work in people, how God answers prayer, and the many miracles that occur in our world.

A book I recently read says it like this, “Failure is a blessing when it forces one to depend less upon material forces and more upon spiritual forces.” This made me stop and think that this is how God would have us live. We should depend more on God’s power than the material things we can understand.

Dear Lord, We tend to think that we must know how things work in order to accept them. But you teach us that we must put our trust and faith in something we do not understand, which is your power and love. Help us make this shift. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

If you know me, or have read my profile on my www.seekyefirstthekingdom.net site, you know that I am a pilot. One interesting thing about flying, particularly flying an instrument final approach into an airport when the clouds are close to the ground, is transitioning from focusing solely on instruments to navigate to seeing the ground “breaking-out” below the clouds and flying the short remaining seconds or minutes looking outside.

After trusting the instruments to identify where you are for minutes or hours previously, it is always a relief to see the runway out in front of the airplane, just where the instruments said it should be. Every time it is a rewarding feeling to see everything clearly rather than having to rely on the instruments in anticipation of seeing with my own eyes.

In a way I think Psalm 119:18 describes something similar, saying, “Uncover my eyes so that I may see the miraculous things in your teachings.” GW

On occasion God does “uncover our eyes” and makes some Biblical teaching crystal clear to us; We have what some call an “ah ha” moment. It is a very rewarding feeling to recognize when this happens, and hopefully the better understanding helps us act more in line with God’s will.

Dear Lord, thank you for giving us the bible as our guidebook for our lives. Thank you also for revealing the miraculous things in your teachings. Help us use them for your will. In Jesus’ name. Amen.