Your message brings light to people, when they understand it. It helps ordinary people to become wise. (Psalm 119:130 EASY) Ordinary people with the wisdom of God - now isn't that a pretty amazing thought? The more we press into God's Word, the more his wisdom becomes part of who we are. The 'ordinary' become wise - not with 'common sense', but with wisdom that is born from the very heart of God himself. His message brings light. How? It is a message of redemption. Anyone who has messed something up by some particular action will tell you that a chance at a 'do-over' can bring 'redemption' of sorts. When we didn't get a passing grade on our exam and the teacher announced we could retake it, that gave us a renewed sense of hope - hope for a passing grade. When God gives us light, he is showing us that our mess isn't going to be our undoing - it is the place where he can begin to reveal himself. I am not alone in this - we all mess up on o...
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at how handsome or how tall Eliab is. I have not chosen him. The Lord does not look at people in the way that people do. People look at the face and body of a person. But the Lord sees what they are like inside.’ (I Samuel 16:7 EASY) If you have tried to be a people-pleaser at any point in your life, you know just how difficult it is to always be who they say you should be, do what they say you should do, and find direction is whatever it is they say they find direction in. People look at us and 'see' an image of what they believe us to be, but they also project upon us what they expect us to be based on some 'image' they have of what we should be. Their standard isn't always that easy to measure up to, is it? They project an image that won't make us comfortable if we conform to it. It isn't what God made us to be - the way he sees us matters and we must never lose sight of the 'image' he created when he cre...