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Showing posts with the label Mockery

Mock me no more!

Conflict is all around us, is it not?  The evening news is riddled with reports of conflict at its extreme - war, bombings, the taking of lives, and riots.  In a sense, we live in a world which is escalating in conflict more and more.  The chances of being railed upon by an angry shopper, or shot at in a random drive-by is greater today than it was thirty years ago.  Conflict is a state of being attacked, ridiculed, or derided - not always for a reason we understand or can justify.  Perhaps it is for our way of dressing, our spiritual beliefs, or our physical traits.  Regardless of the "source" of or "reason" for the conflict, it exists.  We run the chances of living WITH and IN conflict, don't we? Remove the mocker and conflict disappears;    judgment and shame also stop.  (Proverbs 22:10 CEB) Solomon gives us insight into conflict - it carries with it two close companions: Judgment and Shame.  This makes sense when we underst...

Count it all joy!

  7-8 "Listen now, you who know right from wrong, you who hold my teaching inside you:  Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked don't let it get you down.  Those insults and mockeries are moth-eaten, from brains that are termite-ridden, but my setting-things-right lasts, my salvation goes on and on and on." (Isaiah 51:7-8 The Message) There are times when we just feel like the world is against us - like all we live for and stand for is just ridiculed and considered to be silliness in the eyes of those around us.  These are the times when we need to re-read these words and take heart.  The unbeliever has no revelation of God beyond our testimony of a life "squared up" by living the principles God teaches.  It is the testimony of one that can affect the lives of millions! Do you realize that mockery is really the highest form of honor we can receive?  Think about it - someone sees our the testimony of Jesus in us and finds it s...