Tag Archives: Advice

Value-Driven Truth

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I have not yet parsed the following truth into an edible format.  So please forgive me if it isn’t a cute little saying.  I’ll try to keep this very short, but it’s packed with volumes of understanding.

Pride and education are firmly bound together.

If I try to give free advice to someone, they are not likely to consider it very valuable.  It doesn’t matter how priceless the advice may be.  If it cost them nothing they equate free advice with trivia.  Or perhaps worse, that I’m meddling in their affairs.

On the other hand.  If I make someone pay tuition to sit in a classroom and receive that same advice, they are likely to consider it priceless.  Having said that, I could make someone pay tuition and feed them nothing but lies and they would think it is priceless truth.  Oh wait, that’s what most modern colleges are doing.

If I speak the truth to a stranger, he thinks I am proudly wielding wisdom.  He considers me to full of myself.  If I put that same information in a fortune cookie, the receiver thinks he has found gold.

I’ll say it again and let the reader stew over this.  Pride and education are firmly bound together.

Consider:
The message of Jesus is free to any man who will listen.  He has come to us from heaven and given us heavenly words.  What he gave us is beyond any possible price.  But the world treats his words as if they are useless.  Or at best, they are useful for children only.

If he had charged admission, I suspect the world would treat his words greatly different.  And if the church would charge admission on Sunday mornings, I would guess the pews would be packed full.

You think that’s too much to say?   I don’t.

No Easy Task

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Provoking thought of the “Day”:

At the risk of offending millions, (How is that a surprise from me?):
I do not need the counsel of people.  But I ABSOLUTELY need the counsel of God.

People’s advise may or may not be right.  God’s is never wrong.

But here’s where people often have difficulty.  They turn to people before they turn to God for the advise they need so desperately.  When we do that we’re likely to get a handful of opinion mixed in varying degrees with “truth”.  Isn’t that where gossip comes from?

And here’s the offence.  I have found that people don’t go to God for His advise, simply because it’s easier to ask someone else.  It’s so easy to rely on the things of this world.  It’s no easy task to trust in faith.

Not a Single One

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They assemble at dawn.  Each one taking his place along the benches provided.  The thickness of the wall dictates how many will assemble.  There is then, a fixed limit.

What do they do?  They pour out wisdom mixed with mercy.  If they preach, it is a quiet whisper.  Let the passing crowd listen as they will.

Let a man stop and ask.  Let him ask for advice or judgment in a matter.  This one has a right to expect truth from these aging men poised to serve.

 

Mercy clothed them as they made their way.  Their own failings accompanied mercy’s making.

The Righteousness of God is ever-present.  Let mercy attend their dispensing of truth.

Which one of them can perform the entire Law of God?  The answer is “not a single one”.

Are those who pass by any more able than those who sit in the city gate?  The answer is “not a single one”.

 

Then let mercy attend those who pass, just as it attends those who sit waiting to serve.

Let justice be dispensed with understanding.  Let wisdom be filtered through a man’s own willingness.

 

The dance of men moves with Grace, to the sound of God’s mercy.

Listen, you wise of God.  Listen to the sound of Love.

Dance with your partner, who strives alongside you in fear.

Learn to restrain your own feet, lest you step on the toes of your brother.

 

Such is the wisdom dispensed in the Gate of the Gospel; “the Good news of Peace from God”.

“Enter in to the store house of Righteousness.  Enter in among the Holy Army of God.

But let it be known that all who enter in will stand.  For the Master is able to make them stand.

Be merciful, my lovely servants; those who dispense the wisdom of God.  Be merciful to those who pass you by.

For they too will, some day, take their place in your well-worn benches.”