Day #18
James 3:17-18 “Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”
Yesterday we dealt with what wisdom is NOT. Now let’s talk about what wisdom IS! Wisdom is gentle. Wisdom is reasonable. Wisdom overflows with mercy and blessings. And today we are adding a couple of things to yesterday’s list of what wisdom is NOT. It is not hot one day and cold the next. It is not two-faced. I love that James says the root of wisdom is a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. So simple. Wisdom is a lot less complicated than what we make it out to be. Quite frankly, some things that we have deemed to be wisdom, aren’t even wise at all. Want to live in a healthy community? It just takes hard work. I have a feeling we have been hardly working at working hard. You know what requires HARD work? Getting along with others. If that isn’t the truth. Do you ever think that God made us all so different so that we could develop a healthy work ethic? Relationships are hard work. Community is hard work. Let’s be committed to working hard because we want to enjoy the results. Remember this, people are everything!
Consecration: Comfort
I know that last year challenged comfortability on nearly every level. So we should have a handle on consecrating comfort, or at least be a little more familiar with discomfort than normal. Today, let’s consecrate comfortability in relationships. Hang with me here, let me give some examples…Let’s squash the small talk and have conversations that matter. Ask your friends and family how they really are; Emotionally and spiritually. We are pretty good about checking in physically right now, but let’s take it a little deeper. You may have to ask more than once. We are conditioned for surface conversations, especially with those we see most. We like it that way. It’s comfortable. Push past that today. Work hard.
