Whispers of Truth

“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11, NASB).           You either know something or you don’t—at least, that’s what I’ve always thought, or never thought about much at all. I love learning, so I’ve been an avid word-lover and knowledge-gatherer my entire life. As a result, I have spent the last thirty-three years studying the Bible and gleaning its truths. I should know a lot, but in the last year or so, I’ve learned how little I really know as I’ve faced points of application previously untested.           I think Peter learned (although to a more extreme degree) the same lesson about “real knowledge” that I’ve been learning, and it offers me much comfort and encou

          Ambition can lead us in either positive or negative directions. The word ambition is derived from a Latin term, ambio, which means to go about or seek out something, and it seems to have its origins in Roman politics: the person seeking an office would walk about, or ambulate, soliciting votes (Webster, 1828). Christians should be ambitious people, but not in the same sense as the politicians of Rome or the worldly people of today. Our ambition should be rooted in an intense desire to please God.                     Paul talks of this desire to please God in II Corinthians in a discourse about the temporal versus the eternal. As Christians, we have an expectation of an eternity spent with God; however, in the here and now, we are trapped in the flesh and have all the struggles and burdens of dwelling here, which only leaves us with the longing to be free from the struggles of this world and present in the next one. Paul says, “Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether

          To quote Noah Webster: “To surrender up is not elegant.” To surrender to something means to yield to a greater power. As a Christian, we are called to surrender to Christ all of us and everything we have. One of the definitions in Noah Webster’s 1821 dictionary has an interesting take on this: “to give or deliver up possession upon compulsion or demand.” I don’t always “feel” like surrendering to Christ—especially when I’m struggling with something particularly difficult. I know in my head that I should surrender, but my heart is filled with rebellion, which pulls me in the opposite direction. As a result, I have to choose with my head to surrender—in fact, I’m compelled to do so even though it seems counterintuitive to do so.           I’ve been thinking a lot about Job. When his life fell apart he said to his wife, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10, NASB). Then the Bible comme