GOLDEN WORDS

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear...   
 
James 1:19

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

James 1:19-20 (NIV)

This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

James 1:19-20 (NASB)




It has been said, perhaps too many times, that ‘God has given us two ears and one mouth – thereby to listen twice as much as we speak.’ While the proverb has become trite, the message is still valid.

My experience as a nurse has often showed me how important it is to listen to people. Unfortunately, today we have very little time to listen to people. People are waiting for a chance to speak. We only need to provide the time and be willing to listen. We need to be swift to hear. Silence is a very good way to communicate. It seems that silence is a language that is all but forgotten today.

In my spiritual life I need to be swift to hear. I seldom spend the time for prayer that I should. When I pray, I quickly offer thanks and hurriedly go through my list of requests, following up with a … thy will be done and an amen. Prayer is to be a conservation with God. My prayers are usually one-sided. I find I am not swift to hear His words to me.     PBB




Silence need not be awkward or embarrassing, for to be with one you love, without the need for words, is a beautiful and satisfying form of communication.

Colleen Townsend Evans

Daily Meditations by Pat Nordman

January 29

"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" Ephesians 4:32; "...He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked" Luke 6:35c.

Loving someone is sometimes the easy part — it is the living with someone that turns our heart into sour mash that becomes bitter and unpalatable. This admonition to be kind and to forgive narrows it down to all, but especially those in very close quarters, such as the kin. If the Kinsman can be kind, then we can be kind to the kin! God placed no restrictions on His kindness and neither can we. We are to assail our adversary with darts dipped in agape love, not the fetid grapes of wrath. The very nature of Jesus was and is kindness, and His territory is the depth and height and width of heaven and earth. This means that there is no place where we cannot show His love; we have no excuse for not showing and sharing His mercy and active love. God's kindness was made actively manifest in His Son so that we might have salvation. As God has shown us this unfathomable kindness, so we are to manifest unaccountable kindness and forgiveness to each other.

God's Word speaks of the mercy seat. At times we need to sit ourselves on His mercy seat and be recharged with His pure love that is unconditional. Our problem seems to be with the fact that His love is unconditional, conditioned on our accepting His love, which in turn grants us the privilege of being His sons and daughters. We are constantly in need of His unconditional love to keep us from losing our privileges. The continuance of our privileges depends on the continuance of our faith and our diligent effort to meet the responsibilities of these privileges, confusing as that may sound. One of these responsibilities (and privileges) is to love as He loves; to be merciful as He is merciful. It is on our individual ledger as one of those accounts payable that balances out the accounts receivable!

Pat Nordman ©

 

T H I N K A B O U T I T

Our Stride Isn't Wide Enough Many years ago when the children were small, we went for a little drive in the lovely English countryside, and there was some fresh snow. I saw a lovely field with not a single blemish on the virgin snow. I stopped the car, and I vaulted over the gate, and I ran around in a great big circle striding as wide as I could. Then I came back to the kids, and I said, "Now, children, I want you to follow in my footsteps. So I want you to run around that circle in the snow, and I want you to put your feet where your father put his feet."  Well, David tried and couldn't quite make it. Judy, our overachiever, was certain she would make it; she couldn't make it. Pete, the little kid, took a great run at it, put his foot in my first footprint and then strode out as far as he could and fell on his face. His mother picked him up as he cried.  She said to me, "What are you trying to do?"  I said, "I'm trying to get a sermon illustration."  I said, "Pete, come here." I picked up little Peter and put his left foot on my foot, and I put his right foot on my foot. I said, "Okay, Pete, let's go." I began to stride one big stride at a time with my hands under his armpits and his feet lightly on mine.  Well, who was doing it? In a sense, he was doing it because I was doing it. In a sense there was a commitment of the little boy to the big dad, and some of the properties of the big dad were working through the little boy.  In exactly the same way, in our powerlessness we can't stride as wide as we should. We don't walk the way we should. We don't hit the target the way we ought. It isn't that at every point we are as bad as we could be. It's just that at no point are we as good as we should be. Something's got to be done.

 

January 29   Exodus 35:1 - 37:29 Linked to Bible Gaitway TM

 

 

Today's  Devotion

 

... ...and by his light I walked through darkness!    JOB 29:3 NIV   What A Friend  by Pat Nordman   "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?" Micah 7:18 How   we crave to be forgiven by God and by man! Who is a God like this who suffers long with our sins and doubts? Who is this who withdraws the plumb line of judgment? "I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line" Isaiah 28:17. God's people are made according to His standards, and we are expected to be true to these standards. But when we are tested, we are found to be out of plumb. We are not up to God's measurements.     "For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost" Luke 19:10; "For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" Matthew 9:13. Since we are all sinners, that means us. What hope this gives us! What a Friend we have in Jesus: "And here is how to measure it--the greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends" John 15:13 TLB. This is the plumb line: love.     "And I pray that you. . .may have power. . .to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God" Ephesians 3:17-19. Any friendship is measured by the depth of its affection in the sacrifices it makes and the burdens it bears. Jesus is indeed the Friend of humanity.   Moses asked God to show him His glory; instead, God chose to show Moses His goodness (Exodus 33:18,19). "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, `The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousand, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin'" Exodus 34:6,7. How can we not love such a God as this! © Pat Nordman Any friendship is measured by the depth of its affection in the sacrifices it makes and the burdens it bears.   More Walking Through the Darkness

 

 

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