“You call upon whatever you love: you call upon whatever you draw to yourself, whatever you wish to come to you. Therefore if you call upon God for this reason, in order that money may come to you, that an inheritance may come to you, that worldly rank may come to you, then you are calling upon those things that you desire may come to you; but you are making God the helper of your desires, not the listener to your needs.”
— Augustine of Hippo
The Enticement of Unjust Gain (Proverbs 1:8-19)
“True wisdom is not a set of principles but a supernatural person. And we receive this wisdom not simply through acts of the will but through the transformation of our heart and desires by worshiping him.”
—Tim Keller, God’s Wisdom for Navagating Life
What is Wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-7)
“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living. ... “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder, then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”
— Job 28:12–13, 23-28
Those Who Seek (James 5:19-20)
O to Grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
-Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson
The Lord is Coming Back (James 5:7-12)
The first coming of Christ the Lord, God's Son and our God, was in obscurity; the second will be in sight of the whole world. When he came in obscurity no one recognized him but his own servants; when he comes openly he will be known by both good people and bad. When he came in obscurity it was to be judged; when he comes openly it will be to judge. ... Silent when accused, he will not be silent as judge. And he is not silent now. By no means; when people of today recognize his voice and despise him, Scripture assures us he will not be silent...
- Augustine of Hippo
Generous Justice (James 5:1-6)
“If a person has grasped the meaning of God's grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn't live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God's grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn't care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn't understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.”
- Tim Keller, Generous Justice
Our Defining Journey (Hebrews 2:6-10)
These troubles and distresses that you go through in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you, but are sent to try you whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses.
—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Divine Promise (James 4:13-17)
“Neither the nature of any created thing,… nor the weakness of the flesh, can prevail against the will of God. For God is not subject to created things, but created things to God; and all things yield obedience to his will.” —Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.5.2.
Living in Peace (James 4:1-12)
Nietzsche says that the illusion of willpower rests on our tendency to identify with the part of our soul that commands, not the part that obeys. On one hand, the will is desire. On the other, the will is necessary only when you need to act against your desires. The will is both problem and solution, and to fight will with will is to end up even more entangled.
—Meghan O’Gieblyn
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
—Romans 7
Earthly Wisdom vs Wisdom From Above (James 3:13-18)
“Love for our neighbors, then, like love for ourselves, involves something vastly more significant than the meeting of individual needs. It involves God’s reaching out in us and through us to build a kingdom, a sphere of rulership, in which his will is done in the fallen world as it is in the sinless heavens; in which cruelty and disorder and the distortion caused by sin are supplanted by love, order, and righteousness. Loving obedience to God produces much more than individual goodness, respectability and the alleviation of suffering. It builds the kingdom of heaven.”
-Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life
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