Gentle 12

 I’ve had students, after doing wrong, say “That’s just the way I am!  I can’t help it!”  Parents have often said, The but doesn’t fall far from the tree!  He’s just like his father or.,,,”. But the good news of the gospel is that we can be transformed into Christ likeness. I do not have to repeat the sins of my father or grandfather. I’m not locked into the same mindset because He is in me and I am in Him. He is humbly and gently inviting us into a different way of living. 

“The Christian life, from one angle, is the long journey of letting our natural assumption about who God is, over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God’s own insistence on who he is. This is hard work. It takes a lot of sermons and a lot of suffering to believe that God’s deepest heart is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger.” The fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile. The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it.” - Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

David Brooks

 There are two kinds of people in the world:  Diminishers and Illuminators. Diminishers approach a person with categories and labels, with ‘I’m right and superior’. Practicing illumination is demonstrating genuine care, prioritizing the relationship. “It’s a gaze that that radiates respect….that every person is unique and unrepeatable. It’s suspending judgment with tenderness, receptivity, active curiosity, affection, generosity, and seeing the whole person. 

We each see situations with different perspectives. An interior designer walks into a room and sees things different than someone who has been trained as a security specialist. We do not see things as they are but as we are. We can each be transformed to have an entirely different view of life. 

“I’m going to engage with you. Looking at a person is different from looking at a thing because a person is looking back at you. I’m going to get to know you at the same time you’re going to get to know me. Quality conversations is the essence of illuminating relationships. “

The greatest thing a person does is to take the lessons of life, the hard knocks of life, the surprises of life, and the mundane realities of life and refine their own consciousness so that they can gradually come to see the world with more understanding, more Wesdom, more humanity, and more grace. Page 70

Gentle 11

 What is it like to have a friend who is approachable, always available at any moment, and who responds with open arms, fully accepting of what we are going through?  I used to think Jesus stood far away, difficult to talk to. I was resistant to approach Him because I thought I’d never measure up. But I’m learning how He lives us beyond our wildest imagination. 

“Gentle and lowly.” This, according to his own testimony, is Christ’s very heart. This is who he is. Tender. Open. Welcoming. Accommodating. Understanding. Willing. If we are asked to say only one thing about who Jesus is, we would be honoring Jesus’s own teaching if our answer is, gentle and lowly.” - Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

Lead with prayer

 Staying enchanted with Jesus carries us through darkness, stress, and pressure with otherworldly joy.

Tough times, pernicious people, broken relationships, and unexplained tragedies are poisons trying to deaden our enchantment with Jesus. These times require us to dig deeper into our prayer times and cry out like Jacob, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26).

Praying one’s soul happy in the darkest valleys is an act of true defiance. It shouts to the world, The eternal love of God is greater than my current pain, and I will not stop seeking God until “the things of earth… grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”13

When facing a crisis, praying leaders don’t grit it out; they pray it out.

Spiritual depth and wisdom are not correlated with power, wealth, and position—and in prayer, incarcerated people and government officials find themselves on equal footing. 

John Piper went on to give a specific list of recommended passages for this kind of “praying the Bible,” including Matthew 5–7, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 5–6, Ephesians 4–6, Colossians 3–4, and 1 Thessalonians 5. “You will be

God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.

—Mother Teresa

we found that what matters is:

 a heart that is surrendered to God

 a mind that is fixed on God

 a soul that is quiet before God

Opinions vs Guarding our heart

 Michael Sprague

OPINIONS. OPINIONS. OPINIONS.

We get hours and hours of opinions. Echo chambers abound. Falsehoods spread like wildfire. Voices are endless. Over time opinions morph into our stories and change the very trajectories of our lives. Opinions can come from the enemy, the court of public opinion, our own minds and our inner circles. Since inflows create our outflows, we need to filter out everything that is not consistent with God’s opinion. 

In stressful days, our hearts are often the first things to go. We get careless. Seriously, what are you doing to care for your spiritual heart?

Proverbs 4:23 is a great place to start… “Above all else, guard your heart, because out of the heart come the wellsprings of life.” Realize this is not just a feel-good coffee cup verse, but an urgent necessity… Above all else. Do not let the guarding of your heart slide because the heart is extremely valuable and vulnerable. The word “guard’ paints the picture of a faithful soldier looking for intruders. Heart is the innermost part of our being: thoughts, emotions, wills and devotions.  If you tend and nourish your heart, everything will benefit.

What opinions should we focus on? God’s opinions. His opinions are called truth. Here are a few truths I am meditating upon that I picked up from Louie Giglio:

1. There is sin on my record, but it has been blotted out by Jesus’ blood.

2. No harm has been done to me that cannot be overcome by the love God has for me. 

3. If God says I am, I am. What God says I have, I have.

4. I have an essential assignment from God.

5. I am not the sum of my wins and losses. I am not defined by my best and my worse. I am a beloved son/daughter of the Most High God.

6. God is greater than my circumstances.

God’s opinions count. Let us guard our hearts.

Bible 33

 I used to think that it was impossible to have an ‘intimate friendship’ with God. I thought He was in the distance, judging whether I was measuring up to His standards and my own. When someone talked about their close relationship with the Savior, I thought it was just that - all talk. But I’m learning that it’s possible to develop a rhythm of talking all things out with Him, because He is far more loving and caring that I could have imagined. His judgment will take care of all injustice and unfairness in due time, but He is patiently waiting for us to trust Him completely. He is orchestrating events to fit His agenda in unseen ways. His invitation is not from a distance, but close and personal each day with new mercies and grace. The only thing standing in the way is my own pride and self sufficiency. 

Gentle 10

 Developing a rhythm of talking and listening to our Triune God is difficult to put into words. A critic might say that it is self delusion but knowing that you know He is there and that He deeply loves us is an experience full of joy, despite the chaos or pain. It’s one thing to know the truth of God’s presence intellectually, but it’s another to experience it personally. This devotional series is a deeper devotion to Him and nothing less. 

“Go to him. All that means is, open yourself up to him. Let him love you. The Christian life boils down to this:  Go to Jesus. Whatever is crumbling all around you in your life, wherever you feel stuck, this remains, un-deflectable: his heart for you, the real you, is gentle and lowly. So go to him. That place in your life where you feel most defeated, he is there; he lives there, right there, and his heart for you, not on the other side of it but in that darkness, is gentle and lowly. Your anguish is his home. Go to him. “If you knew his heart, you would.” - Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers