Author: Allen Forte

Wisdom follows nothing.

The Lord’s insight. Wisdom is more important than wealth.

Proverbs 4:7: “Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”

 Proverbs 1:4: “To give prudence to the simple. To the young man knowledge and discretion.”

If you are a parent, you know this. There is much you would like to share with your kids but there is not enough time to do that. And more importantly, your kids don’t always want to hear what you have to say. God saw that we would be this way with Him too. There is not enough time, or books hold all that He wants to tell us.

God did something about this. Knowing that we would not listen to Him; knowing that we would not read His Word; and knowing that we would not hear anything but what we wanted to hear, He made wisdom available to those of us who are willing to know how to view life in a better way.  Because how we view life determines how we will live life.

An old man sent his two sons to a land far away.  He told them to look at the land and let him know if it would be a good place for them to sell the shoes they made.  The oldest son saw that the people of the land didn’t wear shoes, so he reported back to his father, “there is no chance to sells shoes there because none of the people wear shoes.”

The youngest son saw the same thing. But he reported back to his father, there is great opportunity to sell shoes there because none of the people wear shoes. How could this be? How could they see the same thing but arrive at different perspectives?

Well, its simple.  One brother lacked wisdom and the other thrived with wisdom. Wisdom is the key to your life. It is the key to everything important to you. It is the key to good health. It is the key to great relationships. It is the key to any success you may have in life.

Wisdom is the principal thing. But it is not learned from what you do.  It follows nothing. It is revealed in how you think and in how you live.  It is the reason for the way you live and for all that you do. Wisdom is the principal thing to us. But it is nothing if we do not make it the principal thing.

This is what I mean. God made wisdom the principal thing to how we live. It is principal whether or not we make it principal to us. Nothing can take the place of what wisdom will do for how successfully we live. Whether we recognize we need to be saved or not, all people need to be saved.

Jesus saw this when God sent Him to that land of people far away from heaven.  Jesus could have reported back to God “Let’s now waste our time. The people there are selfish and want only what they want.” Good thing He did not do this. Jesus saw exactly who we are as people and still He said to Himself, “they all need Me.”

Because we lack wisdom, we make hard things harder than they should be. We make simple things more complex than they are. And we make awful things from the best things that we have. It doesn’t make much sense. But nonsense is exactly what follows a lack of wisdom.  We do not have the ability to make sense of what makes no sense to us when we lack wisdom.

So then, what do we do with this message? If you have wisdom as your principal thing, you are likely to see how you should adjust your life so that wisdom leads. Wisdom never follows. It is either leading or it is not present at all.

This is a getting message. In all your getting, get wisdom first. Before you get a job, get wisdom.  Before you get a degree, get wisdom. Before you get married, get wisdom. Before you get your next meal, get wisdom. When you get wisdom, all the things you want to get will come to your more easily when those same things will escape others.

The principal thing is not to have more of what life has to offer, it is to have just a little bit of the thing that will make life give you what it keeps from you because you lack wisdom.

Live A Delivered Life.

Whose Way Do We Want

The Lord’s insight. What God restricts man want to allow. What God allows man want to broaden.

Genesis 3:6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.  She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Matthew 7:13: “Enter by the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

I believe Adam and Eve had many times seen the tree from which God told them not to eat. How else would they know to stay away from its fruit? But after being tempted by the devil, Eve saw the tree in a different light; now she wanted to have the knowledge of good and evil. She wanted what the devil said more than what God said.

So, she and Adam ate the fruit. They decided to follow their way to a place of their choosing rather than to follow a path God chose for them to a place God chose for them. To them God’s command was a restriction that kept them from enjoying all that life had to offer. They wanted to be allowed to live life to its fullest.

In Matthew 7, Jesus talks to us about destruction and about the path we take to life. He tells us life is something we find and enter into by our living. So, we must restrain ourselves so that we live on a narrow path that leads to a narrow gate that opens to life eternal. He wants us to learn to deny our own way of living by restricting ourselves to the way and the path God has chosen for us.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be focused on living life to its fullest when we don’t really know what that means.  Perhaps life can only be had when we learn to deny ourselves and to restrict our way of living to that which God has said. This, Jesus warns us, is what will lead us to find the fullest life possible.

In a way, God tells us that what seems like restrictions to us are actually His allowances for us. Because what He allows for us is always good for us and it always leads to life. And like this, we must recognize that the thing we would allow for ourselves is the thing God will always restrict for us because our choices of allowances will almost always lead to death.

But we are like Adam and Eve in that we want to live with more allowances than with restrictions. We believe it is actually more destructive to live a narrow way each day so that we never find a full life. So, we justify our own way of living by broadening the path and gate God has reserved for life.

We see this idea of taking the broad way of living almost everywhere. When God describes marriage as between a man and a woman, we see that as a restriction. So, we broaden the idea of marriage to include a relationship between two people of any sex. We want to allow for rather than to restrict from.

Also, in a similar way, we see many people today who believe the church should represent the people of the communities in which the church is located. The church will encourage people to come as they are without the expectation that they must change who they are. The church in essence is changed by the people more than the people are changed by the Word of God.

We want the life behind the straight and narrow way to be had by allowing a broader and wider way of living. And so that our way of living is not condemned by others, we legalize the broad way and the wide gate so that those who follow the straight and narrow way must allow for a broader wider way.

One way to know if your way of living is the way God wants you to live is to ask yourself if a law is required to allow or to restrict how you live. God tells us to love one another. We don’t need a law to allow or to restrict loving others. Loving others is a straight and narrow way of living that leads to life.

God also describes marriage as between a man and a woman. We don’t need a law to accept what God says about marriage. This is God’s way. This is the straight and the narrow way of living that leads to life.

Learn to live in a way that is delivered from what you want to what God wants. God’s Way is always better than our ways.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Love is kind; it is not tough.

1 Corinthians 13:4: “Love suffers long and is kind.”

John 15:12: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

I’m sure you have heard people speak of “tough love,” or you may have used the idea of tough love yourself, but love is not tough at all.  God made love the cornerstone of everything.  We are to first love the Lord with all our hearts and with all our souls.  Then we are to love others as we love ourselves.

The Lord wants us to abide or to live in His love.  Part of the reason for this is that we can learn to love in all things, to love at all times and to be love towards all people. Just like believing in Him is not made difficult for us to do, loving Him and others is not tough.  It is easy.

So, how then did the idea of “tough love” find its way into how many believers suggest we should interact with others sometimes?  Perhaps it’s because in some ways we may want people to deserve our love because of the things they do to us. But God did not ask us to earn His love, so we ought not to think that others must earn or be deserving of our love.  There are three things to consider with love:  Love is not tough; Loving is not tough; and Being love is not tough.

Love is not tough.  Love is kind.  Things that are kind are not tough things at all.  If you live in the Love of the Lord, you live in the kindness and in the grace and in the mercy of the Lord.  It may be tough for you to love because you want to bring a consequence to someone, but this does not make love tough. You may want to withhold kindness and grace and mercy until a person accepts personal fault, but this is not love.

Thinking this way simply makes “tough love” a pretense for love when it is really selfishness and condemnation and the like that you want to be received as love. It may be tough for you to accept the kindness of Love, but love is never tough because you are tough. You don’t protect yourself with “tough love.”

Loving is not tough. We are called to love God with all our hearts and to love others as ourselves.  Loving God and loving others then is not tough. God did not make something so crucial to our relationship with Him and others to be difficult for us to do.  Loving Him and loving others is easy and it should be as natural as loving our own selves. Loving is not tough because Love is not tough.  You are loving because you are Loved.

Being love is not tough. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is patient, it doesn’t envy, it is not selfish, it does not behave rudely, and it thinks no evil. If you listen to this scripture, it tells you that love is something that lives more than it is something that we just do.  Being love is not tough, so manifesting the things that come from being love is not tough. If being love is tough for you, perhaps it is because you are simply trying to do loving things, but you are not being a loving person.

So then, love is not tough, loving is not tough, and being love is not tough.  Perhaps then, we should consider if the idea of tough love should be something we embrace. Ephesians 4:15 tells us that love is intended to unify not to divide.  We are to speak the truth to one another in love so that we come closer together.

But let’s make sure we speak the truth more than we speak our feelings.  Your feelings may not be the truth.  Your feelings just may be your need to hurt others in love rather than to speak the truth in love.  If what you say to others is not intended to love and to bring unity, perhaps it’s something you should keep to yourself.

Love is never tough to give; it is never tough to receive; and it is never tough to be. What is tough is for us to learn that we don’t need to express all our hurt and pain that others may cause us simply because we want them to know how we feel.  Love spoken in anger is not love. You can always forgive others for their hurts even if you do not share with others you are hurt.

This is the strength of Love.  Love can love easily and always even in the middle of pain.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. The Lord puts His name on the people who favor Him.

Matthew 5:3-12: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; those who mourn; the meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; the merciful and pure in heart; the peacemakers.”

Numbers 6:24-27:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel.  Say to them:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

So, they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”

God gave the priests the power and authority to bless the people with this prayer.  He gave them the authority to put God on the hook to put His name on the people.  This was to say to all the other people at that time, the children of Israel belonged to God and He was their God.

So, in doing this, the priests were not asking the Lord to bless the people.  They are telling the people to be reminded that the Lord blesses them.  He keeps them as His own.  He smiles down upon them from heaven and gives them all peace. This was their blessing.

The Lord God chose to distinguish His people by showing the world that He favored them over any other people.  He was saying they are Mine and I am theirs and this is how you know that.  I will favor them in all things. They will carry My name on their lives.

The Lord loves all people, but He chooses to favor those who favor Him.  This is the key to this blessing.  God favors those who favor Him.  He puts His name on those who find their names in Him.  He puts His claim on those who claim Him. He lifts up those who lifts up His name.  He honors those who honor Him.

Years later, Jesus taught the people about blessing and favor and being children of the Lord. He tells us in Matthew 5:3-12 the things we can do ourselves to show that we favor Him over anyone and anything else. How do we show that we favor Him? Well, it’s when we choose to put His name on ourselves.

And how do we put His name on ourselves? Well, it’s when we keep ourselves poor in spirit; when we mourn; when we are meek; when we hunger and thirst for righteousness; when we are merciful; when we are pure in heart; and when we are peacemakers.

You see, if we had to describe Jesus to someone else, aside from Him being the Son of God and our Savior, we could say He is God, but He is poor in spirit; He is a caring Lord Who mourns for the people to have the things of God; He is God, but He is meek and lowly in heart; He is God, still He hungers and thirsts for righteousness; He is God, but He is merciful and gracious; and He is God but He is pure in heart and He is a peacemaker.

Today, it is common for many people to reject our earthly parents and choose a path we believe in for ourselves.  Many of us will often say we want to be nothing like our parents. We will say we know better than our parents because we have access to more.  We have our parents’ last names, but we can often deny that we belong to them or they belong to us.

We should not treat our earthly parents this way and we must not treat the Lord like we would treat our earthly parents. If Jesus is all these things, wouldn’t it make sense that we would be this way too if we are His and He is ours. We should want His name to be on us, and we should want our names with Him. This is the blessing of all blessings.  To have the Lord’s first name as our own.  To have the Lord’s last name as our own.  And to have the Lord’s reflection on us as a reflection of Him saying we are His.  Do you have His name showing on you visibly so others can see it without you saying a word?  The Lord bless and keep you. The Lord be happy with you.  The Lord puts His name on you.

Live a Delivered Life.

When Things Do Not Go My Way

The Lord’s insight. Believers are called to Be and to give, not to get and to have.

1 Peter 3:17: “For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.”

Luke 22:42: “Father if it is Your will, take this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.”

It was a real surprise to me the day I realized my belief and faith in Christ changed my mind on what I had always thought was right for me. I learned that there would be many times where I would be expected to give when before I had wanted to get or to have.

Look at 1 Peter 3 again. Perhaps it is saying to us that there will be consequences that come our way whether we do good or whether we do evil. One way or another, we will suffer good or evil outcomes from our actions if they are good or evil. But in the world, believers should not always or only expect good outcomes to be the result of good actions.

In the world, we will get good outcomes from good actions, and we will get bad outcomes from good actions.  We will also get bad outcomes from evil actions, and we will get good outcomes from evil actions.  The world does not care about good for good or evil for evil.  And the world does not care if things go the way you want them to go.

If you are the type of person who wants to have things to go your way, you better be the type of person who wants the Lord to be the provider of the things that happen to you.

I have learned that being a believer does not mean that I can now have all that is rightfully mine.  It does not mean that all things will go the way I want things to go.  It does not mean I get to have something from the world that I couldn’t otherwise have.

Listen, in the world you can never rightfully have anything anyway. Why would you want the world to be forced to give you what it does not want to give?  The value of a forced apology is nothing compared to the sincere regret of the person who apologizes before you and who seeks your forgiveness before the Lord.

When you live like everything must go your way for you to be happy, you will likely never be happy. And if we say it is not about being happy but about having what is right for us, all we can ever have is the thing that someone else does not want us to have.

Remember we are called to Be and to Give more than we are called to get or to have.  Our disposition should be this. “Lord, if it is Your will, make my friend return what he stole from me; nevertheless, that is what I want, but if You want something different, that is what I want more than anything.”

In this way, you allow yourself to Be merciful, to Be grateful, to Be forgiving and to Be giving of what you do not rightfully have to give. And in this way the world sees mercy, and grace and forgiveness and selflessness in ways that these things will be produced in more of us.

So, how is this better for you?  Because the Lord blesses the people who are merciful, who are grateful, who are forgiving, who are willing to suffer for doing good for the good of those in the world who know no good.  For Christ suffered for the Just and for the Unjust. And we were all unjust before being made Just through Him.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. We find rest in Him when we stop living in ourselves.

Hebrews 4:1:  Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.”

Matthew 11:29: “Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Long before Jesus came, God made a promise to the people that in following Him, they would find rest for themselves. The Israelites were in Egypt over 400 years or so.  Most of those years they were in bondage to the Egyptians.  Life was hard for them.  They knew nothing but work, work and more work.

There was no rest for them.  There was no rest for their souls.  When they did get a moment to sleep and eat, I imagine they spent that time praying to God for relief. Perhaps for rest.

Hebrews 4 recounts the promise of rest God made to those who were obedient to Him.  It was an eternal promise that was fulfilled by Jesus when He came.  Matthew 11:29 notes that Jesus Himself invites the people who are burdened with life to come to Him and He would give them rest.

Life is great but living is sometimes very difficult.  Like the Israelites, today many of us may feel like we are in bondage in some ways.  We may not have all the basic necessities of life.  We may be sick in some way. If you are like me, you may have a nagging shoulder ache that just won’t go away.

Most of us have to learn to live with some difficult things that come our way in life. So, we must remember, just as God made sabbath a day of physical rest for the people long ago.  He gave us Jesus so that we could have rest today from living in a difficult world.

But the rest He provides us is more than relief from what challenges us.  God is Spirit so He first gives us rest from living our own lives so that we can find rest to live the life with Christ that He wants us to live. Many of us are exhausted because we will not stop living for ourselves and start living with Jesus.

When you travel along an interstate highway, you will usually find a place we call a rest stop.  There you can pull off the road and find things needed to refresh yourself.  After you are rested however, you get back on the road and start doing what you were doing before you stop.

The rest God promises is different from the rest you get when you pause what you are doing so you can catch your breath. The Lord brings His rest stop to you.  He doesn’t give you rest so you can keep on doing what you did before.  He gives you rest from living the way you lived so you can find the rest to live the way He wants you to live.

So, take Him up on His promise.  Get on the interstate highway that leads directly to His heart.  It isn’t a long highway.  You won’t have to drive far.  Leave all your stuff behind you.  You won’t need anything old when you take on His yoke.

He will not ask you to pause your life, He will ask you to live with Him a new life.  The new life that He asks you to live is new each day so there is no chance for you to become lazy or to feel like you are in bondage to the same thing’s day after day. There is no chance you will become weary at the things you do. He has everything you need to live a busy restful life in Him.

So let today start the day that you learn to stop living in yourself and start living in Him.  You will find His rest when you do this. There may be no rest for the weary, but in Him there is rest that keeps you from becoming weary.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. As a nation, we celebrate our Independence; as believers we should celebrate our Dependence.

Acts 17:24-26: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

Today, July 4^th, 2026, is our Independence Day. It’s a day we set aside each year to remember and to honor our birth as a nation and our independence from the rule of any other nation. It’s our Independence Day. We formally embarked upon becoming the United States of America.

In declaring our Independence from the rule of any other nation of peoples, our founding fathers had the sense to make sure we declared our dependence on the God of all creation. Our Independence from the rule of other men led to our Dependence on the Lord God of all.

Today, we struggle with our Dependence as in many ways we now want Independence from God so that we can have full Dependence on ourselves. We ought to consider what this means to us.  A nation that declares its Independence from God is destined to fall in its Dependence on itself.

So, as we look to our futures, let’s take a fresh look at Independence Day and remind ourselves to be grateful for the men who fought to free us from the rule of other men. But we should also remind ourselves to be cautious as our founding fathers declared two things, Independence, so we could have Dependence.

They sought independence from men and the ways of men so we could find Dependence on God and on the ways of God. So, with Independence Day, let’s celebrate all that it means to us as a nation. And at the same time, let’s find time to acknowledge our Dependence Day on the Life of Christ and what that means to us.

Independence from men and Dependence on God.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. A strong believer learns to permit what is not always understood rather than trying to force what they want others to understand.

John 3:15: “But Jesus answered and said to him permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

John 19:11 “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.”

If the Lord asked you to accept some wrong rather than avenge some wrong against you, would you do it?  This is exactly what Paul asks the people of Corinth.  He says to them, “why would you go before the unrighteous to settle things between the righteous?”

He said it is utter failure that believers go to law against one another.  He asks, “why do you not accept wrong?  Why do you not rather allow yourselves to be cheated?”  (1 Corinthians 6:1-9). He is not saying that we should be glad when we are wronged.  That would be foolish. Rather he wants us to permit ourselves to refrain from hitting back when we are hit.

John was baptizing the people in the Jordan river when Jesus came to be baptized.  John thought Jesus should be baptizing him instead.  But Jesus responded by telling John to allow this to happen because it fulfilled the scripture.

This made me realize how I have often resisted something that ultimately could have made me better.

In John 19, Pilate tells Jesus that he has the power to crucify Him or to set Him free.  Jesus responds by telling Pilate he would have no power over Him unless it were given to Pilate from above – that is God. Jesus permitted Pilate to order His death.

We often resist the power or authority of man so we can force man to do right by us. And we live in a world today where most everyone seeks retribution or revenge for the things that happen to us.  Many of us have become advocates for things we believe are right more than we should be committed to the things God wants us to be.

The Lord doesn’t want us to allow ourselves to be wronged so that He can show Himself to be strong.  But we should realize that sometimes the things that we permit to happen to us act as the power needed to cause others to change their ways towards us. Many of us read scripture and see information about what we can do; then some allow the scripture to read them, and they find the transformation that awaits them.

As believers we must remember that the more we fight for what we believe is right for us, the less the Lord fights for us. What things we force usually happen through our own strength; but the things we permit often cause to happen the things we cannot force. The Lord doesn’t need you to be caught in a sin to show the blessing of obedience. This is what glorifies the Lord and what develops our faith.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be slapped, but when it happens, permit yourself not to respond in anger.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be cheated, but when it does happen, permit yourself to respond in grace.

The Lord doesn’t want you to be the tail, but when it happens, permit yourself to lead from the rear.

You have two choices in your life as a believer in how you live before others.  There are things you must learn to permit, and you must keep yourself from trying to force things to happen because you want what is fair and right.

Both Jesus and John permitted the thing that glorified God. When you fight for yourself, you get glory for yourself. But the glory you get is the glory of man more than it is of God. In many ways, with the Lord, it is the act to permit some things to happen that is what glorifies the Lord more than the fact that we correct a wrong done against us.

You should wonder if you are serving the Lord when you have an attitude of retribution more than an attitude of permission. When you learn to permit the work of the Lord to thrive in your life, your attitude of permitting His Lordship is a glorifying act in itself.

The feeling that you will avenge and correct all the wrongs you see is a scary attitude to have. To get what you want you will have to get man to give you what man does not want to give you.  When you force man to do right by you, you lose more than you gain.

When you choose to permit the Lord to work against the evil that comes your way you will gain more than you will gain by simply giving evil what it deserves. If you must have an attitude, let it be that you ask the Lord to help you learn to permit His work in your life to be so.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight.  To learn to be a father you must learn to be a son.

2 Samuel 7:14” “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.”

2 Corinthians 6:18: “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters.  Says the Lord Almighty.”

Today is the day in 2026 that we acknowledge and honor the fathers we have among us.  We include those fathers who were; those who are; and those who will be.  It is fitting to have a day like today because there is probably nothing more important to man than being a believer and being a father.

I have often said, there are some important things we must be that we don’t have a “how to” book written plainly for that.  Being a father is one of those things.  God did not overlook this.  That’s because He made Himself the example all men need on how to be a father.

In 2 Samual 7:14, God is speaking to Samuel about King David and his son Solomon.  God is telling Samuel to tell David that God Himself would be a father to Solomon and that Solomon would be a son to God.

And like that, in 2 Corinthians 6:18 God is talking to His people when He says, “I will be your Father, and you shall be my sons and daughters.” If you are going to be a father to anyone you must first learn how to be a son to your father.

You may not think you have a good example of an earthly father that would make you want to learn how to be a son to him.  But you have a Heavenly Father Who still requires you to be a son.  So lets make Father’s Day 2026 the day we focus on learning how to be sons so that we can learn how to be the fathers we ought to be.

Here are some things God expects from us as His sons. These are things we should give to God the Father and to our earthly fathers.

Respect: Sons respect their fathers no matter what the father does or does not do.

Reflect: Sons reflect the best things about their fathers no matter how great or small those things may be.

Responsible: Sons remain responsible toward their father no matter if they are home or on their own.

Reject: Sons reject their sense of self so that they demonstrate the father’s sense of selflessness.

Repeat: Sons learn from and repeat the things they learn from their fathers so that the father’s training is seen in the sons’ behaviors.

As much as people today want to break from their parents and be their own persons, fathers are never permitted to break away from being sons to their fathers and they are never permitted to stop being fathers to their sons.

God says He will be our father.  This is a commitment to us that will never end.  He will teach each of us how to love and how to deny the self and seek what is best for our sons and daughters.  He will teach us how to be teachable so that we can teach our own.  He will show us how to love so that we learn how to show love to our own.

All that the Father wants from us as fathers is revealed to us in the things He wants from us as sons. If you don’t care about the type of father you are, you are probably not the son you ought to be towards your father.  If you want to be a better father to your children, learn to be a better son to your father.

Scripture tells the father’s children they must honor their parents.  You fathers must be the type of fathers your sons and daughters will find it easy and desiring to give you their honor. Don’t make it difficult for your sons and daughters to be blessed by the Father by honoring you.

God is this way with us; He expects us to be this way with our own.

Have a great Father’s Day today.  And be a greater, better father in all the days to come for you.

Live a Delivered Life.

He Opens Your Understanding

The Lord’s insight. The Word can tell you a lot about you if you allow it to open your understanding.

Acts 8:30: “So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isiah, and said, do you understand what you are reading?”

Luke 24:45: “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”

I had a pastor once who always ended his sermons by asking this question “so what is the holy spirit saying to you?” The pastor was saying don’ tell me what you heard about the Word, tell me you understand about what the Word is saying about you.”

His question was very appropriate because we live in a time where even as believers, we tend to talk more than we listen.  And we tend to speak more about what we hear than by what Holy Spirit is saying to us.  But I took his question a bit further.  I asked myself, “what is the Holy Spirit saying about me.”

We will search the world to find something to share about what we believe about the Word. But will we stop searching the world to understand what the Word says about us.

In the book of Acts, a Eunuch from Ethiopia was traveling as he came across Philip.  The Eunuch was reading scripture.  When Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading he responded, “how can I unless someone guides me?” The Eunuch had the sense to know that his understanding needed to be opened to what he was reading.

In Luke 24:15 two men were traveling talking about the crucifixion of Jesus a few days earlier.  Scripture says Jesus came among them and asked what they were talking about. They told Jesus what they knew. But then Jesus opened their understanding so they could comprehend what they knew.

It was through the Word that I learned I was more judgmental than I thought I was. I saw how quickly I would judge what I thought about others or something others did. Once I allowed the Word to open the door to me so I could learn about me, I asked that I never be allowed to close that door again.

When you learn to hear what is being said about you, it will help you understand what you should know about the things you see daily. When you allow the Lord to speak to you about you, He washes the lens through which you see everything else.

When your understanding is open you speak less and you listen more.

You add quiet to the things that are noisy.

You withhold your opinion until you are asked for your opinion.

You base your thinking about anything on what the Lord has said about you.

You tend to your own mess more than you are in the middle of someone else’s mess.

You gossip about your own foolishness more than about the perceived foolishness of others.

The Lord wants to open our understanding to His Word, but He will not force us into this.  He will wait patiently until we come to Him and say “Lord, how can I understand what goes on with my life unless You teach me about my life.”

If you can’t be taught, you can’t be heard by those who are taught.  If you can’t hold your tongue, you can’t be heard by those who hold their tongues. And if you cannot stand the conviction and revelation of the Holy Spirit about you, people will reject your conviction and accusation of them.

Pray the Lord open your understanding about you today. When our understanding is opened, we don’t just hear what others say, we hear more about what makes others say the things they say.

You will better understand God’s Word, when you learn to receive what the Word says about you. Pray that what people hear about you reflects a person who has listened to what the Holy Spirit has said about them.

Live a Delivered Life.