Seeking God’s Wisdom: Prayer, Gentleness, and Humility

Question is, do we seek Christ like wisdom, or what we're doing? Is it all a facade? Is it for play? Is it for attention? Is it to add to our resume? I participated in this Wesley thing. Maybe that'll look good. I don't know. Or maybe it helps me look a certain way to say I'm in the good life, the Christian way. I'm using quotes there because it's by word only, not through action. [00:35:42] (38 seconds)  #AuthenticFaith

The question becomes then for us, when the next crisis hits, whatever that may be may be because every day there's a new one. Do we turn to the world for wisdom on how to follow through, or do we turn to Christ? Do we seek worldly wisdom, or are we seeking wisdom from God? That's the ultimate question here. We have to look at how we will combat the easy thought because it's easy. It's easy to turn to worldly wisdom. [00:36:20] (37 seconds)  #ChooseGodsWisdom

Where where does our daily wisdom come from? How do we operate in this in our day to day? How does it affect our decision making? We've all had to make some decisions today. Is it rooted in self interest? Does ambition dictate our decisions more often than humility. I'm afraid, and I have to keep myself in check with this too. [00:41:04] (46 seconds)  #DailyHumility

I'm afraid, and I have to keep myself in check with this too. I'm not out here, in some perfect land, and I'm talking to you. I'm talking to all of us. I'm afraid that often our church, often our campus ministries, all around the world may fall into the wrong kind of wisdom. And often, ministries fall into a trap of using prayer that is a way to manipulate. [00:41:44] (45 seconds)  #PrayerNotPerformance

then, yeah, we can make numbers look great. We can make it look shiny and polished and beautiful. We'll bring out our cameras and make it look even better. But if we are in the genuine nature of wanting to be with Christ through wisdom from above, then it comes through the building of relationship. Now if we come at this through the identity of prayer life as has been our focus, if we come at this wisdom from a place that is earthly and about how I do it and how I do it better and how I know the right way, then we're really not in the process of making disciples of Jesus Christ or showing humility in the Christ like love that has been given to us. [00:46:54] (54 seconds)  #RelationshipOverImage

And so if we are seeking wisdom from earthly things and we're calling ourselves to be in mission and ministry with god, yet we're not seeking wisdom from god. We're not rekindling the flame or the fire of god of the spirit that is working in and through us in the ministry, we are seeking the rekindling of flame from earthly things, and it will quickly extinguish. [00:43:54] (22 seconds)  #GodsFlameNotFame

What I think that is saying is if we look to this scripture and that if our wisdom is coming from god and we are going out and sharing our relationship with God to others, it's not our job to persuade or manipulate or coerce someone into having a relationship with God. It goes back to the the genuine nature in which you're doing so and the hymn that says that they will know we are followers of Christ by the way we love them. [00:45:34] (42 seconds)  #WitnessByLove

I say that to say that many people may ask me, why are you not if you're a campus pastor, why are you not more out evangelizing or what's what's the other proselytizing? Why are you not making more conversions? What's the stats in all of this? Because I think it's deeper than that. And if I went out and was just doing that because that's what the earthly wisdom says that the church is supposed to do and the pastor is supposed to do, then, yeah, we can make numbers look great. [00:46:16] (41 seconds)  #BeyondTheNumbers