Wednesday, May 21, 2008

TWG - May 21, 2008

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TWG - May 21, 2008
To Listen to Today’s Reading http://timewithgod.mypodcast.com
Exodus 6; Psalm 17; Matthew 19

Today is May 21, this is time with God, I’m Pastor Dennis - I’ve been waiting here for you. Welcome to our life transforming community. You are part of a devotional community where we put Christ first and our commitment is to spend time with each other and Time with God every day.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity. It went by so quickly I was shocked when I looked up and the day was done. In the morning Susan and I ate at the Illihee in Glide… Really good breakfast. Then it was off to church where I began to wrap up IFCA convention issues from the day before. Soon I was showing Susan how to do Power Point. The Christian Education Committee showed up before I was ready for them. We talked about Sunday School – the need for a High School Teacher, Promotion Sunday, Graduation, David Ingram’s Scholarship and Awana… Jim gave us a challenge… he said he would donate the last $250 for Awana if we would get the other $750 raised! So here is your challenge. Please give toward our Awana program so we can take advantage of this gracious offer. Carey and Ken also showed up for our daytime men’s meeting. And after that Carl and I interviewed Carey for our Child Safety Policy. By that time, I didn’t know it yet, but the day was almost over! I worked on overhead projection screen for the IFCA convention and lined up a special speaker. I also worked on the Power Point for Graduation. Then suddenly realizing with shock that it was time to go, I ran to Stewart Park to play tennis with Shaphen. I could only play an hour, but I beat him 5 to 2. Then it was back to church for our men’s meeting with Carl, Dave and Greg. We had lots of fun. And of course when I got home I watched the finale of Idol. I put a picture of the president of the IFCA, Les Loftquist on the blog at timewithgod.mypodcast.com. check it out.

This week’s theme verse is Romans 1:21-23. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

They claim to be wise. The world is full of intelligent men and women. In some circles it is an unspoken law that you have to be smarter than everyone else. You have to have more degrees… you must have written a best selling book or two… you have to be published in professional journals… you need to be in demand as a teacher or speaker. You have to know more than your peers and above all you must “one up” everyone else… (sounds like some people never graduated from high school – at least socially). Now there is nothing wrong with knowledge. I find it fascinating how much I don’t know and will never know nor understand. I sat entranced last night while engineer Dave explained to me how much I didn’t know about the challenge car makers have in getting the most gas mileage out of a car. You have to understand RPMs, tork, gearing, tire size, weight, aerodynamics, wind resistance and more. I just asked a simple question and got a complex answer. But that’s the way of knowledge. There is so much we don’t know that we don’t know. Fortunately for me, Dave did not express the arrogance so often associated with the intelligentsia. Once a person graduates into the “elite” of his field, many develop an oversized ego and go on a power trip. They are “the authority.” They know the answers to questions you didn’t know you were supposed to ask. That gives them the right to dictate to the world what the facts are as they see them… the world according to me! And that leads to a fatal flaw. Once a person thinks he has arrived he suddenly becomes blind to the possibility that there could be errors in what he believes. Jesus called the Pharisees “blind leaders of the blind.” There is nothing more pitiful than a highly intelligent, educated and overconfident man who is unaware that his basic beliefs are in error. His “edumacation” only makes his errors harder to see and more difficult to correct. So the educated of this world often walk so far down the path of their own fallacious theories that for some there is little hope of return to reality. Heed the warning well: Don’t think yourself too smart, nor so right, nor become so entrenched in your ways that God can’t tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey Dennis… you got it wrong!” Be teachable.

Dear Father, please fill me with Your Spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge. I humble myself before you, realizing how little I know and how little I really understand about the world around me, about life and about Your Kingdom. Make me an insatiable learner on a quest to know you more. I want to be a teachable person with a thirst for truth.

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