For the President-Elect to be patient in every endeavor
end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
�Ecclesiastes 7:8-9
Holy God, all wisdom and knowledge begin with You. You alone hold eternity and truth in Your hands. Discernment comes from You and You see and know all motives and purposes. You are awesome and wise, and we begin by recognizing and praising Your authority and knowledge.
Lord, it is sometimes our nature to respond with fury rather than restraint in times of stress or trouble. But God, we also know that through You we can do all things, even those things that go directly against our nature. We ask You to do this work now in our President Elect, and make him a man of caution, reason and perspective. Enable him, O God, to be able to see the big picture, and to have a patient spirit that eschews pride and emotionalism. Give him, Lord, Your patience, great and long-suffering, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, amen.
I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. Verse 99
At first glance, this verse sounds extremely arrogant. However, I think if taken in the proper perspective, it is not at all. It all depends on how this works itself out in real life. If I go around proclaiming that I'm smarter than all my teachers, I'm setting myself up to be knocked down a few notches. However, if one quietly recognizes the value of God's testimonies and meditating on them, and the fact that this makes you extremely wise, then it's not so arrogant. We just don't need to go around yelling, "HEY, I'M WISER THAN YOU, BECAUSE I MEDITATE ON SCRIPTURE."
Right.
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
The first part of this passage speaks of Israel's refusal to remove "the veil" from Moses's face. This veil is the one that he had to wear when he came down from his face-to-face meeting with God. The sentences that caught my attention are these: They didn't notice it then and they don't notice it now, don't notice that there's nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can't see through it.
The Old Covenant that Israel still adheres to today is nothing more than an "old, bankrupt government."
The good news comes in the next paragraph, though. Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are--face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face.
Nothing between us and God!
Grace and peace, friends!