Category: Knowledge

6/19/2023 0 Comments

Using Discernment

Ann faced a challenging situation in her new supervisory role with a nonprofit company that recently hired her. One of the employees, Calista, who worked on a different team, was giving her a tough time. Calista had applied for the job Ann now held and resented that she was not chosen. She used Ann’s inexperience to belittle her on calls (shared by others in the organization) and was rude when speaking to her. Ann realized she needed Calista’s help, but she first had to figure out a way to win her over, and that did not seem easy. So she asked for prayer from her close friends and asked God for His assistance.

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4/20/2023 1 Comment

The Critical Importance of Mentoring

Will is a senior at Liberty University and a member of the Army ROTC program. He will commission as an officer in less than a month. I was blessed when he asked me to help him create a sponsorship program for their ROTC department. In this case, sponsors are older men or women who have served in the military as senior officers or NCOs and who are willing to be mentors to any of the cadets who would like to be paired with them to meet and learn and become better prepared to serve as officers. With the help of four mature individuals I was able to recruit, we shared with several cadets who came out on a Monday evening to learn about the critical importance of mentoring.

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3/13/2022 0 Comments

Understanding Wisdom

What is the source of wisdom? Is it academic institutions? If we want to be wise is the best method to gain the highest degree and be immersed in learning institutions, listening to teachers and professors? Or is it experience? Do we agree with Confucius? “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” Will Rogers had a more colorful adaptation, “There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.”

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2/13/2022 0 Comments

Explain This

Meditation
Proverbs 30:2-3--I am more stupid than any other man, and I lack man’s ability to understand. I have not gained wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.

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12/1/2021 1 Comment

Fire

When was the last time you sat beside a fire, alone, and able to think and meditate? The previous home owners left me a gift of numerous piles of dead branches all over the property. I guess they didn’t have time to burn anything but I still would label their actions a gift because they gave me plenty of reason to clear away brush piles and, in the process, burn. There is something mesmerizing (and therapeutic) about sitting next to a fire and watching it reduce large masses to smoldering ashes. No branch escapes. All that feel the hot fury of flame are engulfed and reduced to residue.

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11/13/2021 0 Comments

Why I Value Theology

One would think that with the uncertainties of life and certainty of death, people would be intrigued, perhaps even obsessed, with knowing if there is a Creator and, if He in fact, has a plan for His creation. It amazes me how many people I meet who seem uninterested in what happens to them when they die. Yet, this is THE MOST IMPORTANT question everyone should want to know the answer to because one second after death will be too late to decide. For this reason, among many, I value theology.

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8/21/2021 0 Comments

Necessitarianism

Necessitarianism is “the doctrine that all events, including acts of the will, are determined by antecedent causes; determinism.”[1] The word first came into usage in 1825.[2] The philosopher Spinoza was the most famous defender of this metaphysical principle (the key groundwork of his Ethics[3]), considered as the strongest form of hard determinism which disputes the libertarian’s concept of free will.[4]

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7/15/2021 0 Comments

More Capacity

Bill Bowman ministering in Uganda

Meditation
Acts 9:22--But Saul grew more capable and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this One is the Messiah.

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1/15/2020 0 Comments

Worldview

Ravi Zacharias wrote a book entitled The Logic of God. In chapter one, “Behind Every Question,” he notes that whether a person is religious or irreligious, everyone has a worldview. A worldview basically addresses four necessary questions: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. A well-designed worldview should have true answers to each question and the answers overall should be coherent. Ravi further shares three tests for truth which must be applied to any worldview: logical consistency, empirical adequacy and experiential relevance.[1]

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7/28/2018 0 Comments

Be Like Daniel

Meditation
Daniel 1:17—God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind.

Daniel, probably in part because of my given name, has always been my hero. In studying his Old Testament prophetic book that contains his story, there are at least five superb applications that ought to inspire us to be like him.

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9/8/2015 0 Comments

The Right Kind of Knowledge

Meditation
Colossians 1:9,10—For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.

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9/22/2012 0 Comments

Wow!

Meditation
Romans 11:33-36—Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has ever first given to Him, and has to be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

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5/15/2011 0 Comments

Urgency

In his book Younger Next Year cowritten with Chris Crowley, Dr. Henry Lodge states that “Over 50% of all illness and injuries in the last third of your life can be eliminated by changing your lifestyle in the way we suggest.”[1] The major way they suggest is to exercise forty-five minutes a day six days a week. Four of those workouts are aerobic and two involve weight training. The reason most people grow weak and more susceptible to disease is directly attributed to their failure to exercise!

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11/21/2010 0 Comments

The Right Use of Knowledge

Knowledge is the gateway to freedom. But my freedom may cause another to become shackled. When this happens, the fragrance that once surrounded my thinking becomes a stench before God. Let me give a hypothetical cultural example. From Scripture, I learn that I am to love people. In American culture, it is common and acceptable in most situations for a man to hug a woman. Let us say I travel to India where such action is frowned upon. Because of my knowledge of Scripture and my own culture, I have no problem hugging an Indian woman in the presence of my Indian brothers because I am free to express love with no sense of guilt or temptation. Now two things have occurred.

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1/7/2007 0 Comments

Know

The certainty of knowing is a medicine of incalculable worth. I breathe knowing unseen air is present in this room. I know (brake inspections help), my Subaru will slow down when I push my foot against the pedal. If I miss eating several meals I am aware that I will easily get cold outside. After 23 years of marriage I have a good sense of what my wife will or will not do. What I know shapes my behavior, reflects my beliefs and gives me a confidence that ignorance could not manufacture.

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4/6/2004 0 Comments

Growth

Spring is a tremendous spiritual illustration. Outside my window buds are bursting. The grass grows at a weekly clip but those green blades are in slow motion compared to the weeds. Winter is over. The great plant race is on and the God Who saw that creation was good is still watching.

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11/15/2000 0 Comments

Education

Moses was a highly educated man, taught by the finest scholars of Egypt. But with all his knowledge he tried to fix the injustices he observed through his own strength and God had to place him with shepherds, stripped of all that was familiar until a burning bush captured his eyes. Then he listened to God’s voice.

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11/9/2000 0 Comments

Revelation

You walk outside to pick up your mail when a brilliant flash momentarily blinds you. Before you hovers a Being of glorious light—it is the Lord. You reach out your hand and welcome Him and ask Him to come inside. How exciting you think, a chance to show your Savior your home. So you walk Him around. “Look Lord at the beautiful wallpaper we used in our family room. Oh, you must come up and see the hot tub—our favorite hangout. In here is where the kids sleep. Watch out for all the toys—I really wish they’d pick up after themselves. By the way, check out the new wheels I got in the garage. Isn’t this a sweet SUV!” Time out.

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5/24/2000 0 Comments

Children

If love was a waterfall one would be thoroughly drenched by the Ferraros. In a small town in Illinois, this family radiates what happens when God permeates a household. What strikes me most about them is their commitment to live simply so as to give as generously as possible to support Christians on the frontlines for their faith-men and women who serve in organizations like Gospel For Asia and Voice of Martyrs.

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2/8/2000 0 Comments

Whole

Quarantine is a condition of forced isolation often imposed upon those with a contagious disease, or to determine if someone is in fact infected. My computer has the capability to quarantine off sectors in which a virus has been discovered. This built-in protective measure is intended to keep my hard drive from crashing!

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Photo used under Creative Commons from Rachel Maxey Miles