I Didn't Need a Second Cup

I Didn’t Need A Second Cup.

“Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach Him? Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice? Does he need instruction about what is good? Did someone teach Him what is right or show Him the path of justice?” -- Isaiah 40:13-14 (NLT)

“There ain’t nothing like a good cup of coffee to get the morning going!” I say to myself. I open up Fenelon’s “Spiritual Letters” from the “Best of Fenelon” book and get to Letter 8 when something pop’s right out in front of me.

“Do you believe that it is possible that the love of God,-and the abandonment of self for His sake,-is only to be reached through acquiring so much knowledge? You have already more than you use, and need further illuminations much less the practice of what you already know. O how deceived we are when we suppose we are advancing because our vain curiosity is gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect! Be humble, and do not expect the gifts of God to come from people.”

Just when I thought I was getting smart enough to read this guy I get slapped with this. Now it’s not like I can’t understand what I read but this part of the 8th letter spoke real loud on this morning. And it wasn’t because of the coffee! Maybe it’s because I just received a certificate from KIBS and I got kind of proud of myself. After all, I really didn’t apply myself when I was in school and never thought of myself taking college course let alone courses in Biblical Doctrine. Just a side note here, the more read my Bible the less I think fully understand God. The Bible has an application that is so vast that I am constantly finding a different situation that can be viewed through the same verse that had applied to something I would have thought did not have the same relevance.

After I read this passage by Fenelon I started to take it apart. First thing I had to realize was that he wrote to the court of Louis the XIV and they weren’t known for having a great sense of morality. But at one time neither was I so there is relevance. Anyway the first thing is the love of God not being acquired through knowledge. The key to this bit of understanding is right in the middle of the sentence, “and the abandonment of self for His sake”. I think we find it easy to put ourselves aside when we are putting ourselves aside for others, like in a brotherly way. We want to show that we practice dying to ourselves when we are amongst the brethren but do we do it when we are not around anyone. Jesus did say do your good out of the sight of others so are we doing a random act of kindness without receiving a round of applause? Have I done this? Hmmm…..

Now I have to deal with the need of “further illuminations much less the practice of what you already know”. I feel sort of convicted by this statement because I really want to know the whole atmosphere of what had been written and I feel that you can only get this “illumination” from deep study but sometimes I forget that human nature hasn’t changed over the eons. So what’s the sense of knowing all that can be known if I haven’t experimented with the application of God’s Word in my own life.

And then there is the two most dreaded words that some of us hate hearing. BE HUMBLE. Tell me that we can go through the day without mumbling something we think is good about ourselves and not even consider the love and grace of God that is the only good we really have?
Who are we to tell God how great we art? We ain’t that smart in the first place.

But it all ties right into what I have used as my verse today. Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach Him? Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice? Does he need instruction about what is good? Did someone teach Him what is right or show Him the path of justice?”

Yes Brothers I got all that before I even finished my coffee that morning. What are you getting from God before your morning cup of coffee is done? -- Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and frequent Freedom Fighter Contributor

God's WORD for YOU: Proverbs 5; 2 Chronicles 23-24; John 15

Great Quote: We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results. (Reuben Archer) R. A. Torrey