Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 1379 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Chosen to Rule – Meditation Monday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1379 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.

 Most Christ-followers don’t realize or understand how great of high privilege and responsibility that God has granted us. He has crowned us to rule over His kingdom on earth. Today let us meditate on:

Chosen to Rule

To set the stage for today’s Meditation, let me first read Psalm 8

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Your glory is higher than the heavens.

You have taught children and infants

to tell of your strength,

silencing your enemies

and all who oppose you.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—

the moon and the stars you set in place—

what are mere mortals that you should think about them,

human beings that you should care for them?

Yet you made them only a little lower than God

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You gave them charge of everything you made,

putting all things under their authority—

the flocks and the herds

and all the wild animals,

the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,

and everything that swims the ocean currents.

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

This Psalm begins and ends with the same phrase about God’s majestic name and how it encompasses or fills the entire earth. Not only that, but His glory also encompasses all of the heavens. God’s majesty and glory are so grand, yet simple enough that it can be taught to children and even infants. When God’s story is that simple, it silences even the loftiest arguments of those who oppose God.

All we need to do is to look at the night sky, and we see such grandeur, that it is impossible not to see and acknowledge God. The moon and stars are a silent witness that shouts to all creation of God’s glory and majesty.

As a mere mortal, created being, I am awestruck when I witness the entirety of God’s creation. Why would God hold us in such lofty esteem? Why would God care for us so intensely when we turn our backs on Him so often? It is because God created us for a specific purpose that fulfills His plan for all of His creation. He made humankind just a little lower than His heavenly council, who were created to fulfill their divine roles ruling over the heavens, as we were created for the specific purpose of ruling over His earthly domain. God crowned us humans with glory and honor as Kings to rule over his earthly abode. We are kings who have charge over everything He made, putting all things on earth under our authority. Our rule includes the entire earthly domain, domestic and wild animals, birds in the sky, fish in the sea, and everything that swims in the ocean.

God has two abodes. The first is His heavenly realm in which His divine council dwells and assist with the governance. The second is His earthly realm, in which we, as humans, were created to govern. The concept is illuminated further for those who have been chosen by God through our acceptance of Him in 1 Peter 2:9, But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

These passages for today certainly provides us with much to meditate on this week. Invest time pondering their meaning.

That is a wrap for today’s Meditation, next week; we will continue our trek on Meditation Monday as we take time to reflect on what is most important in creating our living legacy. On tomorrow’s trek, we will explore another wisdom quote. This 3-minute wisdom supplement will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise each day. Thank you for joining me on this trek called life. Encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’  If you would like to listen to any of the past 1378 daily treks or read the daily journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you tomorrow!

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 1378 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Essential or Non-Essential – Ask Gramps

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1378 of our Trek and time for our Philosophy Friday series. Each Friday, we will ponder some of the fundamental truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy. As we continue on this trek called life, sometimes we have questions about life, so our Friday trek is a time where we can ‘Ask Gramps.’  Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason, this is not possible. No matter how old we are, I know that all of us would like the opportunity to ask dad or gramps questions about life in many areas.

We may mix it up a bit on our Friday episodes, but will strive to keep them down to earth and enjoyable.  If you have any questions that you would like to ask Gramps, please email them to guthrie@wisdom-trek.com

So the question for this week is:

“Hey, Gramps, “I just don’t feel like I’ve done anything significant for God. I’ve tried to live a good life, but I just don’t see how it matters. I don’t feel like I have really contributed or made much of a difference. How can I be sure that what I am doing is having an impact on God’s kingdom here on earth?

Essential or Non-Essential

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard these words or words like them. What rips my heart out is that they are often spoken by people who are precious to me and others in God’s family. They do things that are sweet, sacrificial, serving, and tender to people when they need it most. Yet because their acts of service are done quietly or don’t seem to be a big deal to them, they think they don’t matter that much to God.

One of the many positive results from the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic is that most of us will never again view our workforce in the same manner. In a matter of fewer than two months, it is so evident that many of the essential contributors to our society were the unforgotten ones. Those individuals who have had little or no formal education and training. The truck drivers, the grocery store clerks, the gas station attendants, the janitors in hospitals, and those who were able to prepare meals at our favorite carryout restaurants. These are the essential workers of today, and let’s hope we continue to see them as such for many years. Yes, many others are considered professionals in the medical field that have sacrificed even their lives to save the lives of others. They will never be considered in the same light but as the heroes that they are.

Some of the most critical people in any story go unnoticed and under-appreciated. Yet these people are vital to the story unfolding in the way it does. Without them, the most important things would never happen. This is true whether the story is a movie or a novel or our own personal story. I believe that for many of you who have been on the front line during this pandemic should re-evaluate your impact on God’s kingdom, for it is excellent. This is quite often true of God’s story in the Bible.One of the most amazing stories in Scripture is the conversion of Saul. Saul is the fiercest, most passionate persecutor of the early followers of Jesus as described in the book of Acts. Of all the initial problems Jesus’ followers had to overcome, Saul was one of the dangerous and troubling ones. Yet in one event, Jesus turns Saul from his most significant problem into his most excellent spokesman! While it took fourteen years for all the details to get sorted entirely out (Galatians 2:1), the threat of Saul’s violent persecutions were immediately solved, and he was on his way to being the most influential follower of Jesus ever to live!

However, I’m guessing you can’t remember the name of one of the most significant people in the story of Saul’s transformation. His name usually escapes most folks’ memories. See if you can remember it!

Saul of Tarsus, known later as the apostle Paul (Acts 13:9), was struck blind after an amazing encounter with Jesus on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus (Acts 9:3-9). Jesus tells him to go to the city and he will be told what to do to be saved, given a new life mission, and receive his sight again.Meanwhile, a well-known follower of Jesus from Damascus is told to find Saul and share the message of Jesus with him. His name is Ananias, and he is reluctant to go because he knows Saul’s mission in Damascus is to arrest and persecute people like Ananias and their families (Acts 9:15-16). Ananias is assured that Saul is repentant, and has been spending the last three days fasting from food and water, blindly praying for God’s messenger to come to share what he needed to do (Acts 22:10). So that is what Ananias does. He risks his life and safety to share Jesus, baptize Saul, and help Saul regain his sight (Acts 22:14-16).

So who is the unknown and essential player in this story? The man who opened his house for the blinded Saul to wait, pray and fast! The man who was greeted at the door by Jewish Temple soldiers and a blind Jewish man looking for a place to stay in Damascus, Syria! The man who welcomed Ananias, a Christian who was targeted for persecution, into his home to speak with Saul and then lead him to Christ. Without this man’s hospitality, none of this would have happened in the beautiful way that it occurred.

And the man’s name? Do you remember? His name is Judas. Yeah, it is not a name we remember with fondness because of the other Judas. Only a few people to whom I’ve posed this question remembered his name. Luke describes it this way in Acts 9:10-11:

 Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord!” he replied. The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now.

Here is the point I want us to get. You may feel your life doesn’t make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of things. You may not think you are doing anything significant for God. You compare yourself to the great Bible heroes like Moses and Esther, Mary and Peter, Joshua, and Deborah. In today’s world, you may compare yourself to business leaders, sports stars, or actors.

One of the reasons we do this is because we forget how important other people are to the life of someone who is a leader or famous. Without all the truly essential workers in their lives, they become much less essential themselves. For example, where would the apostle Paul have been if Judas hadn’t welcomed him into his home and then received Ananias into his house to lead him to Jesus? There are many others in Paul’s life that had a dramatic influence on him and enabled him to do the great things he accomplished for the Lord. Without these essential workers, not only would Paul’s life have been greatly diminished, but Paul’s work for God would have come up far short of what God had intended for him.

So rather than discount your work for the Lord, remember that anything we do, when it’s offered to the Lord and done for his glory, will be used to grow God’s Kingdom and bless God’s people. That’s why the smallest things, even a cup of cold water given in the Lord’s name, is not forgotten and not wasted! Most important of all, even if no one remembers what you did and can’t even remember your name, there is One who remembers and will not forget!

That is a wrap for today’s question. Join us again next Friday for another question on our ‘Ask Gramps’ episode. Our next trek is Mediation Monday, where we will help you reflect on what is most important in life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Monday for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of the past 1377 daily treks or read the associated journals, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you on Monday!

Welcome to Day 1376 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Mastering the Bible – Old Testament Jesus and His Parables – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before.

Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase wisdom and create a living legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1376 of our trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word.

Our focus for the next several months on Worldview Wednesday is Mastering the Bible, through a series of brief insights. These insights are extracted from a book of the same title from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars, Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. This book is a collection of insights designed to help you understand the Bible better. When we let the Bible be what it is, we can understand it as the original readers did and as its writers intended. Each week we will explore two insights.

Mastering The Bible – Old Testament Jesus and His Parables

Insight Fifty-Nine: Gospel Writers Connect Jesus to the Old Testament in Both Transparent and Roundabout Ways

Since the New Testament begins with the Gospels, and Jesus is the focus of those first four books, we tend to think of Jesus exclusively in New Testament terms. That’s too narrow a perspective. The coming of the Messiah, the Son of God, is rooted in the Old Testament, not only in terms of prophecy but also imagery.

We’ve already talked about the most obvious way the Gospel writers associate Jesus with the Old Testament: calling him the Anointed One (“Christ”). Other transparent correlations extend from that messianic title. The Gospel writers quote specific prophecies about the birthplace of the Messiah (Matthew 2:6: John 7:42; cf. Micah 5:2) and the lineage of the Messiah (Matthew 1:1; cf. 2 Samuel 7:12-16; Psalm 132:11; Isaiah. 11:1).

Less obvious, but still familiar, connections are made between Jesus and the Old Testament in other ways. When John calls Jesus the “Word,” that label is not original to him. The God of Israel appeared to people in the Old Testament as the “Word” (John 1:1, 14: cf. Genesis 15:1-6: Jeremiah 1:1-9). And the title “Son of Man” had royal messianic meaning (Matthew 26:64; Daniel 7:13—14).

But the Gospel writers tether Jesus to the Old Testament in cleverer, less overt ways. For example, Matthew wants readers to identify Jesus with the nation of Israel. He accomplishes that in his story of Jesus’s childhood. After Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod, Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt,” to

recount how they returned to the Promised Land. But God’s son in Hosea 11:1 wasn’t the Messiah; it was the nation of Israel. Matthew used the analogy for several reasons, but one of them was that Jesus had appeared on the scene supernaturally, just like Israel appeared as the result of divine intervention with Abraham and Sarah. Israel would later pass through the sea and then journey into the desert where the nation would be tried and tempted (Exodus 14-15; Numbers 14:26 ff.). After Jesus was baptized, he was driven into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan (Mark 1:9-13).

Jesus is also cast as a new Moses by the Gospel writers. When Moses was born, Pharaoh had all the infant boys killed (Exodus 1:22-2:10), and Jesus was likewise threatened by Herod (Matthew 2:13-18). Moses went up on a mountain to receive the Law (Exodus 19:3); Jesus ascended a mountain to give his own “law,” the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1).

Links back into the Old Testament are strewn throughout the Gospels. They also appear in other parts of the New Testament. Paying careful attention to how writers quote the Old Testament, where Jesus goes, and what he says at a given location will help you see them.

Insight Sixty: Parables Are Puzzling but Surprisingly Consistent

It’s no secret that parables present interpretive problems. A parable is simply a short story that has a double meaning. That is, there’s the obvious meaning of the story and then some other more abstract meaning conveyed by the story. The stories Jesus told were very simple, so you’d think both interpretations would be easily discerned. Not really.

Many writers, preachers, and Bible readers have approached the parables for centuries as though they are allegories. In an allegory, all the characters, events, and objects in a story have a specific meaning. But parables really aren’t like that. More recent scholarship on the parables rejects that approach since it’s artificial and contrary to what you actually read in the Gospels. When Jesus interprets parables for his disciples, he usually zeroes in on one or two teaching points. He doesn’t assign meaning to everything or everyone in the parables.

Jesus actually told the disciples why he taught in parables—and therefore tells us. He draws out the reason by quoting Isaiah 6:9-10 in Mark 4:11-12.

He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secret of the Kingdom of God. But I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled:

‘When they see what I do,

they will learn nothing.

When they hear what I say,

they will not understand.

Otherwise, they will turn to me

and be forgiven.’”

What Jesus said isn’t hard to parse. Parables are meant to obscure and reveal the kingdom of God—which is not so much a place as it is the status of being part of God’s family and a follower of his good rule. Jesus taught in parables to convey who he was and what God was up to by sending him. Believers would understand. The spiritually blind and hard of heart would not.

As a result, when reading and interpreting parables, our eye needs to be trained to what they tell us about these things—how they reveal the kingdom of God and its King. The elements of the stories that do that are the important ones. Characters and components on the periphery shouldn’t be assumed to have meanings or to serve as elaborations on the central idea that we need to figure out. If we stray from what Jesus tells us to see in parables, our unchecked imaginations will have too much influence over our thinking.

That will conclude this week’s lesson on another two insights from Dr. Heiser’s book Mastering the Bible. Next Worldview Wednesday, we will continue with two additional insights. I believe you will find each Worldview Wednesday an interesting topic to consider as we build our Biblical Worldview.

Tomorrow we will continue with our 3-minute humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer and help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy

If you would like to listen to any of our past 1375 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Everyday! See you tomorrow!