Had a discussion recently that did not go well... ever had one of those!? where in trying to get your point across, you just come across as arrogant! The message bible puts it like this ...knowing isn't everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls who treat others as know-nothings. Real knowledge isn't that insensitive...

When knowledge is gained through an exercise of our minds or intellect, it has this tendency to puff us up - because we now know something that others don't... but do we understand how to use what we know!?

When knowledge is gained through personal experience, (and as long as we don't forget that experience) and that experience has an effect on us, we are in a better position to understand how to use what we know... but knowledge isn't everything!

Real knowledge (I think) is knowledge gained through personal experience and combined with love so that we can use what we know to build up or strengthen others not treat others as know-nothings...
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The Big Story 06/20/2010
 

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Lepers... 09/01/2009
 
Woke up one morning last week, thinking about lepers in the old testament... people who due to dis-ease were excluded from relationship and from community and how that exclusion was reinforced throughout society - tearing their clothes, not using hair products and calling out 'unclean, unclean' wherever they went...

And got to thinking about how sometimes we act like lepers... excluding ourselves from relationship and community because of how we see ourselves and/or how we think other people see us... So we don't give people the opportunity to get up close and personal because we think they will reject us, or judge us or think less of us because we haven't got it all together... Has anyone got it all together or only on Sundays!?

Jesus Christ set an example of compassion and willingness to reach out, touch, interact and heal those excluded from relationship and from community. But I notice, Jesus only healed the lepers that came to him...

So, a couple of thoughts to finish... are you excluding yourself from relationships because of your own dis-ease - find someone to talk too... if you aren't excluding yourself from relationships, follow Jesus' example and show compassion and willingness to interact with those who are.
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Mountain View Church