How I acquired great wisdom

Posted on June 3, 2014 by ronelfran

I don’t consider myself to be a particularly wise person, but I have great wisdom.

If that statement seems self-contradictory, it’s really not. You see, I know that I’m not innately wise. But I have access to a treasure trove of wisdom that is far beyond the “common sense” with which most people try to cope with life.

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Proverbs 2:6 (NKJV) For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

The only level of wisdom I will claim for myself is that I am wise enough to know that without the wisdom that comes only from God, I’m not wise at all!

In fact, to neglect the wisdom that springs from the mouth of God through Scripture, and to try to find my own way through life based on my own good common sense, is to be not wise but extremely foolish.

Proverbs 14:12   There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

So, whatever issues I may face in life, the wise thing to do is to open the pages of God’s word, find out what He has to say about the subject, and then act on it. That’s real wisdom!

Ron Franklin

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God doesn’t feel sorry for us!

Posted on May 15, 2014 by ronelfran

Recently, I happened on a web site that featured a large button that said “Download this … Perfectly Safe!” It then started to automatically download something. But my browser was smart enough to stop it and ask me if I really wanted to allow that download to continue. Of course I said “no.”

But what if I had been feeling adventurous that day, and decided to allow the download just to see what it was. And suppose the result had been a virus that wiped out my hard drive, or malicious code that stole my identity. Would you feel sorry for me? I don’t think so! There was plenty of information available to me to warn against doing anything so stupid. If I decided to ignore that available wisdom and do it anyway, nobody would weep for me when I reaped the inevitable results of my stupidity.

I bring up that scenario because it highlights the way I read the following passage:

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Proverbs 1:22-23  How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, And fools hate knowledge. 23  Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.

What those verses say to me is … if I ignore the wisdom God makes available to me in life, neither He nor anybody else is going to feel sorry for me when I pay the price for my foolishness and rebellion!

God has made His wisdom for handling the issues of life available through His word. If I choose to neglect, reject, or simply overlook that divine wisdom, I needn’t expect sympathy from God.

That’s not to say that God doesn’t give grace when we mess up. He certainly has rescued me many times from my own foolishness. But it is to say God has no problem letting “scorners” reap the consequences of their refusal to heed His wisdom.

Hebrews 12:6   For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.

Father God is not the kind of parent who pats a deliberately rebellious child on the head and coos “poor baby” when disaster results from our rejection of His wisdom. He will chasten us.

And He won’t feel sorry about it.

Ron Franklin

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Moving on from offense

Posted on April 21, 2014 by ronelfran

Have you ever gotten so angry at someone who mistreated you that if you had the power, there’d be nothing left of them but a black smudge on the ground?

Honestly, I’ve been there; and so, probably, have you. I’m just glad that when I was feeling those raw emotions, I didn’t have the power to do anything drastic about it.

But when a pair of Jesus’s disciples felt that He (and they) had been disrespected and mistreated by the residents of a Samaritan village, they did think they had the power to do something drastic about it, and wanted to:

BibleLuke 9:52-56 (NKJV) . . . they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. 53 But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. 54 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” 55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.

What an example Jesus gives us here! Instead of receiving the Samaritans’ disrespect as an offense to Himself and reacting to it, Jesus let it roll right off His back, and just went on to the next town.

In other words, disrespect was aimed at Him, but because He refused to receive it and take it unto Himself, it couldn’t affect Him. James and John were infected with the spirit of retaliation. Jesus was animated by a spirit of love, even for those who showed anything but love to Him.

It’s very easy for me to be offended when someone shows me disrespect. But actually, it’s my choice how I react. In the moment when deliberate offense is aimed at me, I can choose to be like James and John, and look for a way to rain down fire on the culprits’ heads. Or I can choose to respond as Jesus did, recognizing that when someone deliberately communicates disrespect to me, it’s they who have the problem, not me.

Instead of trying to retaliate, I can cover their offense with God’s love, and move on.

Ron Franklin

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Setting my face like a flint on the job

Posted on March 31, 2014 by ronelfran

At the time I decided to go to seminary, I was working as an engineering manager at a high tech company. I asked for and received a leave of absence to pursue my studies, with the understanding that when I graduated, my job would be waiting for me.

As I approached graduation, the company and I agreed on the date of my return to work. But when I walked in the door that day, it quickly became apparent they had no idea what to do with me.

My expectation, which I soon realized was unrealistic, was that I would step back into my old job, or one very like it. The company, on the other hand, had moved on, and seemed to have made no provision for my return. Now, they were scrambling to find a place for me.

The result was that I found myself relegated to a job I hated!

Doing that job, I quickly began to feel overlooked and unappreciated, and I dreaded going to work every day. It was very difficult for me to keep a positive attitude.

But what really helped me to be an overcomer in that most difficult time of my career was Isaiah’s picture of Jesus as He turned toward Jerusalem and the cross:

BibleIsaiah 50:7 (NKJV)  For the Lord GOD will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.

“I have set my face like a flint.” That’s the example Jesus set as He faced the most difficult circumstance anyone has ever had to endure. And that’s what I felt I needed to do to make it through my own difficult times that threatened to keep me mired in hopelessness and depression.

I can’t tell you how many times a day I repeated that verse to myself! I prayed it, I confessed it, I stood on it.

I came to believe, on the basis of Romans 8:28-29, that I wasn’t where I was by accident. God not only knew about my situation, but had brought me to that place for a purpose. So, instead of allowing myself to be beat down by a circumstance I hated but couldn’t control, I “set my face like a flint” to glorify God through that job for as long as He kept me there.

After a year doing that uncongenial work, God opened up an entirely unexpected opportunity with another company that moved me clear across the country and turned my life in a totally new direction. I literally wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for that difficult time in my life.

And I will always believe that it was the inspiration of Isaiah’s picture of the Lord setting His face like a flint that that brought me through.

Ron Franklin

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Setting my face like a flint!

Posted on March 20, 2014 by ronelfran

I remember a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is determined to finally go and speak to the little red haired girl who is his idol. This time he’s going to do it, and nothing will stop him!

Then it starts to rain.

Well, you know what happened. Charlie Brown isn’t called wishy-washy for nothing.

We all have some Charlie Brown in us. I know I do. For me, it’s far too easy to get distracted or lose focus, or be deterred by challenging circumstances, and end up not following through on commitments I’ve made.

I think that’s why the Bible’s picture of Jesus setting His face to go to the cross is so meaningful to me (see The Resolute Love of Jesus).

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Isaiah 50:5-7 (NKJV) The Lord GOD has opened My ear; And I was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away. 6  I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. 7  “For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.

Jesus set His face like a flint. That vivid image helps me to understand what commitment really is. It means that once I know what God is calling me to do, there’s no discussion, no argument, no questioning … no ifs, ands, or buts.

No obstacle or difficulty will make me change my mind. If it’s too hot or too cold, that won’t stop me. If I’m tired, I’ll try to get some rest, but being tired won’t keep me from doing what I’m called to do. If people talk about me and ridicule me, it may hurt, but it won’t make me turn around.

If I am going to accomplish anything of value in life, and especially if I’m going to fulfill my God-given calling, I’m going to have to set my face like a flint, just as Jesus did.

That’s what it takes to have victory over the obstacles that inevitably confront me in life. That’s what it takes to be an overcomer.

Ron Franklin

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The Resolute Love of Jesus

Posted on March 17, 2014 by ronelfran

Jesus, when He walked the earth, was both fully God and fully man. I think we sometimes forget how fully man He was. When He was about to go to the cross, the human Jesus felt all the trepidation any of us would feel at the prospect of suffering and death that awaited Him.

I really like Luke’s description of how Jesus began His final journey toward the cross:

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Luke 9:51 (NKJV) Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,

Jesus “steadfastly set His face” to go to Jerusalem.

You could read this, on one level, as simply saying He purposed to go to Jerusalem. But I think it goes much deeper than that. I think about the imagery of “He set His face.” That’s very vivid. It’s like Jesus, knowing He was headed directly toward the greatest challenge anyone could face, put His game face on.

But even that picture was not quite enough for Luke. He wants to make sure we really understand that going to Jerusalem and the cross was neither easy nor automatic for the human Jesus. It’s something He had to deliberately determine to do, knowing what the cost would be.

So, Luke adds that not only did Jesus set His face, He did so “steadfastly.” That word in the Greek means to be fixed, strong, firm, unmovable.

That’s how Jesus faced the challenge of the cross. He did not flinch, and He did not waver. He went resolutely forward to accomplish the work He came to earth to do. And He did it for you and for me.

When I remember how human Jesus was when He set His face to go to the cross, it makes me even more deeply appreciative of the love God has for me:

Romans 5:8    But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That’s love!

Ron Franklin

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Pride Can Be Sneaky!

Posted on March 13, 2014 by ronelfran

One summer, years ago now, a friend and I backpacked through Europe. We got Eurail Passes and traveled by train to most of the countries on the continent. Naturally, everywhere we went, sooner or later someone would ask us what kind of work we did.

I had taken a leave of absence from IBM to attend seminary. So, when people asked about my work, I would tell them that I was an electrical engineer working for IBM. After seeing me respond this way several times, my friend told me something about myself that pretty much astounded me. She said that whenever I told people I worked for IBM, I took on an air of pridefulness.

That was hard for me to believe. At that time I considered IBM to be perhaps the most elite company in the high-tech world. Apparently what my friend detected was an unconscious conviction that working for such a company made me elite as well! Yet, I was entirely unaware of having that kind of pride, and certainly had no idea that I was communicating it to other people.

As I think back on that episode, I see it as an example of how subtle our pride can be. To C. S. Lewis it is the vice we most easily overlook in ourselves. He put it this way in Mere Christianity:

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else… There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.

That’s why the Bible warns over and over that our hidden pride is extremely dangerous.

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James 4:6b (NKJV) … God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

James 4:10 (NKJV) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

The Scripture tells us that if we want God to lift us up, we must first humble ourselves in His sight. We can’t humble ourselves in God’s sight without humbling ourselves in the sight of others. Since it’s so easy to overlook my own pridefulness, being truly humble before the Lord requires that I specifically watch out for it in the way I relate to others. Again, C. S. Lewis provides great insight about detecting my own pride:

Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.

If I am to avoid hidden pride in my life, the first step is to prayerfully ask God to reveal it to me whenever that insidious vice begins to take root. Then I need to examine my own thoughts and motives. When I find myself taking pleasure from seeing myself as ahead of or over other people, that may indicate that pridefulness is once again rearing its very ugly head in my life.

Ron Franklin

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Only what’s done for Christ will last!

Posted on March 8, 2014 by ronelfran

As a youngster attending Bible Camp, I learned a little couplet that has stayed with me all these years:

“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Although not expressed in biblical language, it seems to me that this little saying embodies a very important biblical idea. Here’s how the Bible expresses it:

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Matthew 6:19-20 (NKJV) “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

I am a student of the Civil War. I love reading about the people who lived through that conflict, and especially what they say about themselves in letters and diaries. I like getting to know them as people.

But one thing I’m always aware of when I project my imagination back into Civil War times: not one of the people who were alive during that war is alive today. And everything they strove to get for themselves in this world, no matter how much of their time, energy, strength, and affection they put into acquiring those things, is gone.

If they worked to amass a fortune in money, it’s gone. If they wanted power and respect from other people, that’s gone. Whatever individuals who lived in that era invested their lives into getting for themselves, or even for their families, has flown away with the years. The only riches that still belong to them are those registered in heaven.

I’m so glad I learned that little couplet early in my life. It’s one so many people who are putting everything into trying to make it to the top of some mountain of prosperity or prestige desperately need to take heed of in their lives today.

“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Ron Franklin

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My past has passed away!

Posted on March 3, 2014 by ronelfran

Do you have a past? I certainly do.

If you are anything like me, there are some things you’ve done in your past that you are not proud of. Many of us are weighed down in life right now by baggage we’ve accumulated by some unsavory past activities or behavior that we wish could just disappear from our resumes.

Well, if you feel that way about your past, the Bible has some very good news for you:

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Romans 8:1 (NKJV) There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

I’ve spoken to people who think that they are hopelessly condemned by their past behavior, and God is punishing them now for sins they committed years or even decades ago. That’s not true! Or, at least, it need not be true.

God does not want us to be condemned because of our past sins! In fact, the Bible teaches when we become followers of Christ, we leave all that old baggage behind.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

I like the way Corrie ten Boom put it:

“When I confessed (my sins) to the Father, Jesus Christ washed them in His blood. They are now cast into the deepest sea and a sign is put up that says, NO FISHING ALLOWED.”

That’s good news!

Ron Franklin

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Good news for a bad woman!

Posted on February 20, 2014 by ronelfran

When Jesus broke all Jewish convention by traveling through Samaria to go from Judea to Galilee (see The Gospel smashes through prejudice!), He did so in order to meet a woman.

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John 4:6-7 (NKJV) Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7  A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

The woman Jesus was to meet was, in every sense of the word, a bad woman.

She was not a criminal, not a robber or drug dealer or murderer. But she was a woman who was living a completely messed up lifestyle. She had had a lot of men in her life, trying to make herself happy. But she wasn’t happy.

We can tell she wasn’t happy because she had been married five times, and none of those marriages had lasted. You don’t have to go through five marriages if you are happy! So, this woman was a five-time loser.

She had been so damaged by the kind of life she had led, so damaged in her personality, in her outlook on life, in the kind of person she had become … so damaged by the choices she made in life, that she couldn’t keep a marriage together. And so, after five marriages, she wasn’t even trying anymore, and was living with a man she was not married to.

Because of her lifestyle, she was an outcast among the people of her village. That’s probably why she was at the well alone at midday – none of the other women, who came to the well in the cool of the morning or of the evening, wanted anything to do with her.

So, she came to the well. And there was a man sitting there, a Jew who had the unexpected audacity to ask her for a drink of water.

Woman at the Well

“Woman at the Well” by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890) in the Chapel at Frederiksborg Palace in Copenhagen

Thus began the divine appointment that would change this woman’s life forever. Jesus Christ, the very Best of the Best, had arranged to have some quality time alone with a woman whom everyone in her village would name the worst of the worst. She would hear the gospel that day, and she would never be the same again.

Romans 1:16    For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

The gospel is God’s power for salvation, no matter who you are. It’s just as powerful, and just as needed, whether everyone thinks you are the most outstanding person in the community, or that you are, like this woman, the worst of the worst. Or if you are, like me, somewhere in between.

If the gospel could revolutionize this bad woman’s life, it can revolutionize mine. And that truly is good news!

Ron Franklin

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