What Are We Looking For?

There was a big-time businessman who talked fast, thought fast, and made his choices fast. So, when it came time for him to hire an accountant, he didn’t want a long process. He had the top three candidates come to his office for a one-question interview. As each man came in, he simply asked them “What does two plus two equal?”. Well, the first man had previously worked for a science company so he was very exact in his answer “Two plus two equal 4.00000”. The second man whose earlier work was in banking answered, “Two plus two will double the sum to four “. Now the third fellow had worked for the government in the budget office, so when he was asked the same question, he turned his head looked to the left then to the right, and said” Well, how much do you want them to equal?

Some people are willing to make their answers whatever the one asking the questions wants to hear.

In 2^nd Timothy 4:3-4, we read, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths”. This is the template for many in the religious world today. Instead of delivering the truth, they make their words fit with the desire of the listener and not God's will.

Yet they only have a job, if that is what we accept! Demand truth. Even if it isn’t easy or palatable. Desire to know what is and not what we want it to be. Accept not what “tickles our ears” but what “cut to our hearts”

When we are asked what do we want, let the answer be the truth!

Comments

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so. Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English. Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome. Wouldn’t you feel good? You shouldn’t. As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590. You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with. Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...

Master Your Self

In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt. He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!) Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest. Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt! Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way. He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal. As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself. He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors. But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog