Do you think of yourself as being smart? Are you pleased with your ability to study my word for yourself? Some people make it their life’s work to study the scriptures, and you can learn from them. Do you understand that in spiritual matters your heart and spirit can be smarter than your mind? Some things don’t lend themselves to academic study as much as they do to immersion in life experience. You have spiritual longings that you can’t explain. That doesn’t make them any less real. I didn’t intend for these things to be in opposition to each other. They are meant to be natural complements. Study with your understanding and don’t reject the longing of your heart. 

I warned that many would come in my name, but you should be wary of them and look for more than just claiming to represent me. Have you noticed through history how many have used my name to promote their own agenda or cause? But I am not so easily owned. How many people do you meet, even those who follow me, who have strongly held affiliations that define their identity? These can be political or theological ideology and many others. But if I am difficult to classify and enlist, perhaps the same quality should be evident in those who follow me. For their kingdom is my Kingdom, and it is not of this world. 

Have you ever heard of people referred to as full of themselves? This is a peculiar statement, because who else would they be full of? Yet you know what is meant and it is never intended as a compliment. Such people are too eager to fill up any silence with their words, to expound their own opinions, to defend themselves fiercely and attack others. What is the absence of these qualities? Resist not evil (against yourself). Lay down your life and pick up your cross. Be willing to decrease that others may increase. A broken spirit and a contrite heart. You find these qualities attractive in people and I do too.

Do you want to hear my voice? What do you expect it to sound like? What if it comes through the mouth of another person, perhaps someone you know or even a stranger? Have you ever had this happen to you, that someone’s words are illuminated to you, and you knew that they were full of divine insight and purpose for you? This can happen even if the other person is unaware of it. Sometimes my voice coming through another person is enhanced rather than diminished when they don’t say, ‘Thus saith the Lord’. Yet if their words resonate with you with divine life you should respond to them as if the heavens parted and they came from above.