The Price of honesty

Looking at a document just now I found something which was said slightly objectionable, so I responded to the sender saying what I thought. I wondered about doing this because if you continually speak your mind you can become in other peoples eyes the kind of person who is simply opinionated for the sake of it. The term "Wally" in the possibly now defunct world of CB radio meant a person who habitually dived in on other people's conversations. We have all experienced the situation at the end of a long and laborious meeting when we have almost crossed the finishing line and someone, like Colombo, the TV detective from the '70s says : "just one more thing" and the meeting lurches on.

I never want to be that person, the irritating thorn in the side for everyone else, the outspoken know it all, however I have spent a lot of my life not speaking when I should have done and never want to do that again.

The Lord keep me from being a bore, but even more  from being a coward.

Running revelation

Out for a run this morning I was pondering on Ephesians chapter 1 verse 2
:  "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." 
i have often wondered how Paul could so confidently give a blessing from God, not from himself but God. It seems a rather presumptuous thing to do. On thinking about it, I realised that not only had Paul the right to say it but that I have the right to say it too. After all what is prayer but moving God's hand, what is faith but the knowledge that you have already received the answer? Jesus said in John 14. "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." 

Paul could have dressed up the sentence to make it apparent that it was a prayer but he cut right to the chase. Believing prayer receives at the same time as it prays, otherwise it is simply hoping into unseen blackness. 

I wouldn't in any way aspire to the faith of Paul, however I do possess the faith that God has given me. I can speak a blessing.

As I thought about this my mind went to the passage where Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5: 43-48)  "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven;" and I realised that Jesus was using the exaggerated way of speaking that he sometimes did to reinforce his point. It's hard to imagine forgiving an enemy who has, hurt a family member, or done horrible things in times of war, so a lot of us conclude that we don't measure up, however think about this: the disciples said "who is my neighbour?", could we not equally say "who is my enemy?". That being the case we discover that we have a multitude of enemies, those who thwart our plans, misunderstand us, hurt us, mess up our situation, in fact at certain times our nearest and dearest seem to be more enemies than friends. 

These are the ones we have the power to bless with God's blessing through the authority of faith, if we do this to our "friends" then we will gain the grace to do it to our enemies thus demonstrating that we are children of God.