Dr. Ryan here. Today I want to talk to you about wisdom as longevity. Proverbs 9 verse
10 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the fear of the
Lord will help you to multiply your days. So what does that mean? Well it means
five things. The first thing is this word multiply. It means that we can be or
become great. So this doesn't have to do with the length of our life. It has to do
with the quality and the impact. So there's a correlation if you take God
seriously and you follow what he says, you apply it in your life, have a heart
of obedience and prayer, God says he'll help us to be more effective and he'll
help us to live a higher quality life. We can't control outcomes but we can
control how connected we feel to God and how connected we feel to other people.
That's the quality of life that we're aiming for, to be connected to God and
connected to others versus being disconnected from God and disconnected
from others because the Bible says that we're supposed to love the Lord your God
with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as
yourself. So we understand this is the goal and the purpose of life, the two
great commandments. Okay so we're gonna be or become great by allowing our
intention and our focus to be in the right direction, to love God and to love
people. Then we'll actually multiply our effectiveness. The way that our life is
multiplied is in the way that it impacts others and so you will impact others to
the degree that you're connected to God and connected to others. Old Testament
refers to this idea as sort of the anointing, that intangible quality of
God's hand being on your life of him working in you and through you in your
life every day because you're connected to him and you're connected to people
that he made in a pure beautiful way. And then the third thing is you'll do much
in respect and so what you'll see that is that although life is hard and it's
difficult and it's full of trials, you will day over day, week after week, month
after month, year after year, you will earn the respect of others. So the
quality of your work will be rooted in respect because people will look at the
quality of the life that you live and although they may disagree with it on some
level, there'll be a baseline of respect for who you are as person and the work
that you're trying to accomplish and the way in which you're going about the
work that you're trying to do. Okay and the fourth lead, you'll increase
greatly. Then your influence will expand and for the right reasons because
again you're connected to God and then you're connected to people. And then the
fifth thing is that you'll do much, you'll do much good. And so when we talk
about longevity, what we're really saying here is effectiveness. God will help us
to be more effective. How about you? But I certainly want to be as effective as I
possibly can be my relationship with God, in my relationship with people, in the
work that I'm trying to accomplish for Jesus. When you take all of these things
into consideration, wow I can become great, I can multiply my effectiveness, I
can work and win the respect of others and then that will increase the impact
of my life. Those are all tremendous promises that we should hold on to.
Thanks so much for joining me today. Until next time, I hope you have a
beautiful day.