Generosity, among other things

Key verses:

Isaiah 6:3 "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."

Luke 21:4 "All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

Hebrews
Let me begin with the Hebrews passage, although that is the last one I read.  I think what the author is saying here is that, in the past, God spoke to us through angels, and that message was important. BUT, he has now spoken to us through Jesus Christ and, since Christ is higher than the angels (as the author just argued in the previous chapter), we should listen to this greater message (hence, the great salvation in v. 3).

Luke
Note on Luke 21:6 - the destruction of the temple did come about in AD 70 when the Romans came and completely destroyed it.

Isaiah
Isaiah 8:12-13 showed me that there are always people around who want to distract you from the truth and get you to join their bandwagon.
For further investigation: who is Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14?  The footnote in my bible suggests that it was a young boy living in the 700s BC.  From our point of view, in the year of our Lord 2010, it's so easy to look through all of the Old Testament with the New Testament lens.  I would have assumed that Immanuel in Isaiah 7 was referring to Jesus, but I will look into this further.

Proverbs
Proverbs 19:20 - a reminder to keep an open mind.  Criticism or advice is sometimes hard to swallow, but it keeps us on the right track if we have the right attitude.
These proverbs have such good lessons for living life well!  For instance, here's another one: "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again."  Be prudent about what you do (think before you act).  How many times does a phrase like that get drilled into us, and yet how many hot-tempered people do you know (answer - perhaps too many?)?  We have to actually live out what we're reading!

Life Application
What's one practice that I can take on today or in the days to come that will help drill into me what I have learned from today's reading?  Greater generosity.