Scripture: Proverbs 3 v 1 - 10: "My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:
2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."
When looking for a passage that sums up how our response to God and man should continually be. The Lord wants our attention to be on Him because our enemy causes many distractions which cause us to be disobedient.
Satan knows that disobedience ties God's hands to prevent Him from assisting us when we are struggling. He will do whatever it takes to spoil our relationship with our Father. Sin creates a barrier to answered prayer causing disappointment and frustration so turn away from wrong behaviour. Refuse to be enticed into errors of the flesh.
Obeying what the Lord commands of us leads to a peaceful and long life. All our activities to remain fit and youthful cannot ensure the Grace that our God gives us when we do what is right.
The Lord really emphasized mercy and truth this morning in Psalm 57 v 3: "He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth."
Truth is essential in our dealings with man and God. Fake everything has consumed the world and even many churches. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. In Revelation 21 no one that tells lies will be allowed into Heaven.
We need to be merciful in our dealings with people. Being judgmental and critical of other believers for any reason contradicts mercy. Our Lord is merciful to us, forgiving our sins but He deals harshly with those who are not forgiving 70 x 7 every day those who irritate, annoy, disappoint or disrupt their calm lives.
No one is perfect although that is the goal of all Christians. We are being conformed by the Holy Spirit to be like Jesus. We need to match Him tissue perfect because we are His actual Body. His Blood cleanses us and flows through our spirit to help us grow into His likeness.
When we are honest and merciful we will find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and people. We will stand out when looking for employment or facing a bank manager to control spiralling debts. The Lord will help the authority in charge to show compassion for our needs. He responds to how we treat others. If we are mean and nasty we will face a stone wall when we would rather have a soft landing.
Every Word of God is powerful and necessary for our lives to be fruitful. He never uses idle words or makes jokes. He never undermines His children with sarcastic innuendos or snide remarks. When Jesus confronted the hypocritical Pharisees He did not mince or sugar coat His angry diatribe against them. He used forceful words against those who would stone the woman caught in the act of adultery! Where was the man caught with her? Why was he not being stoned with her? Jesus showed those Pharisees up. Maybe what He wrote in the sand was the name of the man. Maybe he was one of them stoning her!
If nothing is going right in our lives its time to tick the boxes in these verses and see how to make changes that bring us back into God's favour. He is very clear in His Word what is right and what is wrong. The enemy and his laws run contrary to God's ways so we need to make sure which ones must be followed. We must love what God loves and hate what God hates. No exceptions. It might cost our lives but secure our eternity.
Be not wise in our own eyes. This should be written in block letters on the inside of our spectacles. There is Godly wisdom and the chaos that results when people try to change that wisdom into something easier to live by. It takes discipline, selflessness and lots of humility to walk in God's wisdom but there is no other way.
Colossians 2 v 6 - 8: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."
Don't compare God's Word to philosophers, sages, psychoanalysts, Buddha, Krishna or your Dad. There can be no blending of God's Word with the thoughts and sayings of men. We study the Bible to find the wisdom and truth God wants us to live by.
Love is discipline. If we do not discipline our children and teach them God's ways they will be unruly and difficult to manage as they get older. God says do not spare the rod and spoil the child. Since any form of rod type punishment has been outlawed at home and school, children have become more cheeky, defiant, rebellious and troublemakers than ever before.
There is no death penalty for serial killers, rapists, treachery or terrorism. There is nothing to deter them from committing serious offences. Mild punishments just goad them to be more outrageous. No shame, guilt or sorrow for destroying families with evil doings.
There is no fear of the Lord to depart from evil. We should all have a healthy fear of what the Lord can do if we anger Him. When He got angry enough a thousand years after Adam and Eve betrayed Him, He wiped out all but 8 righteous people in a global flood. To the unwise He is announcing seven years of tribulation so severe that there is nothing to compare it to.
He has made a way of escape to the righteous believers, the rest will discover a new meaning to Hell on Earth! The past events of a bad earthquake here and there years apart will become weekly earthquakes on every continent of severe intensity. Way past 10 on the Richter scale. The massive global assistance we see nowadays will no longer happen. They will be too busy in their own land.
Massive tsunamis on multiple random shorelines will be a common sight. Many volcanic eruptions some in places where there has never been a volcano, will have millions fleeing to a safety zone that's no longer there. All these sci fi movies on tv about global disasters, huge thunderbolts from asteroids, comets, the Sun striking Earth creating chaos and panic, are sweeteners for the real thing coming to a street near you soon.
If we do not have a healthy fear that the Lord can remove His protection from all that offends Him, perhaps rereading Genesis and Exodus slowly and with understanding may spark that fear into our cosy life. When we have it we quickly start to make the necessary adjustments to our angry outbursts, superior attitudes and rejection of those who don't quite fit our parameters of the real normal. It will create health and well-being from the Lord. It won't cost money.
Make sure that our tithing and giving conforms to the Lord's perfect will. His blessings will overflow into our lives in many different ways. Our barns will be full of plenty with enough to share with those who are hurting in these financially chaotic times.
Prayer: Heavenly Father You are sounding alarm bells today! We are thankful for Your words of wisdom to move us in the right direction. Help us to heed them above any other distracting words. Lord help us to be alert to tell people of the tribulations coming soon so that they have time to repent and be rescued. Thank You Father. In Jesus' name. Amen.