Your Choice

Proverbs 22:1 A [good] name [is] rather to be chosen than great riches, [and] loving favour rather than silver and gold.

Chosen- select; Here we have, it's your choice; what would you rather have if you could have just one; good name or great riches. Did you notice what was said? Good- a favorable character Or Great- notable large in size; Loving favor- a friendly regard shown toward another especially by a superior; Rather than silver and gold. Would you choose a favorable character and a friendly regard shown toward you by your superiors over GREAT riches of silver and gold? What a choice. At first glance, and with little though one might say great riches and silver and gold. But if we were to give it some real though, we might not make that choice. We could all use some cash but what are we willing to give in exchange for that cash?

Mar 8:37  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? You say “I’m not wanting to sell my soul; I just would like to have enough cash to be comfortable.” How much do you think you would have to be to be comfortable? For some, they can never get or have enough. Why are they trying to accumulate so much? They can’t take it with them. The best they could do is leave it behind for their family members to fight over. Money will consume our minds to the point of that’s all we are thinking about. If I move this stock will it make me more, who is trying to get my money and if you get to comfortable you might have to just leave and go find another place to live. Will people be your friends because of you or because of what you have? That’s not the case with a good name and loving favor. It’s not, here comes that rich tight wad; he more than likely robbed the poor and the old to have what he has; you don’t just get that kind of money being honest. It could be, look there’s your name here you’ll not find a better, more honest person than them. Why your name here has your sacrifice here  and on and on I could go but I think you should get to know them it’s just good being in their presents. We can have a good name or we can have great riches; the question is what do we have our sight set on? What’s more important to us at this time? How do others view us?

Heard

Has anyone ever said to you; “Did you hear what I said?” Have you ever been talking to someone and wonder if they heard what you were saying? We want others to hear us if we are talking to them, don’t we? Sure we do or we wouldn’t waste our time talking to them. We don’t mind voicing our opinion, telling of something that displeases us in other words we don’t mind complaining. When you and I pray we want the Lord to hear our prayers, don’t we? Sure we do!

Psalms 34:17  The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. You know what? Although we want God to hear our prayers and we want God to see our good deed; have we ever stopped to think that God may hear our complaining and see our evil works? Probably not! I’m afraid that God hears more than we want Him too.

Exodus 2:24  And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Exodus 6:5  And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant.

Oh no I don’t think they wanted God to hear all that; do you? Like you and I we want God to hear our prayers when we pray but we sure don’t want Him to hear our complaining, backstabbing, gossiping, running others down; you know the things we do that we really don’t want God to hear. You know what? He does! Now that will give us something to think about this week when we start to speak.  

Proverbs 15:3  The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. 

Not Proud

 Humble- not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive. We see this word “humble” recorded 24 times in the Bible. The very first time we read the word humble is in the book of Exodus and this is what we read;

Exodus 10:3  And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.

Moses is standing before the leader of Egypt as he asks him this question “how long will you refuse to humble yourself before the Lord? It’s a how long question. My youngest son would ask me over and over how long Dad before we get to; I would have to just make up a time and that seemed to work for a little while. But in this question we find a King refusing to humble himself before God the great high King. Then I went to the last verse that had this word humble recorded and we find it in the New Testament in the book of 1Peter;

1Peter 5:6  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Be ye humbled before God, and in his sight; quietly submit to his will; patiently bear every affliction without murmuring or complaining. He that is low in his pride and he that is down doesn’t need to fear of falling. Here, in this last verse we see that you and I should do what Moses was asking Pharaoh to do. It may not be a how long question but when will you! Not humbling ourselves could be a self problem; we like to say “I told you so, I knew that was going to happen, you should have asked me, yea, I was there I saw it all happen.” We get the pats on the back the good and kind words said about us and to us but in the process we really lose because we didn’t humble ourselves.

James 4:10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.   We need to come to the place in our life where we are giving praise to the Lord for all He has and is doing; don’t become proud but humble ourselves before the Lord; and He will lift you up. Now I don’t have to be the big I, I don’t have to let self be Mr. Big I just need to be humble before the Lord and He will lift me up if needs be. Have a blessed weekend and pray for your Pastor that God will speak to you through him.  

Arm Yourselves

By May 14, 1940 the news from the front was uniformly bad. The Germans had broken through the French defenses at Sedan, and everywhere the French forces were reeling under a devastating barrage from land and air. "At almost all points where the armies had come in contact," Churchill later wrote, "the weight and fury of the German attack was overwhelming." Holland fell on May 15, and Churchill flew to Paris on the same day to confer with the French leaders. It was evident that the military situation was near to catastrophic, and that the military commanders and political leaders were resigned to overwhelming defeat. Our task is not only to win the battle - but to win the war. After this battle in France abates its force, there will come the battle for our Island -- for all that Britain is, and all the Britain means. “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.”—Winston Churchill

That was 72 years ago that Winston Churchill spoke those words but I wonder are there any Christian soldiers reading this blog today? As Christians our task is not only to win the battle but to also win the war. Peter wrote this;

1Peter 4:1  Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

We are told to arm ourselves with the same mind. Paul put it like this;

Philippians 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Isaiah said it like this;

Isaiah 26:3  Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

In order for you and I to be armed we must understand it’s not with artillery of the flesh but artillery of and with the mind. When you and I asked ourselves what would Jesus do or how would Jesus handle this, or what would Jesus say. When we began to use our mind in that fashion we are arming ourselves with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because of that we are overcoming the sin that so easily distracts us and we do that by learning to look unto Jesus. Fight the battle today my friend, remembering Jesus who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Today we fight the battles of this life we may not win every battle but just remember the war is already won and we are on the winning side my friend.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Exam

When in school and the classes were coming to an end the students have what is called final exams; they always gave a larger percentage to the final grade. It was important that you pass that final exam. On this test you didn’t want to just get by, you wanted to make a high grade. In

2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5 we read these words

2Corinthains 13:5  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Here we are asked not to take an exam but instead to examine ourselves for the sole purpose of knowing if we are in the faith. Then we are asked not only to examine but also to prove ourselves. In other words test yourselves make sure you are not failing the test. An exam has question on it that we are supposed to know the answers to. On a history exam one of the questions might be, on what date was the attacking of Pearl Harbor?  If you fail to write December 7, 1941 then whatever answer you wrote down would be wrong. Here, we are asked to examine ourselves; in other words why do you think that when you die you are going to heaven? If you said because I have been fairly good, or I have good feelings about it or a host of other answers that’s not going to be the right answer. The reason being is the next question the proof; proof is something that will give without doubt the reason.  Jesus said this in Matthew; 

Matthew 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Examine, has there ever been a time in your life that you came unto Jesus?

Matthew 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Are you learning about the Lord Jesus?

2Corinthains 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Has there ever been a real change in your life where you just didn’t want to do the things that you had always loved doing anymore and your life was completely changed.  Let me give you an example; In the book of Exodus chapter 12 we read where the Lord speaks unto Moses and Aaron telling them to tell the congregation of Israel that every man was to take a lamb. They are to keep it up until the 14^th day and then they are to kill it in the evening. Then they are to take the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the house. For the Lord said that He will pass through the land of Egypt and He will kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt where there is no blood on the doorpost. On that night it didn’t matter if anyone inside the house was a good person; it didn’t matter how they felt. You see the Lord was only looking for one thing; the blood on the doorpost? No blood and the firstborn died; if the blood was on the door post then the firstborn lived; God’s people were to do what God’s word told them to do? The same is true today, have we done what we were told to do in God’s word? Or are we basing our salvation on how we feel, or our thinking in our good works? How much money we have given to our Church, our Church membership? That’s why we must examine and prove ourselves because when the death angel comes it will be too late. If it doesn’t line up in God’s Word then it’s not going to be any proof. The proof will be in the way we live our lives.

Save Yourselves

Acts 2:40  And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Philippians 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Two interesting verses; can we save ourselves and can we really work out our own salvation? Let me give you an illustration. A man who cannot swim falls into a pool of water and he finds himself in imminent danger of drowning. He does not drown, he is saved. Why? Because a friend threw him a life preserver; did his friend save him? Yes, but he also saved himself by taking hold of the life preserver. The life preserver came into the water to save sinkers. Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.

1Timothy 1:15  This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

1Timothy 6:12  Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

The man who falls into the pool of water that cannot swim is every one of us that has been born into this world of sin and we are drowning. Someone who we may or may not know tell us about the Lord Jesus and what He has done for each of us. That is like the man throwing the other man the life preserver. Now the question is do we take hold of the life preserver and live or do we drown?  Now, if we reach out and take hold of what has been given to us we have eternal life and if we don’t then we have eternal death. What are you holding on to? Good works? Not good enough. I hope you have laid hold of eternal life and that can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord richly bless as you start into this week and throw someone a life line.

Violent Anger

 In Proverbs 27:4  Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?  there a few words “wrath, cruel, anger, outrageous and envy. I took the time to look up a few of their meanings and then asked myself do I ever let these things happen to me? I learned when I am angry and I allow it to get violent it causes pain to others and those others are usually the ones that I love the most.

#1- Wrath=[Violent anger]

#2-  Cruel [to give pain to others] 

#3- Anger [ A violent passion of the mind excited by a real or supposed injury]  

#4- Outrageous; [Violent; furious; exorbitant; exceeding all bounds of moderation] 

#5- Envy? [ To feel uneasiness, mortification or discontent, at the sight of superior excellence, reputation or happiness enjoyed by another]

Violent anger gives pain to others when we give in to the violent passions of our mind, it will become furious beyond moderation. This may be because we have given way to our feelings of uneasiness or discontentment. We see others being happy and we are not or their reputation and at the sight of them we just become violently angry. We want to cause them pain by words or other methods because we have let our minds become furious. Let me ask do we have a violent anger problem?  How are we going to correct it?  Here are some Biblical points that works for me. Remember “the truth makes free” so what is truth?  Answer 

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.  So the truth is Jesus  and Jesus said 

John 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed [ that is past tense ] on him, If ye continue [to be permanent] in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

John 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.   Here it is, no Jesus know truth and Jesus makes FREE! So on this issue of knowing our heart we need to do as King David did of long ago

Psalms 139:23   Search me,[ not some one else but me ] O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: Are we willing to let God search our heart?

Psalms 139:1  O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Psa 139:2  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Psalms 139:3  Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.  I would say that the Lord knew David very well. Guess what! The Lord also knows you very well He knows about your violent anger and wants to help you correct it and set you free. But working the back ground is the thief of John 10 who want and will steal your desire and happiness and will destroy all he can in our life. But we are told 

1John 4:4  Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, [Jesus] than he that is in the world.[The thief is satan, devil] If you are dealing with an anger issue you may be letting the wrong one run your mind. We must do as we are instructed

Philippians 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: So whose mind do you have? What did God share with you this week?