How about some prayer to start out?

Dear heavenly father. Thank you for your never-ending love for us and your guidance in our lives. We come to you today with open hearts to receive your wisdom and rule in our lives. Lord, teach us reverence and love and how to practically apply them in our lives. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

How is everyone doing today? Are we starting to feel more wise? The first time I read through a proverb each day, I was starting to get past the pain of feeling convicted. I was starting to enjoy finding out from God’s word about how to conduct my life.

You see, I grew up with the “God is out to get you” mentality; that he was waiting with a Holy “zapper” to punish us whenever we get out of line. The Lord does correct us (and rightly so) sometimes, but more often punishment is the result of breaking his natural laws that govern this universe.

What I did not know about God were all the promises contained in his word. I did not know that he would give us long years on the earth, storehouses full of “grain”, wisdom and joy. I really didn’t completely understand the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Sure, I knew the Webster’s definitions, but not the difference deep in my soul.

I hope you are seeing some fruit. If not, it’s still early in the planting season. If you are enjoying the series, please let me know. If not, let me know that too : )

Proverbs, Chapter 10 (ESV)

Pro 10:1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
Pro 10:2 Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.
Pro 10:3 The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
Pro 10:4 A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
Pro 10:5 He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
Pro 10:6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Pro 10:7 The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
Pro 10:8 The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
Pro 10:9 Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
Pro 10:10 Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
Pro 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Pro 10:12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.
Pro 10:13 On the lips of him who has understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.
Pro 10:14 The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.
Pro 10:15 A rich man’s wealth is his strong city; the poverty of the poor is their ruin.
Pro 10:16 The wage of the righteous leads to life, the gain of the wicked to sin.
Pro 10:17 Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.
Pro 10:18 The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.
Pro 10:19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
Pro 10:20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth.
Pro 10:21 The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.
Pro 10:22 The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.
Pro 10:23 Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.
Pro 10:24 What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.
Pro 10:25 When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever.
Pro 10:26 Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him.
Pro 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.
Pro 10:28 The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.
Pro 10:29 The way of the LORD is a stronghold to the blameless, but destruction to evildoers.
Pro 10:30 The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.
Pro 10:31 The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
Pro 10:32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.

Notes on Proverbs, Chapter 10

2) This has two meanings, as I have personally learned. The activities that lead us to ill-gotten gain will eventually be found out - if not that specific act, it will be another. The flesh cries out “more, more” and if we are following its leading we will eventually reap the penalty.

The second meaning is explained in the book of Galatians

Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

3) I faced this quandry recently when making an ethical decision. Unfortunately I chose incorrectly at first. Fortunately I had wise counsel to extricate me from it. Thanks to God for the grace extended, because I wouldn’t have given it a second thought a few years ago.

God will take care of us if we are cleaving to him, seeking to follow his will. This doesn’t mean that if we slip up he takes it all away. God is patient and faithful to forgive us if we repent of our sins.

4) God will give us plans for our future and we need to be about them on a daily basis. Sloth and being a workaholic are far apart, but the Lord tells us which way to lean.

Don’t like your job? No one does all the time. If you despise your job, pray for God’s leading for a new one. In the meantime, enjoy the one you currently have (no quitting). King Solomon, author of many of these proverbs spoke this so elequently in the book of Ecclesiastes

Ecc 2:24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,

6,7) More promises of God to reward the righteous.

How do you respond when a person corrects you? I have been a proud fool most of my life. Hopefully I’m better at it - I know, I’ll ask my wife. She just said, “Hmm, are you serious?” Guess I have a long way to go on that, and I’d better figure it out lest I reap the second half of this verse.

9) Do you have worries? Are they from a lack of faith in God, or are they the latter… Rooting out the sin in our lives brings peace. Get rid of it at all costs!

10) I sat in on a meeting at my first job where my boss’ boss instructed us on how to tell people “no” without saying it. She went through all kinds of situations where we would “tell people off” using official and oh, so professional words.

I thought this seemed pretty stupid at the time - why not save these long and elequent speeches when both parties knew what the other was saying. Seems the Bible backs this up. Be honest (with the love of Jesus) then we don’t have to be concerned with the result. Note what I put in parenthesis. That seems to be the hard part that earns most of us Christians the “Self-righteous Christian” label.

It’s a shame - the unrighteous are called confident or “cocky” at worst. Christians get called much worse. It’s OK though, because God is the one commanding us to not be judgemental anyway.

11)

Mat 15:18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

Or as we may know it “From the heart, the mouth proceeds.” Our words are evidence of the change in our hearts. Sometimes though we get used to a routine of speaking that is not ours anymore. It drives us crazy, yet we still do it. Fortunately God helps us by freeing us from the prison of our mouths by cleansing our hearts.

13) Ever met (or been) that person that just doesn’t seem to “get it”? That person always seems to learn lessons the hard way. This is the person they are speaking of here.

14) What are you storing up? For years I stored up carcinogens in my lungs and beer bottle caps in my trash cans, but now I am trying to store up God’s word in my heart. I can’t begin to tell you how liberating it is. Get in God’s word every day and spend time with him. We still get off-track and “too busy for God,” but don’t be discouraged. Come back to him in repentance and enjoy the embrace of his love.

16) Wages can also be taken to mean earnings in more than the financial sense.

Ro 6:23 The wages of sin is death.

17) More about accepting correction. This is more that just accepting it from God. The Lord uses all kinds of authority figures to see if we will honor his order. God states that all leaders are in place by his will. While we may not understand the ordering, we are expected to trust God. There is another part introduced at the end, where we compound the evil by leading others astray.

18) Concealing hatred is different from not allowing the desires of our flesh (to argue) to surface. Let strife pass. Letting it fester in our hearts and minds does not hurt the object of our hatred. It just rots us away from the inside. Take it from a guy that used to stage arguments in his head until he had it “just right”. It’s funny, but I never got to use those arguments. They just made me an angry person.

19) There is only so long we can control our tongue. I heard a great quote from John Maxwell, pointing out that “God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason”. If we listen twice as much as we talk, we just might hear the answer to all our questions. This applies to prayer, too….

21) Our words are that important - You may have heard the phrase, “You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.” It is a bit more drastic in spiritual terms. We are either speaking blesses or curses over those we come in contact with. Don’t let anyone fool you. There is no middle ground.

23) I lose patience in my walk sometimes, but at least I know that God is making changes. I’m just too close to notice. How do you feel when you sin? Most of the time I feel awful. Yes, there are times when I enjoy screaming out the window at someone in traffic or mistreating someone in person, but they are becoming more rare.

24) What the righteous desire will be granted - I love God for his absolute statements. He is not wishy-washy in any respect.

25) Lets build our house on solid ground…

26) As a boss, I can not stand a lazy employee - one who is there to pick up a paycheck and acts like they deserve it. Au contraire, mon frere! We reap what we sow. God is looking for someone who will step up - I pray that I will be that man one of these days.

27) We see quite a bit of repetition in the Proverbs. God uses repetition to show the importance of certain subjects. We note this in the retelling of stories in the Bible, and how God always seems to do the most important things in “threes”. I suppose it takes us about that long to understand God’s message and change our ways.

28) Plan big when you are seeking God - because it will come to pass. If we are seeking God with all earnestness, our plans will conform to his as our will does. As a result, the fleshly desires will begin to dwindle away. It will be replaced with a thirst for God’s true plan for our lives. It won’t all be easy, but one day we will look around and say, “How did we get here from where we were?” Glory to God!

31) This site has taken several forms. The first was a standard website - no blog, but rather laid out in a newspaper/Christian portal setting. I got fed up with my lack of artistic talent and became vaguely aware of my inconsistent results when coming up with content.

So I did what all lazy publishers do - switched to a blog. Unfortunately I did this during a period where I had become a bit selfish in my time regarding business endeavors. Leaving God out of the picture I wrote my first few posts without the full leading of God. Big mistake. Fortunately the Lord got through to me and I scratched many of the more critical posts. My personal apologies to the readers who were around a few months ago for that. Our words are supposed to edify. Sometimes we are here to correct, but it should be done in love. I left a post or two just so you could see what I am talking about. Let me know if you find it…

Learn more about the Lord of Jesus Christ

The Gospel of John, Chapter 10 (ESV)

Joh 10:1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
Joh 10:2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
Joh 10:3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
Joh 10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
Joh 10:5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Joh 10:6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Joh 10:7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Joh 10:8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
Joh 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
Joh 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Joh 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Joh 10:12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
Joh 10:13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
Joh 10:14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
Joh 10:15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Joh 10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
Joh 10:17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
Joh 10:18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
Joh 10:19 There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.
Joh 10:20 Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?”
Joh 10:21 Others said, “These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
Joh 10:22 At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter,
Joh 10:23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon.
Joh 10:24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me,
Joh 10:26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Joh 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Joh 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Joh 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
Joh 10:31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
Joh 10:32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”
Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
Joh 10:34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?
Joh 10:35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came–and Scripture cannot be broken–
Joh 10:36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
Joh 10:37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me;
Joh 10:38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Joh 10:39 Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
Joh 10:40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained.
Joh 10:41 And many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.”
Joh 10:42 And many believed in him there.

Thanks for joining us today. I left comments out for the book of John, as it would be better to leave some open for discussion. This blog is not a monologue but an open forum. I wish you all could see the traffic logs that show who is visiting. We have had visitors from 30+ countries, and that is counting the European Union as one country (I know Geography, but that’s all my stats will give me).

Feel free to participate and share about your walk with the Lord. If you are not a Christian yet, join in the discussion as well.

You may also visit the virtual prayer request room. This is really cool, you have to check it out!

Thanks for dropping by - have a blessed day!

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