Posts Tagged ‘spirituality’


Under Gods Command

 Proverbs 9:1-5 Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.  She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.  Let all who are simple come in here! She says to those who lack judgment. Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. 

The banquet described in this chapter has some interesting parallels to the banquet Jesus described in one of his parables (Luke 14:15-24).  Many may intend to go, but they never make it because they get sidetracked by other activities that seem more important at the time.  Don’t let anything become more important than your search for God’s wisdom.


Under Gods Command

Proverbs 7:1-5 My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “you are my sister,” and call understanding your kinsman; they will keep you from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words.

Sons often neglect their father’s instructions and warnings. If they forget them, they will not be ready, when temptation is in their eyes, ears, heart, and loins. And the temptation here is dangerous and powerful – a beautiful and skilled adulteress (7:5-27). The same lesson applies to young women, when they are infatuated with a handsome man. Solomon begins and ends his warning with appeals to remember his advice (7:1-4,24).

The dangers of not remembering are great. How will a young man resist, when his eyes are full of her beauty, his ears full of her flattery, his heart full of her offered love and submission, and his loins full of desire (5:3;6:24-25; 7:13-21)? How will a young woman resist, when her eyes are full of his manliness, her ears full of his flattery, her heart full of his attention and affection, and her body craves his full embrace (Gen 34:1-3)?

By nature, a son does not value his father’s warnings. He deceives himself to believe that his father is out of touch with the world, that his father overstates the danger, that his father wants to deprive him of pleasure, that his father never met a desirable woman, that his father did not have sexual lusts, or that he can escape the consequences his father describes. All these are damnable lies from a foolish youthful heart and the father of lies.
Sons must trust fathers and esteem their advice and warnings. Every father was once a young man with the same desires and temptations. But a father has survived youth and reflected much on what is best for his son. He has long-term success in mind, not short-term pleasures that will ruin his life! Fathers love their sons more than any woman will ever love them, even a virtuous wife! Young man, keep your father’s commandments!

Young men must resist the attraction and temptation of a whorish woman by having their minds firmly established in their fathers’ commandments long before they encounter this very dangerous creature. Once they are even slightly captivated by the appearance, flattery, or offers of a seductress, it becomes almost impossible to recall any warnings. But what will a young man do, whose father does not teach or warn him about such a woman? He will be helpless before the drawing power of her body and wiles. Such fathers are accomplices in the destruction of their sons! Though he may have advised and warned about many dangers, he neglected the most harmful. Fathers, save your sons!

Reader! God your Father has given His commandments and law to you. Do you keep them as the apple of your eye? Do you read them daily? Do you meditate upon them? Do you tremble before their warnings and rejoice at their instruction? Or do you deceive yourself that you can forget or neglect them and survive? Do not be a fool!


Under Gods Command
Samson

Judges 14:19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power.  He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of their belongings and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle.  Burning with anger, he went up to his father’s house. 

Samson impulsively used the special gift God gave him for selfish purposes.  Today, God distributes abilities and skills throughout the church (1 Corinthians 12:1).  The apostle Paul states that these gifts are to be used “that the body of Christ may be built up,” that is, to build up the church (Ephesians 4:12).

Lets bring it home: To use these abilities for selfish purpose is to robe the church and fellow believers of strength.  As you use the gifts God has given you, be sure you are helping others, not just yourself.


Under Gods Command
Samson
 
Judges 13:24-25 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson.  He grew and the LORD blessed him, and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.  

God’s Spirit began preparing him for his role as judge and leader against the Philistines.

Lets bring it home: Perhaps there are things that stir your heart.  These may indicate areas where God wants to use you.  God uses a variety of means to develop and prepare us: hereditary traits, environmental influences, and personal experiences.  As with Samson this preparation often begins long before adulthood.  Work at being sensitive to the Holy Spirit leading and the tasks God has prepared for you.
Your past may be more useful to you than you imagine. 


Under Gods Command
Proverbs 3:21  My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight. 
 
What is the difference between sound judgment and discernment? Discernment (or discretion) is the ability God gives to many people to think and make correct choices.  Sound judgment, however, he gives only to those who follow him.  Sound judgment includes discernment, but goes beyond it.  It also includes the knowledge that comes from instruction, training, and discipline, and the insight that results from knowing and applying God’s truths.


Under Gods Command
 (Warning Against Enticement)
 
Sin is enticing because it offers a quick route to property and makes us feel like one of the crowd.  But when we go along with others and refuse to listen to the truth, our own appetites become our masters, and we’ll do anything to satisfy them.  Sin, even when attractive, is deadly.  We must learn to make choices, not on the basis of flashy appeal or short-range pleasure, but in view of the long-range effects.  Sometimes this means steering clear of people who want to entice us into activities that we know is wrong.  We can’t be friendly with sin and expect our lives to remain unaffected.

Proverbs 1:10-19 (10):  My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them.  (11): If they say, “Come along with us; lets lie in wait for someone’s blood, let’s waylay some harmless soul;  (12): Lets swallow them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; (13): we will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; (14): throw in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse  (15): my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths; (16): for their feet rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood.  (17): How useless to spread a net in full view of all the birds! (18): These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay only themselves!  (19) Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it. 


Under Gods Command
Samson
Judges 13:1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.  

God was fed up with his people.  He was so disgusted with their disobedience that he decided to hand them over to the Philistines.  The idea was that the crack of a whip across their backs might help them see the error of their ways.  But it didn’t work.  Not only did they accept slavery as a way of life, their lack of repentance suggests that they actually grew content with it.  This suffering was not caused by God, but resulted from the fact that the people ignored God, their Judge and Ruler.  That they didn’t cry out to God is amazing, but not half as amazing as the fact that God decided to deliver them anyway.  In what could only be described as phenomenal act of grace, God decided to rise up a strong man to lead His unrepentant people out of bondage.  That man was Samson.

Lets bring it home: What will it take for us to follow God?  The warnings in God’s World are clear: if we continue to harden our hearts against God, we can expect the same fate as Israel.


Under Gods Command
Jephthah

 Jephthah’s rash vow brought him unspeakable grief in the heat of emotion or personal turmoil it is easy to make foolish promises to God.  These promises may sound very spiritual when we make them, but they may produce only guilt and frustration when we are forced to fulfill them.  Making spiritual “deals” only brings disappointment.  God does not want promises for the future, but obedience for today.

Judges 11:30-31, 34-35 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, what ever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

34-35 Then Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines!  She was an only child.  Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.  When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried.  “Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break. 


Under Gods Command

Proverbs 25:6-7 Do not exalt yourself in the King’s presence and do not claim a place among great men, (7) it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,” than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman. 

Jesus made this proverb into a parable (Read Luke 14:7-11).  We should not seek honor for ourselves.  It is better to quietly and faithfully accomplish the work God has given us to do.  As others notice the quality of our lives, then they will draw attention to us.


Under Gods Command

Proverbs 23:13,14 – Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.  Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death. 

The stern tone of discipline here is offset by the affection expressed in verse 15.  However, many parents are reluctant to discipline their children at all.  Some fear they will forfeit their relationship, that their children will resent them, or that they will stifle their children’s development.  But correction won’t kill children, and it may prevent them from foolish moves that will.