God's Wisdom In A Nutshell

Hello!

If you have been reading my blog for the past few months, you may be convinced that there is so much more to the Lord than what we learn in church on Sunday. As I have written about tirelessly, when you open your Bible and do self Bible study, the Lord can speak directly to you so that you can learn the best path for your life.  Once you start to learn these truths you can choose to follow the Lord or turn your back on the Lord.  You will learn that there is no in between – which was a harsh realization for me.

“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”(Matt 12:30)

So, we are either helping God advance His kingdom or we are allowing those in our circle of influence to be deceived by the devil…ouch!  That thought process makes me want to have a conversation with my circle of influence, not only the atheists that I work with and live near, but those who are believers yet still don’t realize that the devil is deceiving them.

This devil influenced secular life is akin to what Las Vegas provides.  The bright lights, the lure of money and what it can buy, as well as the constant entertainment- are all there for the taking.  It looks extremely enticing-so we work hard to enjoy what the advertising world says will bring us enjoyment and a great life.  The only problem with enjoying life this way to the exclusion of the Lord’s teachings, is when the years of vacations, buying sprees, dinner’s out or “newness” of our purchases wear out, we are empty again, we are older, and our children are grown and gone.

When we follow the Lord and put our “fun” into perspective, we allow ourselves time to put our priorities in place.  This will give us immense peace as we deal with our daily, weekly and monthly duties. This peace will be a witness to the world, not only the peace we have when we are on vacation or buy a new car, home, etc. but the peace and strength we have everyday.

Psalm 23:1-3(NLT)
1 The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
2 He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
3 He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.

A life following the Lord will allow us the time to enjoy our everyday lives, our families and hometowns. With this, our happiness and peace will be on display even when things don’t go our way or even when a tsunami of “bad breaks” come our way. If we don’t follow the Lord’s teachings our life could look like the one in this story below…take a look:

There was an article in popular home magazine about a year ago, telling the stories of successful women. One particular story was lauding the efforts of a woman who desired with all her heart to start her own business.  The article went on to state that this woman and her husband had to take every dime out of their mortgage and retirement accounts, draw loans to finance the business.  They were “all in” as they say. This couple needed to have the business succeed because they had  kids to feed.  Eventually, the business did succeed and the magazine praised her persistence and called her a success.  The end of the article stated that this woman’s marriage failed due to the time and effort required to start her dream business, but the author minimized that detail and focused on her key point – if you persist in anything it will work out!

When I read the ending to the article I was shocked at the fact that the writer used this woman’s story as an example of success. Where did she succeed?  Making her dreams come true?  What about her family? What about her kids and their broken home and the stress of living in two homes now, due to divorce?  Who really won in this? Who really lost? Would you consider her a success?

The devil’s enticements are everywhere- he is crafty, he finds out what we truly want and then starts to work on us, luring us away from what God deems important.  But I must admit, it sure looks enticing.  The “bright lights” the fun, the “I should treat myself because I work hard” mentality is alive and well.  Trust me, if I didn’t get knocked off my feet by a tornado in my life, I never would know the truth of God’s Word.  I too would have worked at my job more than full time to collect money for trips, fun and retirement.  Because of my hard work I would have felt the need to indulge in all of the enjoyment this world has to offer as well. I can now say that I was actually  lucky to go through the terrible life storm that I have endured for 14 years and counting.  I was blessed with nothing but the Word of God to sustain me.  But when we are blessed with nothing but His Word, we have everything!

“I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Phil 3:8NASB)

“But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9 ESV)

This is where God and His Word becomes relevant. He lets us know that if we follow His teachings we will have enough strength, resources, time and peace to go through any valley experience of our lives.  Actually, we will have more than enough- we will have enough to share.  Not only that, we will leave this world with a legacy of faith and dependence on the Lord for the next generation to emulate.

“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he gets old he will not depart from it.”(proverbs 22:6ESV)

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matt 6:33 ESV)

When we seek what God deems important and mold our lives after His teachings, losing in the secular world is actually winning with God- He has blessings for obedience waiting for us.  When we depend on the Lord, we not only save our own life, we save those who are in our circle of influence- we gather other believers to the Lord.

I  again encourage you to dig into the Word of God, because difficulties are inevitable.  When they come, you will be armed with strength and yoked to our Lord and because of this you will  emerge on the other side of your difficulty victorious, blessed and surrounded by others that you gathered unto the Lord.

God’s Promise:

“If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become my spokesperson.”(Jer 15:19b NASB)

Music For Your Soul:

“How Great Thou Art” sung by Carrie Underwood.