STRIFE OR WISDOM Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. —Proverbs 13:10 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. —Psalm 37:30 My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the meditation of my heart will give you understanding. —Psalm 49:3 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. —Psalm 90:12 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. —Psalm 111:10 Are you open to advice? Is your heart open to listen to the wisdom…

FOCUS Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. —Proverbs 11:4 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain…

JESUS IS ALIVE! Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than…

HATE EVIL! To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. —Proverbs 8:13 It is all around us in this fallen world. Satan is the god of this age (II Corinthians 4:4) and he blinds people, “taken them captive to do his will” (II Timothy 2:26). I was there once and being held captive to do Satan’s will. My life-style was filled with evil. The only one I really cared about was myself. Evil was not something I hated, but loved. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. But now I am not longer a slave of sin and…

LISTEN! Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. —Proverbs 1:30-31 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. —Proverbs 2:6 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. —I Corinthians 12:7 The Lord gives wisdom, knowledge and understanding. So why would we not run to Him to seek this? How is it that so many times we try to figure things out for ourselves and do not wait on Him, listen to Him and wait for His guidance?…

JESUS DIED, ROSE FROM DEATH AND IS COMING BACK! For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. — I Corinthians 11:26 There are three things that are happening, well at least three, when we are celebrating the Lord’s Table. First we are remembering and proclaiming the Lord’s death. He was our Passover Lamb— the final, perfect, blameless Lamb of God (I Corinthians 5:7; I Peter 1:18-21). “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2). Ponder that and this is truly an astounding statement…

HE KNOWS! He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. —Psalm 147:4 It is estimated there are 10 times as many stars as there are grains of sand on all this world’s beaches and deserts. One survey estimates there are 70 sextillion stars… that’s 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. How would you like to stand out under the night sky and count those? http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/22/stars.survey/ When we start thinking in terms of those numbers and the size of the universe we begin to feel very small… and we are! Yet it is truly astounding that our Lord God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of all things, cares for each of…

TRUST HIM! Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. —Psalm 143:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. —Psalm 32:8 God has promised to guide us and we can be absolutely sure of that fact. We need to be willing to yield to His guidance however He guides. That is key to faithfulness. If we have some pre-conceived idea of what we believe God’s will is, when it is not, then we will be headed off in the wrong direction. How many times have we done that?…

LET NOT SIN HAVE DOMINION OVER ME Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies. —Psalm 141:3-4 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. —I Corinthians 10:13 Temptations will come! They are common…

ASK FOR HIM TO GIVE YOU BOLDNESS! When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me. —Psalm 138:3 Need boldness? Do you really want it? Then call on the Lord and trust Him to give it to you! Personally I have seen this over and over. I ask the Lord for boldness to serve Him in ways that I plainly would not do in my own strength. In my own strength I would not even attempt to do many things that He has given me the boldness to do. Let me give you an example of what happened last evening. Six of us went to the University of New…