Gaining wisdom

HAPPY NEW YEAR


The true source of wisdom is God. He is the One who has the answers, solutions, and knowledge to help whatever the situation.

God wants us to ask Him for wisdom. He wants to provide us with the answers, solutions and knowledge that we need. The sad thing is that so very few people take God up on His offer. We have pride. We want to do it on our own and so we stumble along making mistake after mistake in our lives.

There is nothing to be ashamed of in having to ask God for help because you are in very good company when you do.
Abraham Lincoln is one of those who often went to his knees in prayer to seek help from God. Lincoln said this, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day."

Are you tired of trying to do it on your own and messing things up time after time?

Remember that Bible says,
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Why not ask Him now?

James 1 : 5-6
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

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Fear of God

"Fear of the LORD" means
more than "hold God in reverence" but to remember our place in the order of things.

We know we are deeply loved by God.

We recognize that we are weak and sinful in comparison and are saved by God's mercy and grace.

We acknowledge that his majesty and holiness are far beyond us and that we pale in significance before God.

We come to God acknowledging our need for him and our unworthiness to demand anything from him.

The incredible reality is that when we approach God with this sense of awe and profound respect, He in turn welcomes us with open arms and brings us close. (See Isaiah 57:15)

Psalm 34 : 9
Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

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True prayer

To pray "In the Holy Ghost" is the grand quality of a true prayer The seed of acceptable devotion must come from heaven's storehouse. Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God. That desire which he writes upon our heart will move his heart and bring down a blessing, but the desires of the flesh have no power with him.

Praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in eagerness. Those who do not plead with fervency do not appeal to God at all. It is praying perseveringly. The true suppliant gathers force as you proceed, and grows more fervent when God delays to answer. The longer you wait for the answer, the more resolved are you that you will never let Him go without the blessing.

Beautiful in God's sight is tearful, agonizing, unconquerable persistency. It means praying humbly, for the Holy Spirit never puffs
us up with pride. Prayer should be filled with love. It must be a prayer full of faith. A man prevails only as he believes. The Holy Spirit is the author of faith, and strengthens it, so that we pray believing God's promise.

Jude 20
Praying in the Holy Ghost.

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Go to HIM

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Think of the things we will not come to Jesus Christ about. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words - "Come unto Me."
In every degree in which you are not real,
you will dispute rather than come,
you will split hairs rather than come,
you will go through sorrow rather than come,
you will do anything rather than come

It is spiritual disrespect if you are expecting God to tell you to do a big thing, and all He is telling you to do is to "come."

"Come unto Me." When you hear those words you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, anything at all that will put the axe at the root of the thing which is preventing you from getting through. You will never get further until you are willing to do that one thing. The Holy Spirit will locate the one stubborn thing in you, but He cannot dislodge it unless you are willing to let Him.

Matthew 11:28
Come unto Me.

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Faith

Some aspects of faith are beyond description: they can only be experienced and known by doing them.
Taste the Lord.
Sample his goodness.
Lean on his grace.
Take protection in his care.

We are blessed to find him near and take our protection from life's greatest dangers and death's greatest fears.

Psalm 34:8
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

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Storm warning

We are thankful for the latest technology and the attentiveness and courage of many storm spotters who provide us with an earlier warning than was possible in the past.

With advance warning and superior knowledge of the dangers of tornadoes most people do try to find shelter in
storm shelter,
basement,
safe room
an inner room
hallway.

Strangely enough, there are some even when warned, still ignore the storm believing they are somehow safe or that they will not be hit.

Personally, when I know a storm which is heading my way, I am going to the nearest shelter! God may very well protect me but why tempt God (Matthew 4:7)

There is another storm - a spiritual storm of sin and destruction. We have advance warning and we have advanced knowledge about the devastating effects of sin. We can ignore those warnings and see how close we can get to the storm of sin. If we do there may very well come a time when the storm we are admiring will destroy us. It does not have to be that way. There is a place of refuge from the storm. God, through Jesus Christ is that refuge. He is the only refuge. Please don't ignore the storm warnings!!

Isaiah 25 : 4
For You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.

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Tests

God sends us frequent troubles to try our faith. If our faith is worth anything, it will stand the test.

It is poor faith when we trust God when
friends are true,
the body is full of health, and
the business is profitable

It is true faith when
friends are gone,
the body is sick,
spirits are depressed, and
the light of our Father's countenance is hidden.


The Lord afflicts his servants to glorify himself, for He is greatly glorified in the graces of His people, which are His own handiwork. When "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope," the Lord is honoured by these growing virtues.

The wisdom and power of God are discovered by the trials.
Present afflictions tend also to heighten future joy.

Numbers 11:11
Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant?"

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Who do you trust ?

This is an important question.

Pay close attention to my answer,

To trust Him whose
power will never be worn out,
love will never decrease,
kindness will never change,
faithfulness will never fail,
wisdom will never be confused,
perfect goodness can never be diminished

You will be a happy man if these are your trust.

Isaiah 36:5
"Now on whom dost thou trust?"

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How to advance ?

If you have a desire to give, yet financial commitments keep holding you back, you may be surprised to learn that what you need is not more money. What you need is a spiritual advance.

You need to take the Word of God and destroy the images of poverty and lack within you. You need to replace them with a vision of the sufficiency of God. Then more things, including money, will come.

How?

By spending time thinking on the prosperity promises He's provided for you in His Word.
By meditating on them.
By believing you receive those promises actually being fulfilled in your life.

2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

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Going off-course

When spiritual laziness continues over the course of weeks, months, and years the result is a degeneration of our spiritual life. It is then hard for us to even think in terms of spiritual things and if we allow are minds and heart to stay on fleshly worldly things to the omission of the spiritual the result will be "death (Romans 8:5-6)."

Spiritual well being requires continual safeguarding. Our spiritual food is needed on a daily basis just as is physical nourishment. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)." Your daily focus must be on your Lord (Hebrews 12:3) and the things of God (Matthew 6:33). To skip a day of walking (spending time in His Word, prayer, and service) with your Lord is to have a day of spiritual deterioration. It is a dangerous thing!
How many days does it take before your focus has changed from being set on what the spirit desires to what the sinful nature desires?
Once you have reached and cross the point of having your focus taken off of the spiritual and placed on the physical how long will it take to return?
Most likely it will take us much longer than we had planned and we may or may not ever regain the fervor for our Lord that we once had.
Before you decide you're just going to skip praying today, skip reading His Word, skip having that quiet time with the Lord today - think. Think of how great the cost is from changing the direction of your life from "life and peace" to that of "death."

Proverbs 18:9.
He who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer.
Proverbs 19:15
Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.
Romans 8:5-6.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Sin is a fundamental relationship;

it is not wrong doing,
it is wrong being,
it is intentional and categorical independence of God.

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ took upon Himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. All through the Bible it is revealed that Jesus bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon Himself the whole massed sin of the human race - "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," and by so doing He put the whole human race on the basis of Redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; He put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord has done on the Cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21
For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

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Help one another

So few hear the cry of the poor or respond to the troubles of the underprivileged. If we are going to be true children of God, His values must become our own, His lost sheep must become our search.

Let's help others around us who are in need.

Psalm 34:6
This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out
of all his troubles.

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Fairness

It is a fact of life in most societies that the attractive individual has many advantages in regard to employment, educational assignment, social life, and more.

We as human beings have a natural preference to be partial in our relationships and dealings with others over a broad range.

Most of us have been on the receiving end of one form or another of partiality by others. If such partiality when experienced is in the negative, it is not very pleasant and sometimes affects him for life.

The good news is that God
is not a respecter of persons or
has partiality based on certain qualities that a person may or not have.


Do you have partiality toward some individuals over others?
Do you harbor discrimination toward those who may be different from you?

Allow God to change your way of thinking!

Acts 10:34-36
Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ - He is Lord of all.

Romans 2 : 10-11
...but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

Galatians 2:6.
But from those who seemed to be something - whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man - for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me.

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Endless love

There are times when it seems others will exhaust our ability to love, either because of their need being so great or because of their unwillingness to love in return.

How do we go on?

We need
a community of love;
other believers who will support and love us
brothers and sisters in Christ who will pray for God to increase our capacity to love.
to trust that in response to all of our prayers, God will pour more love into our hearts through his ever-flowing stream of grace, the Holy Spirit ( Rom. 5:5).

When love is low, don't withdraw or give up. Draw near to God and draw near to his people asking for his grace to help in your time of need (Heb. 4:16).

1 Thessalonians 3 : 12
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

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Tithing

When you tithe, you give God the legal right to
intervene in your financial affairs,
to bless you richly, and
to defend you against the destruction the devil brings.

When you tithe, you
lay a foundation for success and abundance
establish deposits with God you can draw on when you need them.

Malachi 3:11-12
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land.

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Comfort

God comforts us because

we are heartbroken
we need a blessing
God loves us.

We are comforted to comfort others.

There is something about comfort that cannot be fully realized until it is shared with someone else.

It is that final step in the healing process of grief, disappointment, hurt, and loss. Until we share the comfort we have received, until we pass it on to another, our comfort is weak and shallow and limited.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

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Blowing up

If you have a problem with angry outbursts, it is a serious problem and you ought to be concerned about it.

Why?

Because you could some day and cause much damage to your life and to the lives of others.
Why wait until then to do something? Now is the time to take care of the problem before something tragic occurs.

Ask God to help you to say only what He wants you to say and for those listening to only hear what God wants them to hear. If there is a situation that is causing you anger, ask God to help you with it and to take control of it. (1 John 1:9)

Rudeness - should not be a part of a believers' life. We should practice the presence of Christ because He hears every word we say and knows every thought we think. Practicing His presence, consciously acknowledging His presence in tense, anger filled situations, will dispel the explosiveness of those times.

The spiritual fact is that God has the power to change you and to take away the anger.

James 1:19-21.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

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Commitment

Commitment is not a popular term.
We see signs of a lack of commitment everywhere.

The divorce rate is still climbing. Those living together outside of marriage are increasing with children being born out of wedlock as the evidence of it.

Loyalty has decreased,
• fewer numbers of people are willing to join any organization,
• the percentage of those willing to fight for their country has continued to drop,
• parents are less willing to remain in a marriage for the sake of their children,


Jesus never says that being a Christian is easy. He does say that His yoke is easy but it is still a yoke. Jesus indicates up front that it is not an easy road when he says, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." He makes it even clearer when He says, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." In other words, take up your instrument of execution every day and follow Him. Put your own personal desires, wants, dreams, habits, addictions, lusts to death every day and follow Him. That is a commitment indeed!

That kind of commitment that Jesus calls us to is very difficult but the alternative is so much worse. The only way we can really have life and really live life to the ultimate is through a true commitment to Jesus Christ.

Luke 9:57-62.
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God." And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house." But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

Luke 9 : 23
Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

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How do you respond to your trials ??

Is it possible for you to "Be happy when you are blamed and accused wrongly”. When we run into difficulties or accusations, we can choose to respond in joy or react negatively
In such situations, we have the chance to see all the bitter, hostile or self-pitying responses that our sinful soul wants to spew out.
Watch and see if any of these poisons come out of us when our spirit is pricked by an accusation. Only then can we see ourselves as we are, and confess our sin that is within us and forsake ourselves again into the Lord's care."


We choose to respond with joy in every difficulty or nuisance that comes our way . It is an act of affirming that God is the blessed controller of all things.

James 1:2 - 4
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the "testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing"

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Be humble

Meekness in no sense means or implies lack of will power. In truth, genuine meekness is patience in the face of injuries, insults, abuse and persecution, whether physical or mental. It is not cowardice or a surrender of our rights. Rather it is the opposite of anger, malice, prejudice or resentment.

Meekness is seen to allow God to be our defense instead of making an effort to avenge real or imagined hurts. It is patience in the midst of extreme difficulties or humility under fire, as described in 1 Corinthians 13.

Those who are meek have remarkable, controlled strength and are calm and peaceful when all around there is confusion and chaos. These are the ones who will inherit the earth, who will be sought out as leaders. They are the ones who will help to build a better world.

Matthew 5:5
The meek and lowly are fortunate! for the whole wide world belongs to them

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Fear of God

When reading the book of Exodus, I think of the Israelites as they stumbled their way through the desert, complaining or behaving badly while Moses talked to God on Mt. Sinai. God has done so much for them -- encouraged them with signs and miracles, showered them with mercy, looked after their needs - how soon they grumble and forget His goodness. As I think of this, I also thought of myself, praising God in the good times and, occasionally, questioning His judgment when my life becomes too hot and dry for personal comfort. I'm just like those Israelites.

"When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.' Moses said the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.' The people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was" (Exodus 20:18 – 21)

The fear of God will keep you from sinning..

Recognize that the fear of God is the starting point for a spiritual journey
and the key that opens the door to repentance, restoration and maturity.

A fear of God will drive us to our knees in regret, hungering for His presence and divine touch.

2 Corinthians 5:11
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience

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Be faithful

A life of faith is one that is dominated by Jesus Christ—not selfish desires. It is to be a natural process—not something that we strive to achieve.

man of little faith says, "God can."
man of great faith says, "God will."
man of perfect faith says, "God has done it."

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Learning to walk by faith

By faith, Abraham was on his way to a land known only to the Lord. Regardless of the personal cost and the opinion of others, Abraham began his journey. He left his family home of Ur and headed toward a new land known only by God. It was to be a place of promise and blessing. (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Abraham was not a poor man. He was a leader among his people. God had given him the ability to see beyond the immediate challenge to the blessings of the future. Abraham did not shy away in fear. He trusted the Lord and, in doing so, was able to touch the hem of heaven’s garment. (Luke 8:40-56) Scripture tells us that Abraham believed God, and his belief was "reckoned" to him as "righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).

Learning to live by faith involves a lot more than heroic feelings. The desire to obey God regardless of personal sacrifice is overriding.

What do you do when facing a challenge that seems overwhelming?
Proverbs 3:5-6 instructs you to "trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."

The first requirement of living a life of faith is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. First we must know HIM in order to discern HIS will for our lives. God has a design in mind for every situation we face. There are no coincidences with God. There are blessings that come our way, and God is the architect behind each one. In times of trial and sorrow, He is working in ways unknown to us to bring goodness and hope out of each difficulty.

We must believe that He does what He has promised to do. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please [God], for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him."

No matter how small our faith seems at times, God is pleased when we trust Him. Even the slightest step of faith does not go unnoticed by Him. And we can be sure that just as He was faithful to the promise He made to Abraham, He will be faithful to us. Perhaps, one of the greatest blessings Abraham received was being called the friend of God. (Isaiah 41:8)

In times of failure, God does not want us to focus on our shortcomings. Instead, He wants us to set the focus of our hearts on Him. This is where faith springs to life.

We may falter. We may fail, but we must get up and keep moving forward. When Peter denied knowing Christ, Jesus did not deny knowing Him.


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