Consider Your Wayz!

    In the next week I would like to share some passages that have transformed my thinking in the past couple of years; but I would like to preface with these comments and verses.
 

Proverbs 1:1-7

The Beginning of Knowledge

 1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
       2 To know wisdom and instruction,
      To perceive the words of understanding,
       3 To receive the instruction of wisdom,
      Justice, judgment, and equity;
       4 To give prudence to the simple,
      To the young man knowledge and discretion—
       5 A wise man will hear and increase learning,
      And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
       6 To understand a proverb and an enigma,
      The words of the wise and their riddles.
       7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
      But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
 

    Wow, that’s a lot to take in!
 

    We have an entire book dedicated to our guidance in these areas of life. God does not desire His children to live in ignorance. There is hope for the simple, the fool, the sluggard, the proud, the fearless, the fearful, the rich, the poor, the seeking, the searching, the weary, the strong, the adulterer, and the wicked who are willing to follow the advice given not only in Proverbs but also the remainder of the Scriptures, that are given for our learning.
 

·         Instruction- the communication of intellectual facts.

·         Knowledge- the comprehension of intellectual facts.

·         Understanding- comprehending the functions of intellectual facts.

·         Wisdom- the combination of Instruction, Knowledge, and Understanding with the fear of God as our guide.

    Wisdom is not for the praise of men but for the glory of God; that we in humility might reflect Christ through the wisdom that has been bestowed upon us through the hearing of and obedience to God’s Holy Word.
 

ConsiderYourWayz
 

I was glad when they said to me,
         “Let us go into the house of the LORD.”
Psalm 122:1
 

    This Lord’s day I was tremendously encouraged by the preaching of the Word of God and the fellowship of believers. I have been soaking in all that I can before I head to Afghanistan. 6 weeks of civilian life remaining! It will be 2008 before I have opportunity to enjoy the preaching of God’s Word and the fellowship of believers in this kind of setting with regularity again. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised! These verses have been on my mind as I have been reflecting on this day.

  Psalm 84
 1 How lovely is Your tabernacle,
         O LORD of hosts!
 2 My soul longs, yes, even faints
         For the courts of the LORD;
         My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
         
 3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
         And the swallow a nest for herself,
         Where she may lay her young—
         Even Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
         My King and my God.
 4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house;
         They will still be praising You.  Selah  
         
 5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
         Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
         They make it a spring;
         The rain also covers it with pools.
 7 They go from strength to strength;
         Each one appears before God in Zion.
         
 8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;
         Give ear, O God of Jacob!  Selah  
 9 O God, behold our shield,
         And look upon the face of Your anointed.
         
 10 For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand.
         I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
         Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
 11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
         The LORD will give grace and glory;
         No good thing will He withhold
         From those who walk uprightly.
         
 12 O LORD of hosts,
         Blessed is the man who trusts in You!

    See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.                    Ephesians 5:15-17
 

     Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Colossians 4:5

The Following are two journal entries of Robert Murray M’Cheyne.    

• After spending an evening too lightly, he wrote: –“My heart must break off from all these things. What right have I to steal and abuse my Master’s time? ‘Redeem it,’ He is crying to me.”
• “Not a trait worth remembering! And yet these twenty-four hours must be accounted for.”

    Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Scottish preacher in the early 1800’s, who during his years in college would meet with Andrew Bonar and other friends at 6:30 every Saturday morning for a time of Bible study; they would often exhort one another to the pursuit of personal holiness, and would minister to the spiritually needy from the poor section of town. M’Cheyne pastored for seven and a half years before he died at age twenty-nine.*

    God has given us a stewardship of time. Time is not ours to spend as we please; it is God’s, use it wisely and in a manner that pleases Him. Are you redeeming the time?

    Today I read at the bottom of an email from a fellow soldier this quote: “Don’t live today as if you were going to die tomorrow; live today as if it were your last day.”

ConsiderYourWayz

* This information was obtained and adapted from, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, by Andrew Bonar, published by Banner of Truth.
 

By Francois Fenelon

LETTER XIV.

Pure faith sees God alone.

    Be not anxious about the future; it is opposed to grace. When God sends you consolation, regard Him only in it, enjoy it day by day as the Israelites received their manna, and do not endeavor to lay it up in store.

     There are two peculiarities of pure faith; it sees God alone under all the imperfect envelopes which conceal Him, and it holds the soul incessantly in suspense. We are kept constantly in the air, without being suffered to touch a foot to solid ground. The comfort of the present instant will be wholly inappropriate to the next; we must let God act with the most perfect freedom, in whatever belongs to Him, and think only of being faithful in all that depends upon ourselves. This momentary dependence, this darkness and this peace of the soul, under the utter uncertainty of the future, is a true martyrdom, which take place silently and without any stir. It is death by a slow fire; and the end comes so imperceptibly and interiorly, that it is often almost as much hidden from the sufferer himself, as from those who are unacquainted with his state. When God removes his gifts from you, He knows how and when to replace them, either by others or by Himself. He can raise up children from the very stones.

     Eat then your daily bread without thought for the morrow; “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. vi. 34.) To-morrow will take thought for the things of itself. He who feeds you to-day, is the same to whom you will look for food to-morrow; manna shall fall again from heaven in the midst of the desert, before the children of God shall want any good thing.