Wisdom Matters

The “heart” in the Old Testament referred to a person’s basic drive and motivation. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a list of every plan we had ever made and compare that list to those things we actually did? All of us who looked would see and be grateful for the hand of God as he intervened with protection and redirection in our lives. Each of us is driven by our own plans, desires, hopes, and...

Jesus ended his Sermon on the Mount by telling the crowd that a wise person will build his life, his “house,” on the solid foundation of faith his sermon had taught. Some have said that every lesson Jesus taught can be traced back to the foundational truth of his most famous sermon. If we want to be like the wise man who lived with the biblical truth Jesus preached that day by the Sea of Galilee,...

God created people to need other people. No one person knows everything. No one is always right about everything. We are all uniquely created with gifts and abilities, but no one has every gift or every ability. We were created to need other people’s help, wisdom, and advice. It’s humbling to realize we can’t live life well if we only live it with our own abilities. On the other hand, it’s comfort...

We know we are different from non-Christians who don’t share our values, and we expect to disagree with them at times. But it can be tough when there is someone in your church or Bible study who can get on your last nerve at times. You might even have prayed for God’s wisdom to help you know how to appreciate that person. We are called to love one another, but sometimes that is a difficult command...

Several verses in Scripture discuss the importance of working hard and choosing not to be lazy. Working hard is a sign of good character in Scripture and important to our witness with others. The Apostle Paul taught the Christian church this lesson so they would be a good witness to the pagan culture around them. But he expanded the idea of our work to include our entire lives. He said, “Whatever...

Bookstores have changed a lot in the last fifty years. Slowly, sections devoted to Bibles and Christian theology became shelves and then the sections were renamed religion and usually placed in a back corner. The more popular, growing section of the store has been labeled “self-help.” The author of Proverbs 19:8 would not understand the need for that division in the bookstore. He taught: “Whoever...

When the members of a family argue with each other, the entire family is impacted by the tension. When the argument is made public, even more people become involved in the disagreement. Scripture teaches us an important truth from Genesis to Revelation. God wants his children to be different from people who are outside the faith. Our message to the world is damaged when we don’t get along with our...

We live in a much different culture than the one our grandparents knew. Technology has changed the way we live and parent in more ways than we can imagine. Family, and family roles, have been redefined—but not spiritually. Parents and grandparents are still the most important influence on their children’s spiritual lives, especially young children.  The wisdom of Proverbs 6 describes the protectio...

The average person meets about eighty thousand people in their lifetime. Some of those people will become friends, many will be acquaintances, and a few will become a significant part of our lives. Each of us has an inner circle of family and friends with whom we share our most important moments. Proverbs 30 would teach us to include wise people in that inner circle. Whom do you call or text when...

Whenever you have a big decision to make or feel like your life needs a new direction, consider an amazing fact of Scripture. Our Creator God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present in our lives. Our God gave us an open invitation to his throne and said, “Ask me.” James taught that anytime we face a challenging decision, we can ask God for his wisdom and he will answer us. God is generous w...

Faith is a free gift of God, but living a faithful life of wisdom will come at a cost—that will be rewarded. Jesus was speaking to a large crowd filled with all types of people, including the Pharisees and Sadducees. He spoke to the crowd telling them that the cost of being his disciple would be great. Jesus told the crowd that becoming his disciples might mean: —Bearing their own cross, —Choosing...

Which of your friends will pray with you and for you? Which of your friends will listen and try to understand your needs? Which of your friends offer you quick opinions and which offer you wise counsel? We have a lot of friends and acquaintances throughout our lives. Some friendships are for a season while others continue in some way through every season. All of us should pray for the Lord to guid...

To fear the Lord is to live with a reverent awe of his infinite place and power in the world. Our understanding of God’s immeasurable character is simply the beginning of knowing him. The Apostle Paul said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). If we studied God’s word and medit...

G. K. Chesterton is attributed as writing, “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” An agnostic isn’t a person who does not believe in God as much as they are a person who doesn’t believe in believing. In this era of endless information, we seem to lack an abundance of wisdom. We don’t lack ideas, opinion...

God created us to need other people in order to prosper in our lives. Just like our fingerprints, our gifts and abilities are uniquely our own. One of the best examples of the infinite wisdom of God is creation itself. We are each created to be loved and known personally by our Creator and to be cared for by him. God directs our paths, and he often directs our paths to intersect with others. There...

*This episode originally aired on May 3rd. Have you ever seen the phrase in Scripture “And God said” and wondered how the Lord spoke to that person? How did they know it was God? Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t seem to speak to you or others that way today? God still speaks to his children, but we have his voice in a way that those in biblical times did not. Most of us have several Bibles o...

Psalm 59 is David’s song of prayer and praise for the protection God provided when Saul had sent his men to spy on his home. The psalm begins, “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God” (v. 1).  Scripture is clear that if we choose to live a holy life, we will be persecuted by those who are antagonistic to our faith. How comforting to go to God with David’s words of wisdom and praise, “O my Strength”...

Many passages in the Bible speak to the importance of humility. One example is when James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, came to him asking if they could be on his right and on his left when he came to power. Their request immediately caused an argument among the other disciples. Jesus was quick to teach them all the great flaw in their thinking. Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you m...

The Apostle Paul had done amazing work sharing the gospel with people and establishing Christian churches in major cities and regions of the Roman Empire. He worked tirelessly under difficult circumstances in spite of personal illness and persecution. He was a hero in the first century and remains a hero today. The letter to the Ephesians was written while Paul was under house arrest in Rome. He w...

Knowing God is strong enough to handle our lives is much easier than trusting our circumstances to his strength. God has given us the ability to learn. God has given us minds that can think, imagine, plan, and choose. How do we know how and when to yield our own strengths and abilities to his higher authority? Realizing that God’s ways are above the practical understanding of human thought can be...

Praying for miracles we don’t know we will receive takes courage. Waiting for God’s answers, whatever his answers will be, takes strength. A courageous heart is essential to live with the hope of heaven when heaven is the only hope left to us on earth. Psalm 27 is about leaning on the hope of our salvation. We live with that hope every day if we are a Christian. Hope in our salvation gives us a pe...

Most days of our lives are manageable and easy to navigate. We seek God’s word and his will for the day. We pray for his Presence and can sense his peace. God’s Spirit provides our direction and our sense of God’s favor and strength. There may be a momentary need that causes us to pray quickly for his advice, his words, and his thoughts. While most of our days are manageable, every life has days,...

Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness to do good things that would have shown the world he was capable of miraculous works. Studying the temptations of Christ is important for our spiritual lives because they are examples of the way Christians are tempted today. If you have a strong walk with the Lord, you are probably not going to be tempted to commit an awful crime or willingly do an evil thing....

We can be faithful to God because he is always faithful to us. From Genesis to the book of Revelation, we see God present in the lives of those who trusted in him. Even when the nation of Israel was taken into captivity, we saw the Lord’s faithfulness to Daniel and his friends. Even when King David sinned, we saw the Lord’s faithfulness to redeem his life.  Paul had likely caused the murder of inn...

You have probably heard someone invite a person to church saying, “Your life will be so much better if you just get involved.” Maybe you’ve heard someone say something like, “God wants you to have the best life possible. You need to come to church with me.”  Truthfully, I’ve probably said things like that to people in the past. Sometimes our good intentions or personal experience stand against the...