A Fool No More

 

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (Proverbs 1:7, NIV)

Throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon wrote about fear. Fear, as Solomon used it, means to be in awe of and to revere. This awe and reverence occur because of who God is—omnipotent, omniscient, holy, omnipresent, faithful, good, majestic, etc. It also refers to God’s wisdom given to people and their obedience to Him based on what God tells them. Once a person becomes aware of God, that person can either reject Him or accept and obey Him.

Two ways exist to acknowledge the fear of the LORD: rejecting and accepting. (LORD is YAHWEH in Hebrew.) If a person rejects the LORD, then chaos and disharmony enter his heart and life and the world around him. When people acknowledge the LORD and fear Him, they accept Him as God and LORD. Order and calm occur. This order and calm shows by all creation working together with peace. Because God created all that exists, God’s knowledge is ultimate. His wisdom is the greatest. Accepting God as LORD means accepting God and His wisdom and knowledge. It also means living in harmony and peace with God within His ultimate plan of peace, calm, order, and harmony.

Fearing the LORD is the “beginning of knowledge,” Solomon wrote. Since God created all that exists to work at its best and in harmony with the rest of creation, seeking God’s wisdom and learning from Him causes us to gain the best knowledge. This knowledge from God, when obeyed, will cause the best outcome. Fear of the LORD—knowing Him and actively listening to Him—is from where we learn best. We humans can learn by seeking knowledge by reading, listening, watching, and doing. In each of these ways, God can teach us when we seek Him and His wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

God wants us to seek Him, which we do when we revere Him and recognize He is sovereign. In our seeking, He will teach us as we listen to Him and then live out that new knowledge in our lives. Only God teaches the best lessons by which to live. Living in this way causes us to seek and revere God more, and may lead us to believe in Jesus, His Son. When we trust in Jesus as our Savior, He washes our sins from us, gives us eternal life, and gives us an eternal relationship with God.

Solomon contrasted the person who fears the LORD and receives knowledge and wisdom from Him. He called a fool the person who does not fear God. What fools did Solomon write about? Since he contrasted them with those who revere, learn from and live with wisdom from God, a fool is a person who does not do these things. The fool’s life causes chaos and discord in his life, the lives of people around him, and in his relationship with his Creator—the LORD God.

Solomon taught more about this fool. He said the fool despises wisdom and discipline. He looks down on the wisdom and discipline a wise person gets from God. The fool considers the LORD and His children are insignificant. Because he disconnects himself from God, the source of truth and good, he is amoral. The fool is selfish, disregarding others and harming creation. By doing that, he declares these people have no worth to him; he does not care about them. The fool disconnects himself from God and other people. He cares not for his social or legal standing in the community. The fool chooses not to live by the values and judgments of society, which mirror many of God’s values, ethics, and judgments. This fool possesses self-created wisdom.

Solomon compared the person seeking true wisdom from its source, God, with the person who does not. He called this person a fool. The seeker of God gains true wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. He cultivates discipline, benefiting humanity and nature. The person who seeks God helps keep calm, harmony, and order in his community and the world. He gains a closer relationship with God, then comes to believe in His Son, Jesus. This seeker of God gains his heart’s desire and eternal reward of living with and being in a close relationship with God. The fool becomes surrounded by discord and chaos. His wisdom and knowledge will often fail him and others because it comes from the mind of a fallible. The fool strays from God; intimacy with God eludes him.

What is the remedy for the fool about whom Solomon wrote? Solomon's recording at the beginning of this verse reads, "Fear the Lord." Yes, this fear can include fearing judgment for our sins, but it should not stay that way. For a fool to change, he must arrive at the point of revering God, seeking Him and His ways, and seeking change in his life. He must come to the point of confessing and repenting of his sin and believing in Jesus, the Son of God, as His Savior. When the fool seeks God for His life, he receives calm, peace, and harmony. The past fool will live in communion with his community while caring for them and God’s creation. The once foolish man will fear God, gain wisdom, knowledge, and understanding from its fount—God, and experience peace within himself and with others. He will be God's child, enjoying eternal closeness with God.

God should be foremost in our thoughts. Seeking God will affect our actions, words, and attitude. Taking from Solomon’s thoughts:

1.      Choose to make God and His ways your primary thoughts and let those affect your words, actions, and thoughts.

2.      Gain knowledge of and from God. Grow in His wisdom, a gift He gives to those who follow Him.

3.      Give these gifts back to Him as a service offering.

Your obedience to God is your offering back to Him from His good gifts of salvation, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these (good) things will be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33, BSB)

The Contest and Crown

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. Therefore, I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air. No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, BSB)

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to encourage them to continue in their faith and remember God called them to Himself. He urged Christians to understand that being a Christian is not trivial, but a lifelong commitment. Paul taught them being a Christian requires discipline and encouraged them by reminding them of their eternal hope.

Paul used the metaphor of an athlete competing in a big race, like the games held every two years near Corinth. He reminded the church they cannot take their faith casually and not prepare for the contests. Like an athlete must exercise self-control of his body, mind, and heart, Paul said Christians must be self-controlled and disciplined to fight the battles that will besiege them. By training his body through strict habits and competitions, an athlete subjects his body to his will. Paul taught Christians must prepare themselves with spiritual disciplines that become habits to prepare for battles against temptations, trials, and forces of darkness. He meant each follower of Jesus will face contests to his faith, which can affect his body, heart, mind, and spirit. Therefore, each believer must prepare himself with spiritual disciplines/training, such as reading the Bible daily, memorizing and meditating on it, praying, fellowshipping, and worshipping with other believers, and standing up for his faith. Besides preparing for battle, each trial and/or temptation can grow the Christian and strengthen him. Those battles will make him ready for the next contest.

Living life as a Christian means the person does more than believe. He does not “beat at the air” without affect but strives, with training, to grow closer to God and emulate Jesus. Growing closer to God and becoming more like Jesus happens by following the spiritual disciplines mentioned in the above paragraph. When Christian growth through training happens, the believer gains a greater trust in God—a deeper faith. He fights battles with God’s strength and stands firm in his faith. The runner trains for the contest by subjecting his body to his will.

Discipline yourself. Subject it to your will, which you subject to God, and run the race strongly. By doing this, you will not fall short of the goal. You will not fail morally. Your testimony about God and the salvation He gives will prevail. Your faith in Jesus will inspire others to seek and to know Him as their Savior.

Remember, instead of getting a perishable crown, you receive the crown of life. Though thorny, like Jesus’ crown, your crown identifies you as being one with Christ. The thorns are the persecutions and temptations you endure and conquer, just as Jesus endured persecuted and tempted to conquer sin and death. By this, all who believe in Jesus become saved from sin and death. You, because of battling temptations and trials for your faith, will be identified with Christ. You will receive the imperishable crown as your reward from God, like Jesus’ imperishable crown, just as Paul wrote.

The contests—trails and persecutions of life—will occur throughout a person’s life. The ability to be victorious against them comes from going through them with God while receiving God’s power, wisdom, knowledge, and might. Having these with which to battle requires that the Christian discipline himself so he grows closer to God. By disciplining himself with prayer, meditating on and memorizing God’s word, studying the Bible, and attending worship services, the Christian draws close to God and immediately calls out to Him to be with and equip him for each battle he faces. The Christian, as a believer, has the imperishable wreath. He is God’s forgiven, saved child. With God, the struggles of life are conquerable. Christians have God with and for them, which makes the difference in their life journey.

If given the opportunity, many individuals would avoid engaging in contests of will, mind, heart, body, and spirit. Yet, we Christians have God’s mandate to tell everyone about Jesus so all believers can receive salvation. We have God’s promise that He will never leave or forsake us. Being able to live with and obey God daily with the joy and peace He gives makes the battles we face worth the cost. Our testimonies about God matter, regardless of the cost. Did anyone believe in Jesus because of your actions or words? If someone believes in Jesus and is saved from their sins, then the contests are worth the cost. Paul spoke of this in Acts 20:24. He wrote,

“But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of God’s grace.”

How we face contests/challenges to our faith is important. Will our lives testify about God and His gospel? Or will our lives push people farther away from God? Facing hardships as a Christian is worthwhile to testify about God. The thorny, imperishable crown is worth the effort in life. Jesus considered it to be true and became the preeminent example. He died to save each person who believes in Him and confesses and repents of his sins. You will face contests as a Christian. The challenges are worth the cost of obeying God to spread the gospel. The crown is worth the contest and cost you will face.

Believe and receive the imperishable crown.

Be victorious in contests and live as a champion of the faith.

 

More

 

The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:7-8 [NASB]) 

Peter, the apostle of Jesus, wrote his epistle of 1 Peter to the Christians in Asia minor. He told them how to live as believers in a sinful world that worshipped manmade idols and success. Peter encouraged these Christians to stand strong in their faith while their friends and neighbors continued to live for their own desires. He reminded them Jesus suffered, too, for staying moral and true to God’s purposes. They would experience trials and tribulations as He did.

In 1 Peter 4:7-8, Peter concisely repeated what he wrote in verses one through six. He reminded them the end of the world was coming soon. For the Jews, it was imminent. The Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. For Christians, when Jesus began His ministry on earth, He heralded the beginning of the end. With His first coming and later ascent into heaven, His return to earth could occur at any time or day. The Christians could know the first part of God’s kingdom coming on earth was imminent.

How did Peter tell the Christians of Asia Minor to live as they waited for Jesus’ return to earth? In verse seven, he wrote, “Be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.” To the casual reader, Peter may have sounded like he told them to keep on praying. Yet, when considering the Greek words Peter wrote, we realize he taught these Christians, “Because Jesus was to return imminently, be clear of mind, heart, body, and spirit and have God’s perspective of the world. Understand the truth on both sides of a situation and gain God’s understanding from how He sees it. Then, with God’s perspective and giving all oneself to Him, dedicate yourselves to pray God’s will through His Spirit within you, forsaking your own earthly opinion. Offer your whole being: heart, mind, body, and spirit, as a sacrifice of self-desire and self-will for God’s will according to His wise and knowing perspective.”

Peter understood prayer is more than a “gimme list.” He realized prayer is meant to be a believer’s joining with the God to be in a closer relationship and likeness with Him. Prayer is about relationship with God.

When a parent first introduces prayer to a child, it would be at a meal and/or at bedtime. After that, the next time a person encounters the idea of prayer would be at church as part of worship or in Sunday School where the child hears about Jesus praying or the Jews of the Old Testament communing with God. Still, at each of the learning points, the child or teen may not have learned prayer is about having a relationship with God. The child/teen would have learned what prayer to say at which event or what is expected to be said in a prayer. Yet, that child/teen/young adult may not realize times of prayer are to be about seeking God, His perspective, His will, and growing to be closer to and more like Him.

Peter made this last point clean when he wrote in verse eight, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” What was most important? Show deep love for each other. Our human idea of love is flawed. It often is self-serving. We love so that someone will return our love. We love because we are grateful for someone or something they did. Our love is connected to what we have experienced. It comes from our own needs and from our limited supplies. This love is not about what Peter wrote. He wrote about agape love, not philia love. He wrote about the love that comes from the source of all love, God. Just as God is the source of faith, joy, hope, salvation, etc., He is the source of true love. The love people give each other-philia or eros-is mixed with self-serving motives. Agape is pure love that does not depend on how a person feels. God loves. In 1 John 4:10, the apostle John wrote, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to as a sacrifice to take away our sins. God’s love is a one-way covenant with us. He loves us even when we don’t love Him. He loves us when we sin, and He wants us to return to a relationship with Him. When Peter wrote 1 Peter 4:8, he meant, “Continue to love each believer like God loves so that the person’s sins against you do not keep you from loving the other believer with a tainted love.”

Having this form of love, agape love, God’s love, requires a person to have a close and growing relationship with God through Jesus. How does a person have a close relationship with God? Believe in Jesus, God’s Son, as the Savior who died to take your death judgment for your sins so you would not die and be eternally separated from God. Believe and live. Believe and experience pure love. Experience agape love that requires nothing from you except to receive it and be with God. Join God in prayer and Bible study growing in a closer relationship with Him and become more and more like Him. Be like Jesus, who though He was persecuted, hated, and hurt, still loved us, and died for us. Prayer becomes more than a recitation of thanks over a meal or a bedtime blessing over our sleep. Prayer becomes our connection with God, who loves us without end. It becomes so much a part of our relationship with God that it no longer feels like a discipline, but a sacred honor and blessing to be with Him. We then want to embrace any opportunity we have for prayer. Unable to get enough with the twice daily times of prayer we learned as children, we find ourselves breathing in and out, our hearts and minds joining with God, so when people see us, they see the heavenly Father. They marvel at the presence of the One with whom you have a genuine likeness.

Get out of meagerly praying for people based on your self-interest. Pray selflessly and with God’s will in mind. Grow in your relationship with Him. Become the shining beacon of His love to the world around you.

Pray because it is a privilege to join with God.

Pray with each breath.

Pray and thank the Lord for this blessing.

Always be thankful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 [NLT])

Hearing

Samuel answered, "Speak, for Your servant hears." 1 Samuel 3:10

When reading the passage from which this verse comes, the question comes to mind, do we really hear from God? From that question come two offshoot questions. One, do we take time intentionally to seek to hear from God? Two, do we do what God tells us?

The latter question is very important. In the Jewish mindset, hearing requires not just listening, but reaction to what is heard - obedience or disobedience from stubbornness. How often do we listen to God, but then say, "Nah, that can't be God telling me to do that? He knows I can't do those types of things," or "He knows I'm afraid to do that." Another statement we might make is, "Did God really tell me to do that?" Each of these come when we want to refuse to "hear" God, listening and obeying Him. It boils down to one question, “Do I love God more than I love myself?” We might say, "Of course! I am a Christian, you know." Yet even Christians can refuse to do what God tells them to do.

Of course, the first question related to this topic is, "Do I take time intentionally to hear from God?" The answer to this question should be an assumed, "Yes", but in reality, each of us very often say, "No." Sometimes the "No" comes from never having been taught to seek God and His will. Other times it comes because we get "too busy" with our lives to have time for God. Others of us will answer, "I read His Bible every day and pray when I need something." None of these replies is an adequate reason for not "hearing" God. No reason is a "just" reason or excuse for not seeking God and hearing Him if a person truly is a Christian.

Today, search yourself. Are you hearing from God? Or, are you just listening and not obeying? Possibly, you are not making the time or are questioning God's reasoning. Another reason could be you aren't intentionally seeking God when you do you "required" daily reading and prayer. What is your excuse for not seeking God, and hearing and obeying Him? We should learn to say, as Eli taught Samuel, "Speak, Lord, your servant hears."

May we say, as Eli did, “It is the LORD. Let Him do what seems good to Him.” (1 Samuel 3:18 [ESV])

Lord, I know you are great, awesome, all-knowing, and the only God. Still, sometimes I put myself before You. If I am totally honest, often I put myself as first in my life and You as second or third. Lord, forgive me for not truly seeking You. If I had sought You, I would have not only listened, but obeyed what You said. I feared You would ask me to do something too hard for me. I got so caught up in my life, I didn’t give you time. I am stubborn; please forgive me. Help me to desire You more than my next breath. Lord, help me to seek You alone and to love you completely so I not only listen to You, but I obey You. Lord, grow me to be like Jesus “who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8 [ESV]) Lord, I do love You. Help my love for You to be complete. Amen.

Seeing the Promised Land: A Deuteronomy 32:48-52 Devotional

Focal Verse – “Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance: you will not enter the land I am giving the people of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 32:52 [NIV])

In the closing verse to Deuteronomy 32, God reminded Moses of his sin against Him and commanded him to die on Mount Nebo. These seem harsh things to hear at the end of one’s life. Yet we need to consider a few things.

God called to Moses through his conscience and his mother’s teaching while he lived as the Pharaoh’s son in Egypt. He called to Moses while he lived as a shepherd for his father-in-law, Jethro in Midian through a burning bush that remained unconsumed. Moses learned to hear the voice of God from those years onward so that he was in tune with God’s voice and His heart. God prepared him to be the leader of His chosen people. Over the years, Moses’ relationship with the Lord grew and deepened and he knew God in many ways – voice, silence, pillar of fire, cloud, earthquake.

Because of the depth of Moses’ relationship with God and his experiences with Him, we find it surprising to watch him falter and sin in the Bible. Yet we realize God made every person to have free will with which to choose to follow God or not. Even in Moses’ rage over the Israelites’ continual turning away from God, he too failed God. We read of it in Numbers 20:1-12. In Numbers 27:12-14, God pronounced Moses’ sin and His judgment. Yes, even Moses sinned and received judgment.

What we should recognize in view of this is God’s compassion. Why compassion? Obviously, God showed compassion in that as the Father of Moses He loved him enough to correct and punish him. Again, obvious in that God allowed Moses to live forty years more.

The compassion I speak of today though comes from verse fifty-two. God’s compassion extended to letting Moses see the Promised Land – the fruit of God’s promise with Abraham. God’s love for Moses extended to giving him a sense of success in bringing his “charges” – God’s people - through their disobedience, trials, battles, and daily issues of communal living to the Promised Land. His love for Moses extended to letting Moses see and experience the receipt of the fruit of God’s promise to Abraham – the Promised Land. Though Moses sinned and did not give the glory to God in Meribah-kadesh, he was a faithful servant of God. God’s compassion extended to letting him experience God’s faithfulness, the exhalation of anticipation upon reaching the Promised Land.

God is loving. His righteousness requires discipline and punishment – judgment – at times. Yet God’s judgment comes from His love. When God judges and administers judgment, we should not remember just the sting of the punishment, but the love and compassion of our God who cares enough to correct us and to watch us receive His blessing. Because we live on this side of Calvary, as Christians, when we experience the sting of judgment, we can understand without doubt we will experience the compassion of God’s love amidst the sting. That is because we will continue to have a relationship with Him and will live in His kingdom forever.

In the future when you read this passage and when you recall this story,

remember in the midst of God’s correction and judgment,

we still receive His compassion and love.

We get to see the Promised Land.

Do you have this hope, too? Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? If you are not, why not place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and receive God’s gift of salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life with Him.

Hebrews 12:5-8, 11-13 A Devotion

5 Have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. [NIV]

This devotion continues the thought from yesterday’s devotion. Yesterday the author of Hebrews encouraged Christians not to grow weary when faced with trials and suffering because we are not suffering anything the saints who went before us did not suffer. They continued running their race in the midst of persecution and trials and remained faithful. In addition, Jesus endured persecution and suffering but did not waver in but kept running the race so that ever person of the world could be saved from sin and death. We must continue to run the race because we are like them and they continued their race. That was point one.

Point two was that the great crowd of witnesses watching us from heaven as we live our lives in the trials and persecutions (in addition to the times of joy and exhilaration) cheer us on to remain faithful and endure to the end. We have a cheering section at the stadium who encourage us to keep running, not to give up.

In today’s passage, we hear the writer’s words in our minds and recognize God’s voice telling us our times of trial are permitted to affect us so that we can be disciplined. Any athlete who is good or wants to be good at his sport disciplines his or her body so that the muscles work like a well-oiled machine. The muscles are trained by the determination of the person’s mind.

That is what our trials are like. They are discipline. Discipline is not punishment or chastisement, but a way to develop the body or person. God allows trials to come to develop and grow us to be more like Him, to be more righteous and holy. The writer said this in the verse seven when he said, “Endure hardship like discipline.” Discipline is not punishment, but training. It is a growing experience to mature our minds, hearts, and bodies.

The writer of Hebrews used the analogy of a father disciplining his child. When the child is more mature, he or she sees what the father did as a positive thing, a way to mature the child so that he or she would be a properly functioning adult and member of society. That father is compared to Father God. God allows trials to grow His children to be mature in their faith as well as righteous and holy – like Himself.

That is the first point – we are to look at trials as discipline, an opportunity to grow. So look at it in that way when you face a difficult time. How can you grow from that difficult time? What does God want you to learn from that experience?

The second point of this passage is that we each have to determine for ourselves to strengthen our mind, heart, and body for the task of growing through the trial. We must decide in our minds that we will get through it, realize it is an opportunity to be used for Father God (heart), and then focus ourselves and our bodies to be strong and endure. By doing this, our faith grows and our bodies are more prepared to live the Christian life on earth as a more pure, righteous, and holy child of God. That is strengthening our feeble arms and legs and making paths straight.

Choose to be trained by trials and suffering. Choose to stand strong in your faith so that God can make you more like Christ – holy and righteous. Being a child of God requires the head, heart, and body – mind, soul, and body. Choose to be disciplined and grow more like Christ. When we go through trials and grow stronger in our faith, we can then say as Paul did in Romans 5:3-5,

"We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." [NIV]