Proverbs 8 - Whoever Finds Me, Finds LIFE

Before the earth existed, before sound came booming to the planet, before one blade of grass sprouted up from the earths soil....Wisdom existed! Who or what is Wisdom? I'd suggest that Wisdom is none other than Christ Himself.

He is the Alpha and Omega (Beginning and the End) - the same yesterday, today and forever...He was once dead but three days later he rose from the grave and IS ALIVE TODAY!

What great promise and hope is found there in those realities of Christ? The same one who was before all else and will be long after it all; is the same one that asks us to SEEK HIM, FOLLOW HIS WAYS and RECEIVE REWARD in Heaven for simply letting Him love us, shape us, use us, clean us up, teach us...all so God may be Glorified.

Scripturally speaking, I am only going to state the obvious, directly from the Word of God:

35 For whoever finds me finds life
and receives favor from the Lord .
36 But those who miss me injure themselves.
All who hate me love death."

We either Love Him in an ALL in capacity or we HATE Him with an ALL OUT tendency...which side do you find yourself walking today?

Day 7 in Proverbs - Prov. 7

Flattery, temptations, ego stroking, walking blindly........

If wisdom is light to our feet and the very thing which will guide us, then darkness must be our ignorance to what's going on behind the scenes as we are being tempted to sin, and the sure path to destruction.

Look in your local newspapers crime blotter, turn on your local news, go to the Associated Press website online and what do you see concurrently? MOST thefts, break-ins, robberies, rapes, abductions, vandalism etc happen when? At NIGHT. This further illustrates a life not being lived by the guidance of the wisdom and discipline of our Lord.

Why does so much crime occur from dusk on? Because just like us when we are "trying" to play with sin and play Christian...there is a perception that what is done in darkness is less easy to detect and bring about prosecution.
BUT, when we are talking about living for God; the harsh reality is that there is NO darkeness that God can't see into. What you think you're getting away with at the time, HE SEES and will make you give an account for.

The thief predominantly steals and robs or kills at NIGHT because it's harder for them to be identified; and they feel their chances of getting away with something are greatly increased. When do we find ourselves the most tempted to listen to the voice of the seducer or seductress? When things in our life seem dark...lonely, misunderstood, unloved.

It's in the dark times of our day to day life that we fall prey to being tempted and losing the battle. However, if we walk at all times in the Light of God's Word, cling to HIS wisdom and seek to become more like Him daily....we are more in tune with God instead of all the flashing lights, pretty people, fast cars and big money of this world.

Let us strive more daily to reflect HIM in how we interract with others, choices we make, things we think on, words we speak, jokes we tell or allow to be told to us, the music we listen to, what we allow our eyes to take in during that movie or television show, etc....Lord we hunger for your Wisdom and Choose to follow YOUR ways and have LIFE....REAL life.

Day 6 - Proverbs 6

Pride, Adultery, Ignorantly discarding Wisdom for Guidance, Playing with Fire expecting no retaliation or punishment in the end. These are all ways of foolishness that ultimately end up with a price to be paid.

We read about the things that the Lord despises: a lying tongue, haughty eyes, hands that kill the innocent, the heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness that pours out lies and a person who causes discord among his/her own family.

If we want to remain strong in our faith; able to maintain a strong foundation against the wickedness of the world....if we wish to have any hope of finishing the race of life in a manner pleasing to God: we cannot take wise counsel lightly friends. Wisdom will put light to our pathway in the darkest of times. It will comfort us while we sleep and when we wake again; will lead us on the right paths in life that are filled with real peace, real knowledge and real endurance to finish the race well.

Lord we ask that you continually flood us with your Lamp of Truth. Shut our mouths and open our ears to truly HEAR your Wisdom. Humble us to accept that your ways are Higher than our ways and your Understanding of what's to come in our lives is much greater than we can see in our limited vision down here. Activate within each of us the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us on the righteous path of life and to throw up City Walls to block us from going the wrong way in life. Lead us to be humble, wise and obedient to all the teachings we receive from you; be they in your Word or through a loved one, trusted friend or local Pastor.

We love you Lord and seek you more daily that you may be Glorified in ALL we say, think and do.

Day 5 - Proverbs 5

Proverbs 5 shows both warning and consequence for continuing to be hard headed, trying to do everything on our own; not measuring all we approach with the Wisdom and guidance from God through this life we journey in.

We are reminded not to take Love for granted; to cling to the wife of our youth and never lose sight of her true beauty.

We're told to steer clear of the woman who speaks with words of honey, else our house be ravaged and our well water tainted or poisoned.

When we're not following the loving discipline of the Lord, when we're not walking in Wisdom and obedience; there will be consequences for our actions. As the passages put it bluntly: why throw away all the blessings of God for temporary and foolish satisfaction; when that very thing that brought you short term pleasure is going to be the thing to take you down, destroy you, rob you of your joy and even potentially kill you.

Each passage and each book that we are journeying through together only reveals to me more and more, just how much God truly does love us and wants to see us live productive, happy and confident. Not that we may boast of anything we've done; but that HIS love would shine through our lives, the world notice and HE be glorified through it all.

As with any sin, we are warned to RUN from whatever may lead us to stumble. If you have a problem gawking at men or women, get away from them as fast as you can. Tempted to gamble? Don't go to convenient stores that sell lottery tickets. Have a led foot behind the wheel of your vehicle? Drive a Yugo. Hahaha the list goes on and on, but you get the point here I hope: if anything COULD cause you to stumble in your pursuit of right living for God, lace up your Adidas tightly, look straight ahead and RUNNNNNNNNNNNNN BABY RUNNNNNNNNNN!

Day 4 in Proverbs - Proverbs 4

I chose to read this particular Proverb from The Message Bible translation and for many reasons, I'm glad that I did because it helped me to get a better grasp on what is truly being shared with us.

In speaking on the importance of Seeking Wisdom; we are reminded to seek it with a relentless passion, to really let the message sink in and resonate in each of us.

As children, how many words of wisdom did our parents or an adult that we held in esteem, try to share with us? And what was the tag line they almost always used? "Don't let this fall on deaf ears" or "If you get nothing else out of what I've shared with you, remember this...." Right?

Well, I have to be brutally honest in saying that many of the lessons I've learned in my lifetime, have come the hard way. I can recall many times growing up, where my dad would say something to me and I'd respond with "yes dad, I know." Only for him to rebuttal back with "Yes Danny, I know you KNOW, BUT you are not doing what you know." It hurts the pride to hear that doesn't it? But in all honesty; I think it is our very pride that sometimes holds us back from tender discipline that is trying to prepare us for when storms of life will come; and we all know when they come they hit like a tsunami against a house made of cards.

So, we are told to not just listen to the wisdom and truth of the Lord; but to really let it grow deeply rooted in us, and to keep our eyes always straight ahead. Else we look to the right or left and get sidetracked by the flashy distractions put in place by our adversary the devil and end up way off course, unable to be much good to anyone, let alone ourselves.

In Verse 6 we are reminded to never walk away from Wisdom; that Wisdom keeps it's eye on us and guards us. What an incredible concept! Wisdom (to me this means the Lord) keeps it's eye on us and guards us as we continue to WALK IN IT!

Friends, God doesn't want to see us get lost on Look Over Here Lane...He wants us to walk right into Heaven with Him, following the straight yet narrow pathway of Righteousness Road. If we turn off our navigational systems, we cannot blame HIM for ending up where we dead end in our lives.

Make pursuing Wisdom and Understanding among the top things to strive for on your daily to do lists and it will Cling to you and give you added years of REAL LIVING in the peace, comfort and assurance found only in Christ Jesus.

Day 3 in the Study of Proverbs: Proverbs 3

Did you see it? How beautiful a though it is: "let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and PEACE they will add to you (Proverbs 3: 1 and 2). It almost seems unfathomable, to imagine our lives truly ever feeling completely at peace with the world we live in; yet that's what God's Word promises to us IF we will not forget the Lord's teachings and make them cling to our hearts.

I think of all the years of trying to do things my way in this lifetime; and how miserable I was in my so called "freedom to choose" decisions I made along the way. After thirty plus years of living the "Sinatra" lifestyle of doing it my way; my heart grew weary and I felt as if I couldn't possibly go on another day this way. So, thankfully at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I surrendered my life and my ways back to the Lord via re-dedication. I can honestly say, that as I've let His Word guide my thoughts, my actions and my deeds...life is good and full of peace.

It is only when I let my eyes drift to far to the right or left; or try to SEE too far into my future, that life seems like a never ending roller coaster of disappointments. Yet,the solution to having true peace in our lives is so simple to attain: vs. 5 - Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart,and do not lean on your OWN understanding. vs. 6 - In ALL your ways ACKNOWLEDGE HIM and He will make straight your paths.

I see a lot of obedience issues being presented in Proverbs 3 and at the root of most of our day to day struggles, it usually boils down to an area in our lives where we are not fully obedient to God's Will. Again, we are reminded of the value of tithing in Verses 9 and 10: "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; THEN the barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be busting with whine."

Want to experience overflow like you've never encountered before? Give the Lord HONOR by giving Him the FIRSTfruits (the 10th BEFORE the taxes and deductions come out of your wealth) and He will ensure your every need is covered and more actually. This is actually the only area that God says to test Him in and He would prove to us the Promise is REAL.

We serve an amazing God. I mean, even when we can't wrap our puny little minds around what's best for us; HE ALWAYS grabs hold of the rutter and re-positions us toward victorious living. All we have to do is be a yielded vessel to HIS guidance and the end result is sure Victory in all our struggles of this life.

Day 2 of Proverbs Study: Proverbs 2

Proverbs 2 speaks to us about the Value of Wisdom in such a clear and promising way.

In Verses 4 and 5 God tells us:

If you seek it (God's wisdom) like Silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Many times in life, we tend to seek out advice from friends, family or other people we respect in our circles of influence; but we don't always receive the sound advice we need to truly heal a situation or see things the way we need for clarity in our lives. While it's good to have friends and others we respect to share our burdens with, we won't always get what we NEED in doing so.

God makes it very clear in the above passages: If you SEEK God's Wisdom like silver you will FIND the knowledge of God. Much like the ask and it will be given promises of the Lord according to HIS Will; when life seems to be it's most confusing or we're having trouble comprehending why a situation is as it is in our lives, the ONE we need to be calling on is God. When we do so, He promises to help us understand what we're going through and imparts HIS Wisdom to us to discern what to do about it.

What a refreshing truth to know, be it sometimes ever so hard to apply; we only set ourselves up for failure when we do not SEEK HIS Wisdom for our lifes travesties.

Another great promise is found in Verse 21: For the upright (those who follow God's Will) will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.

We can chose either to be blessed by following God's will in our life daily or we can welcome unwanted curses as well. The choice is ours, God will never force HIS Will on our lives; but instead of struggling and losing our battles, doesn't it make more sense to walk in obedience and have a life of overflowing blessings?

Day 1 in the Study of Proverbs - Chapter 1

Proverbs 1:22 - 32

How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will
scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I
will make my words known to you.


** While I did not include all the writings of these scriptures listed
above; this message really drove home to me how our laid back approach
to following Christ, will indeed lead to Him turning away from us
because of our foolish and constant resistance to truly turn from our
wicked or lackadaisical ways.
God wants so much more for us than we allow Him to pour out into our
lives. Yet, WE are the ones that complicate the walk of Christianity
almost daily. God simply says, do this, see that. Walk this way, watch
the harvest of what you sow grow. Ignore my ways and surely there is a
price to pay.

I pray that I would fall down on my face more often and sincerely cry
out to the Lord, begging Him to break me and truly let every area of
my life that brings displeasure to HIM, to be washed out of me like a
flood against the high towers. Crush my foolishness Lord, rid me of
accepting life on auto pilot at times. Take control of the reigns and
rule over me completely, all the days of my life.

Vs 32 : For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the
complacency of fools destroys them;
vs 33: BUT WHOEVER listens to me will dwell secure and will be at
EASE,WITHOUT dread of disaster.

That's the simplest formula I have ever heard of to have REAL peace,
joy and Wisdom. Listen to GOD and dwell SECURE (no fears no
worries)...turn away from God and surely your life will be filled with
the result of our choices. Think about it...it's truly a no brainer we
consistently miss.

Love in Him,

Danny

The Truth the Way the Life

Emjoy this beautiful message from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.

Numbers 11 and Ungratefulness

As I was reading this portion of Scripture today on http://www.youversion.com/1yearbible it became repulsively real to me just how ungrateful we as human beings really are.

In a world of instant gratification so blatantly crammed in our faces by every form of media and peer influence imaginable; is it any wonder, we get so sidetracked and overloaded with what we "think" we need to be happy in this life?

Numbers 11 illustrates it so beautifully for us. Here we see all who were held as slaves in Egypt and now have been led out to freedom with Moses, grumbling over how "good" they had it as slaves and how tired they had become of the manna that God was providing for their well being and nutritional health. I mean, come on now; the God of the universe was giving them the finest food of all and here they were grumbling, crying out as whiners do "I know I have this Lord, but I WANT meat!" We're just never satisfied are we? And then we question why God is not pouring out blessings in our life.

Ask yourself with complete honesty today: "If I were God and gave them my absolute best, and still they whined and moaned and complained as if the best were not good enough for them; why would I want to give them anything more than what THEY chose to settle for?"

We have been given so much from God already, yet instead of giving Him THANKS for all that He's already done; we go to Him in prayer like He is some vending machine, meant to meet our every WANT. That's not how it works friends and we should be ashamed of our behaving this way toward the one that GAVE HIS ONLY SON so that we could actually LIVE!

And what a great example of God taking some of our burdens away from us when He came and spoke to Moses. Moses is telling God how burdened he is feeling by carrying the weight of all those he brought out of captivity; and what does God do? He tells Moses to bring 70 of the leaders of Israel and that HE will disperse some of the burden and responsibilities onto the 70 as well, so that Moses did not have to carry it all alone. Tell me that isn't a God that IS LOVE...tell me that HE doesn't want us to work Together and pour out HIS blessings on us undeserving wretches.

That's my ramble for the day friends. Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and I pray this message has been a blessing to you as it was to me in reading it, disecting it and sharing the message with you.

For His Glory Alone ~

Danny

I'm no doctor but I know when I need a Check-up

Do YOU need a Check-Up?
Current mood: accomplished

Today's Passages, though I've read them many times over the years; really made me do a self "check up." How many times have we cried out to God in our journey of Faith, wondering if He's still listening to our cries? How long have you suffered in some way for what seemed like an eternity to you and wondered "Have I fallen out of the graces of God?"
For too many years and in too many instances; I can recall these very scenarios, and yet, in the end, God ALWAYS answered. It just may not have been how I "thought" He would.
It seems also that in our times of stubbornness of not getting our own way, we run away from God instead of to Him; which as we all know, only makes our present woes seem magnified that much more.
God's ways to many seem complicated, like one big list of do's and don'ts; but oh how we've got it twisted when we allow ourselves to think this way. Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 7 and 8 :

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Simple formula for good living: ASK, SEEK, KNOCK! Now I don't know about you, but I've sure never had an easier model to follow to be able to live my life well. How bout we give it a try? I DARE YOU to step out of your comfort zones and take God up on HIS challenge to you....Ask, seek, knock; then watch the blessings begin to flow into your life.

So many people spend a life time ripping others apart and tearing them down; when if they'd only get real honest and take a long hard look in the mirror...they'd get to dealing with their own issues and get a lot more done in the process.

Lord, soften our hearts and open our ears to the Good teaching and guidance that your Word offers to every one who will accept it, apply it and share it. Continue to transform our minds, our speech, our thought life and everything we allow our eyes to see or ears to hear. Give us your wisdom and discernment; that we might live a life pleasing to you and also have a heart and courage to confront the wrongs around us in our day to day interaction with others. In Jesus' Mighty and Holy Name I Pray. AMEN


Todays readings came from Genesis 9 and 10, Psalm 11, 13 and Matthew 7 and 8. Join me and a community of others in taking the challenge to read through the Bible in 1 year ! Visit www.youversion.com/1yearbible and join in on the movement!!!

Day 1 of Community Challenge - Oooh Weee God is Goooood

Isn't it sad that even today, just as Herod wanted proof of the Messiah being born; that so many still want proof? I mean, all one needs do is to read the Holy Scriptures and talk to anyone who has been walking with the Lord for any length of time to know personally, that God is Who He said He is and is still Very Alive.
I find it even a bit humorous that Herod and many of today's self proclaimed atheists, not only try to prove Christ is nothing more than a good man and good teacher. I mean it does offend me that they could categorize MY KING, so small and lowly; but what I find humorous about it is that they both go through any means possible to try to have the name of Christ buried. What is it that scares them so much that they can't just accept TRUTH...it is because they know that to admit Christ is ALL He it told to us to be, that they would have to answer for their actions (which they're going to have to anyway) and take accountability that they are indeed fallen and there are consequences.
In reading Psalm 1 and 2 today, I especially enjoyed reading how blessed we are who chose to walk in obedience to God. Verse 3 of Psalm 1 states "He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it's fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
Do you get that? Man that is amazing...and soooo simple...stay plugged into God and HIS Word and you will continually be watered and not run dry!
Bogged down? Feeling unappreciated? Flat tire? Whatever the case may be...plug in, PLUG in, PLUG IN to the source of LIVING WATER and never run dry again. Be REFRESHED.
That's my piece for today, God Bless each of you participating in the commitment to follow through on reading God's Word in Biblical Community, every day this year! Let it become a lifelong habit; as that is my goal personally.
I love you and God Loves You!!