Month: February 2024

21
Feb
2024

Righteous and Wicked

“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again,

But the wicked stumbles in times of calamity.”

Proverbs 24:16

 

I am so thankful for Christ, and what He willingly did for me. He loved me so much that He took the punishment for my sin and paid the price for my sin that I could not pay. Christ, the perfect son of God, took upon Himself my sin and paid the price for my sin so that I could have hope. He also willingly did this so that I could have a relationship with Him. He sacrificed His life to have a relationship with me. What have I done to deserve such sacrifice? NOTHING! I deserve eternal punishment and eternal separation from God, and yet Christ gave His life for me. This is the good news of the Gospel.

I am a sinner. (Rom. 3:23). The payment for my sin is death. (Rom. 6:23). Jesus paid that price by dying for my sins and taking all my sin and all my shame. (Rom 6:23; Heb. 12:2). All we must do is “confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead.” (Rom. 10:9). If we do this, “we will be saved” (Rom 10:9) from eternal death, eternal separation from God.

The good news of the Gospel gives us hope. The good news of the Gospel gives us a purpose to live. The good news of the Gospel once accepted wipes away our shame, guilt, and despair.

Our Proverb today talks about two different people. The righteous and the wicked. What is the difference? The righteous have accepted Christ as their Savior. They believe that Christ has redeemed them and rescued them from the pit of sin they were in and gave them hope of eternal life and an eternal relationship with God. The righteous have a secure eternity because they have placed their faith and hope in God. The righteous still sin.

The majority of people think that once we have accepted Christ as our personal Savior we are now perfect reflections of Christ. How I wish that were true. I would love to represent Christ in the most perfect way in every interaction I have, every word I say, every action I perform, every thought that I think, etc. How wish that every thought, word, and deed in my life was a perfect representation of my Savior, but it is not. I have not been perfected yet because I am not in heaven. So every time that I do stumble and sin, I “rise again.” (Prov. 24:16). I may stumble in the same sin or in a variety of sins, but I do not stay in the sin.

My goal in life is to look more like Christ every day. This is what we call progressive sanctification. Every day, I want to look a little bit less like the sinner that I was and a little more like Christ. The only way this is possible is because I allow the Holy Spirit to help me. I allow the Word of God to be lived out in my life.

The contrast is the wicked person. The wicked person stumbles in his sin and does not “rise again.” (Prov. 24:16). The wicked wallows in his sin. He enjoys his sin. He keeps going back to his sin. There is no conviction by the Holy Spirit when he sins. When he is confronted with his sin, he does not seek repentance and restoration. Rather, the wicked person continues in his sin and does not desire to change. When faced with a circumstance or a “calamity” (Prov. 24:16) in his life he has two choices, as we all do. Will we choose Christ and choose to respond to the situation as Christ would respond? The second choice is will we choose to sin “stumble” (Prov. 24:16). Every time something happens in life we always have a choice. Will we live for Christ or will we live for ourselves? The righteous person may sin in the moment, but then they realize their sinful ways and repent and choose to live as Christ would in the next situation.

The wicked will sin in the moment, but when confronted with their sin they continue in their sin. There is no repentance, but only blatant desire to continue in their sin. The key difference between the righteous person and the wicked person is the fruit of their lives.

The Gospel is the good news that gives us hope. The Gospel is the perfect love that Christ had for us that challenges us to live righteously. We all have a choice and with that choice the fruit that we produce gives evidence of what is in our hearts.

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14
Feb
2024

Buy Truth

Buy Truth, and do not sell it;

Buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

Proverbs 23:23

Truth…We have all by now heard people say “live your truth,” “my truth,” or “you wouldn’t understand you are not a part of this generation.” Truth has become a variable. When did truth become a variable? It has been a slow evolution from things being black and white to grey.

Our Proverb today says that we should “buy truth and not sell it.” However, we live in a culture that has sold truth. The Bible used to be the source of truth for so many, but now we have Bible scholars that believe that Genesis is myth and Job is an allegory. The more that truth is sold and lies are believed the more the foundation of our society, our culture, and the world becomes unsteady. What can we count on what can we rely on if truth is sold?

We have been encouraged to believe that what makes us happy is what we should trust in. If a relationship will make us happy, we should go after that relationship even if that relationship contradicts what the Bible says. God gave us guidelines in His Word, because He created us and He knows what is best for us. Just like the manufacturer of a chain saw knows that you need oil and gas mixed together in order for the chain saw to run well, so God wrote the Bible as our guidebook so we would know how to live. When we buy truth and not sell truth four happiness, we will actually have more joy and peace than we could ever imagine.

We think that if we do things our way rather than God’s way, we will get what we are looking for. Just like the person that thinks that running the chain saw without oil mixed with the gas will work okay, so our lives will begin to malfunction when we do not follow the truth of God’s Word.

Our verse not only encourages us to buy truth and not sell it, it also encourages us to buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. How do we do this? We are humble enough to seek others out for wisdom and discernment. When we buy wisdom, we are saying in essence that we need it. When I go to the grocery store every week, it is because I need things to eat for the week. I go there to buy things because I need them. So we need wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

Since they are such great needs in our life, we must seek out those that are wise. Do the people that we are seeking out following God’s Word, or are we seeking people that will only tell us what we want to hear? It may be easier to just put gas in your chainsaw, but is it best. In order to follow the manufacturer’s directions for the chainsaw, you need a separate gas can and special oil so that you can mix the oil and the gas together. Follow the manufacturer’s directions and your chainsaw will run well, but do it your own way and it won’t run well.

So it is with our lives. When we see God, His Word, and those that choose to live by God’s Word as the source for wise living, we will experience more peace and joy. The byproduct of buying truth, wisdom, instruction, and understanding is a life that will be filled with more peace, hope and joy. Our circumstances may not change, but our response to them will.

We buy what we need. We need to be sure we understand that what we need is truth, wisdom, and understanding. That is what we need to be focused on buying.

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments
07
Feb
2024

Apply your Heart and your Ear

Apply your heart to instruction

And your ear to words of knowledge.

Proverbs 23:12

 

I like to read. If you spend any length of time with me, you will hear me start expounding the virtues of listening to books. I started listening to books last year, and it has opened up a whole new world for me. Do you realize how many listening hours you have? Do you realize how many wasted hours we have in our day that we could be listening to a book? I listen to books while I am driving (obvious), doing laundry, doing dishes, making meals, doing other chores around the house. Sometimes, if the book is really good and I can’t wait to find out what happens next, I will listen while I am outside feeding the birds and the cats. I don’t like to do that very often though because when I am outside I want to hear all the beautiful creatures and outside noises. I read/listened (because I still actually do read) 70 books last year. My goal for this year is 100 books. In January, I listened to 10 books so I am well on my way.

I listen to a wide variety of books, but the books that I take the time to actually read the printed word are books that help me in my Christian walk. I call these my “counseling books.” They are the books that help me to better understand the people that God has sent for me to use His Word to counsel them through the difficult circumstances of life. No matter what book I am reading to assist someone else, there are always truths from God’s Word that I can apply to my own life.

As a believer in Jesus Christ and what He did for me on the cross, I am always endeavoring to progress in my sanctification. I want to be more like Christ every day. Progressive sanctification is a process whereby I take the truth of God’s Word and apply it to my life so that each day I look more and more like Christ and less and less like my “old self.”(Eph. 4: 22) I will not accomplish this overnight nor will I accomplish it this side of heaven, but I want to be progressing. I want to be growing.

What are you applying yourself to? What are you listening to? What are you spending your time doing? One of the books that I listened to talked about the impact of our cell phones. It was a secular book, but I was very convicted by what it said. Because of that book, I have started turning my phone to airplane mode while I am spending time with the Lord. That way I don’t have to be distracted by it. When I am reading my Bible and spending time in prayer, this needs to be uninterrupted time with my Lord. How can I apply myself to the truth of Scripture if I keep allowing myself to be interrupted by my phone?

The idea of applying your heart (Prov. 23:12) gives us the idea that we need to apply our desires and the things that we love to instruction. Do we want to allow our desires to learn the truth of Scripture or do we want to allow them to run rampant in our lives? What we are filling our thoughts and our time with shows us what it is that we desire.

Are we desiring to grow in our sanctification? We will diligently apply ourselves and listen to things that help us to grow and be more like Christ. What do we listen to? We also need to “apply our ears to words of knowledge.” (Prov. 23:12). As the saying goes “garbage in, garbage out.”

We all have the same 24 hours in our day. We also have control over many parts of our day. During the times that you can control, what are you choosing to apply yourself to? What are you choosing to listen to? You know how you spend your time. Allow the Lord to convict you as He has me, to be spending your time applying yourself to the learning and practicing of His Word. Let 2024 be the year, that you look more like Christ and less like your old self.

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 2 comments