First Things First

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

God’s Word teaches wisdom Is the number one thing we should pursue in life - not human wisdom, but the wisdom that comes from God. So how do we get God’s wisdom? How can we know the difference between His wisdom and natural wisdom? And why is wisdom so important anyway?

Believe it or not, the Bible has a great deal to say about wisdom. Do you realize wisdom has a real voice that is calling out to you? 

Instead of wearing yourself out in the pursuit of success, if you understand the power of prioritising wisdom you will be empowered to see your way through to a successful and fulfilling life. Rather than trying to get rich, get wisdom! The wisest and richest man in history said it this way:

"Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit." Proverbs 23:4 (NLT)

God desires to bless you. It’s not a question of that. God can do so much to build your life, but you can tear it down through a lack of wisdom. Even though God is able to restore what has been stolen or lost to you, without wisdom, whatever you may gain will be torn down. 

"A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands." Proverbs 14:1 (NLT)

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to get ahead in life, the key is to make sure you have the correct priorities. First things first. Otherwise life has a way of unravelling.  

For all the effort you may be spending trying to get what you want or need, the answer is to change your focus and get wisdom. This will mean a paradigm shift, a fundamental change of thinking and living. 

So, where does God’s wisdom begin? Where do you start? Solomon leaves no doubt. 

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10 (NKJV)

The ‘fear of the Lord’ is not a cowering fear but an awe-filled reverence for Who God is. Basically, if you fear God, you have decided that nothing in life is more important than knowing Who He is. 

Ultimately, blessing comes to those who build their life on a foundation of obedience to God. Are you prepared to put God first with your time, your commitment, your passion and your call? Are you prepared to say Yes Lord, and apply the wisdom to make a way in life? If you do, you can expect victory over opposition, blessing and prosperity, increasing influence and abiding peace.

PRAYER:
Lord, I recognise the importance of building my life on the foundation of Your wisdom, and that begins with putting You first in everything. I ask for Your grace and the guidance of Your Holy Spirit as I choose to pursue Your wisdom from this day forward.

Test Your Thoughts

Test Your Thoughts 

The thoughts you keep in a loop determine the direction of your life. — Steven Furtick 

We have a lot of thoughts every day. In fact, many experts believe we think somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day. That averages out to 2,500 to 3,300 per hour. Remarkable, isn’t it?

It would be great if our thoughts were all good. But many of them are negative and toxic. The good news is that we have a guide to help us test our thoughts. Philippians 4:8 is a great test as to whether we should think about something. The verse tells us to think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Consider each word listed below.

True
One of the most important things to consider about our thoughts is, “Are they true?” Too often our thoughts are just not true. We need to focus on what is authentic, real, and lines up with God's Word.

Noble
Because we are children of God, we’re in the highest of ranks! Our thoughts should be royal and regal. Not in an arrogant way but in not allowing ourselves to think in an unkind or repulsive manner.

Right
So many people want to be right—to be the one who is never wrong. But often, we don’t allow that desire for being right to permeate our thoughts. Thinking right thoughts means allowing accuracy and appropriateness to guide us.

Pure
To be pure in heart and thought is not as difficult as it seems. It’s simply choosing to think on ethical, good, upright, and honest things.

Lovely
This is a word that isn’t used much, but it should be. To think lovely thoughts means to see the beautiful and stunning in life and allow our minds to think upon those things.

Admirable
To be admired is something most people want. But do we want admirable thoughts? Thoughts that are credible and distinguished and allow us to live in such a way that is commendable.

Excellent
The best of the best is what excellent is. When our thoughts are excellent, they are superb, exceptional, and fabulous. Excellent thoughts lead us to live excellent lives.

Worthy of praise

What thoughts are worthy of praise? Thoughts about God. His ways, His plans, and His creation, to name a few. It’s safe to say that when our thoughts are on Him, that’s a good thing.
We can test our thoughts every day. As we do this, eventually we won’t have to test many of our thoughts because we will already know if they meet up to the standards in Philippians 4:8.

We will never be able to adjust every negative thought that approaches our awareness, but we can certainly try to free our minds from toxic thinking…one thought at a time.

Lord I come to you today to pray for help, help with knowing the thoughts we have and choosing which ones are really godly.

God we thank you for all the thoughts that we have every day!  we pray that you would help us to take control of those thoughts and not allow them to run our lives, but in-fact help us to control our thoughts.  we know that not all of our thoughts will be great, or even good so help please help us to know when they are not righteous.  God we pray that you would help us follow the guidance you provide in every scripture in the bible.  today help us to truly in our hearts follow Philippians 4:8.  Thank you for everything you do for us every day.  Amen.

Will you Pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world for our current situation

Terese for quick and proper healing from her surgery 

Kurt and Melissa, For continued strength through the adoption process 

Red, for strength through harder times 

Stephen and Hope, for continued health throughout their pregnancy 

Ray for his son, continued healing 

Chloe for continued support and encouragement 

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel 

For all military personal serving our country and their families 

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world

Trusting God is Essential

As a kid I remember watching Looney Tunes and there was one episode in particular where an older Indian walked across hot coals, cool as a cucumber while everyone watched in amazement.  Soon a young brave comes up and tries to do the same.  When he gets off the coal bed, his feet are pulsating red-hot and smoking.  

Just like the young brave, all too often we try to handle the tough situations ourselves instead of giving them to God.  I know that I am guilty of this all the time.  As soon as something gets a little tough I say, “I’ve got this!”  When I should be saying, “God I know you have a plan and that everything happens for a reason please help me to see why this is happening and help me to gain the knowledge to not let it happen again”

Are you guilty of this?

If you are you’re not alone, trust me!

Trusting in God no matter the situation can be tough but it is essential for our wellbeing.  We are placed in tough situations so we can learn and grow.  God wants us to lean on him for everything every day.  He wants us to trust that he has everything under control.  He needs us to know that we are here to serve him and help others find him throughout our lives.  He allows us to walk through the fire we create so that we can know he here for us.  He asks us to walk through the raging river trusting that we will not be swept away before we ever touch the water.  God is telling us that he has our back, it is our duty to ensure that we trust him fully. 

What can you do to trust in God even more?  When was the last time you came to God asking for his help to get you out of the situation you created?  When was the last time you thanked God for allowing you to work through the situation?

When I think about silence and faith, I think about Daniel from the old testament.  Can you imagine for how long those 12 hours were that he spent in the lions den? Ill bet for all of the people who threw him into the den that evening was filled with laughter, food and went by very quickly.  For Daniel it must have felt like an eternity though.  Praying earnestly talking to God’s angles throughout the evening.  That must have felt as though it was a lifetime.  Also look at the king.  Daniel was more than just an advisor he was a friend.  How did long was that night for the king?  The thing about hard times is that when we are in the middle of them they seem like an eternity.  When in reality they are not much more than a blink of an eye of our life. 

God knows that we can endure those times, as long as we trust in him. 

God today we come to you today to say thank you!  Thank you for having our backs no matter how bad of a decision we might make.  Thank you for allowing us to walk through the fire so that we might learn from those times. Thank you for not allowing the flames to devour us during those lessons.   God we pray that you allow us to learn from those lessons, help us not to make the same mistakes again.  Help us to lean on you through both our great times and our harder times.  Let us see that satin is at the door and help us to hold the door closed and not let him in!  God we know that you have a plan for our lives, we pray that you help us to be the best person we can be every day.  We pray that you help us make those tough decisions and help us to know that you are there to support us.  Thank you for giving us people to learn from, especially those in your word.  Thank you for being there for us no matter what!

Amen

Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Not only so, but 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.
Romans 5:3-5 NIV

This scripture really touched my heart.  How often when things start to get tough and we start to suffer do we turn to God and say, “What did I do to deserve this” or “I really tried to listen to you, but I feel that I didn’t get the point.”  So often, we turn to God when times are tough to ask him for guidance and to take away our suffering.  The way I take these verses are that it is only through suffering that we can learn perseverance, gain our true charter, and hope so big that we can’t help but be happy.

Wow, that was awesome!

Let’s break down these verses even more.  What is perseverance?  I grew up in the grange where they always prayed for perseverance.  To me perseverance is when you don’t give up.  Angela Duckworth would call it “Grit.”  The ability to stick with something even when things do go as easily as expected.  Faith requires perseverance, being an employee requires perseverance, being the leader requires perseverance, being a parent requires perseverance.  I think you get the point, life requires that we have perseverance, or grit.  Never giving up is huge.  I have been listening regularly to the podcast, “Born to Impact.”  These guys are amazing and constantly talk about what it means to have perseverance.  They use the analogy of a person who hits a rock 99 times and it never breaks, then he swings the 100^th time and the rock breaks open and is full of amazing beauty.  If you don’t have perseverance and gave up at swing 99, you would have never found the true treasure. 

Let’s move on to character.  I consider character to be how we act, and react to every situation that God places in our lives.  Our character is formed by the events that happen for us.  The way we act on those situations shows our true character.  Ill bet that we have been in a situation where our boss was not a a nice guy.  Maybe we gave him a reason not to be nice to us, maybe we didn’t.  the fact is that we don’t like our current situation.  We have the option to allow our character to be one who goes around talking about them behind their backs, or we can bring it up to them and ask how we can fix the situation.  The point here is that our character is what makes the difference.  How is our character formed?  By the situations, God has led us through and our actions during those times.  Character is something that can change over time in everyone.  We have the ability to grow into the person we are truly supposed to be.

Hope!  How would you describe hope?  To me Hope is the ability to have faith that things will turn out great.  Even in those situations where we KNOW beyond any doubt that it will never work out, having faith that it will work out.  Hope is the ability to see the good in others when no one else does.  Hope is the light of the world.  Hope believes that humanity will take the righteous actions.  Hope can be anything you want it to be as long as you believe in it.  Hope is knowing that no matter what God has my life and yours under control.  All we have to do is sit back, work like heck, and trust that God is guiding the ship in the direction he needs it to go. 

The last part of these verses are the hardest for me.  They say that it is only through suffering that we can gain all of these things.  Why are we so, for lack of better words, dumb, that we have to suffer to gain perspective in this?  God knows our path, he knows us before we are even born, he knows us better than we know ourselves.

God today we come to you to just say, THANK YOU!  Thank you for giving us the ability to change, thank you for giving us perseverance that’s changes our charter and gives us hope.  Thank you for everything that you do and everywhere that you guide us to be.  God I pray that you help these words to touch someone’s heart and allow them to see Jesus in them.  God I pray that you help us to give all glory for everything to you.  God thank you for allowing us to suffer so that we may gain all of these awesome traits.  Thank you.

Amen

God Never Gives up on You!

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

WOW those are some pretty powerful words.  Jesus speaks about how a tree can only bear good fruit or bad fruit.  It can’t bear both.  When he talking about this he wasn’t talking about a real tree he was speaking about people.  When someone has evil in their heart they don’t have the ability to allow God into their hearts.  It happens to all of us at times.  There have been times in my life where I have been overcome with jealousy, or envy, or just wanted to make more money.  I’m not proud of those times and I’m definitely not bragging about them either.

Can you think of any of those times in your life? Times where you didn’t bear good fruit. 

Even through those hard times did God give up on you when you lost your way?  NO!  He never gives up on us.  He asks that we don’t give up on other or ourselves either.  That’s part being a person that bears “good fruit”, not giving up.  We can’t give up because someone hurts us.  We continue to forgive them and in the end it makes us better fruit. 

Last week we talked about how God has a plan for all of us, and how he knew us before were ever born.  I believe that God also knows when we will stumble.  He uses that as a way to help us know that he is in control of everything.  God wants all of his children to bear good fruit.  Think back to when you were a child (I still am according my wife, lol).  Do you remember having to learn a lesson the hard way?  Oh man do I ever.  I had to learn lots lessons the hard way.  There were definitely times where I did not bear good fruit for God.  Does that mean that I can’t bear good fruit now?  No it doesn’t.  Because God knew before I was born that I would mistakes, just like you, just like your neighbor, just like the rest of the world.  He knew that we would struggle.  That’s why God sent his son for us, to atone for our sins. 

God we would like to thank you today for never giving up on us. Like a farmer never gives up on his crops, or parents never give up on their children.  We thank you for taking time to help us bear good fruits.  We know that life can be tough, you never said that it would be easy.  We know that you are here for us and that you help us when we need it.  God Thank you for the opportunities that you give us to share our good fruits.  We pray that you would help us to realize when we are starting to get “rotten” before it’s too late.  God we pray that you help us to share love, give joy to others, seek peace in conflicting times, show kindness when we are struggling, be good to others, always be faithful to you, have genital hands and gentle words, and above all else have self-control in every situation.  We thank you for never giving up on us.

Amen

God knows our purpose, we may not, but GOD DOES

We were all created for a reason.  We may not know that reason yet or our true purpose but rest assured God knows it and he is grooming you and me to be the perfect person.

Have you ever had a time in life where you didn’t understand why something was happening?  I can think of about, let’s see, way too many times that it happened to me.  When I was younger, I remember applying for a job, being super stoked that I was asked to interview.  Nailing the interview, I mean I just killed it.  Then right before walking out the door asking a question that put doubt into the manager’s head.  Not getting the job and wondering why God didn’t allow this to happen.  Guess what if I would have gotten that job, there is a very real chance that you wouldn’t be reading this today. 

God already knows our path.  He does his very best to ensure that we follow it. 

Ed Mylett recently interviewed Darryl Strawberry on his pod cast and it was amazing to hear his story and how he gave all credit to God for everything that happened.  Even the stuff that we would never see as Godly.  He knew that if he did endure and encounter the hard times in his life that he would not be able to connect with God the same way as he does today.  One of my favorite lines was “I’m a sinner. I’m just not practicing right now!”  How profound and true is that. 

God knows where we are supposed to be.  Who we are going to influence and he will give us the platform we need.  He knows us before we are ever born, he knows us when we are in the womb.  Trust in God and know that no matter what happens it is God’s plan.  God never said once in the bible that having faith would be easy, or that bad things would happen if we had strong faith.  He did how ever say that he would never guv us more than we could handle.  God is building the perfect you!!

God as we come to you today we know that you are in control of our entire lives.  We know that you have a purpose for us and that you are preparing us for what you truly have intended for our lives.  WE ask that you give us the patience and preservice to keep on keeping on through the trials.  We pray that we help us to keep contact with you through the great times.  Most of all God we thank you for making us who we are and helping to mold us into who YOU need us to be.  Thank you for making me, me!  Amen

True Wisdom Is More Than Knowledge

When you think about wisdom what comes to mind?  For me several different things pop up.  One is knowledge, another is to know when to stop or start, another is being able to ask questions when you don’t understand.  I used to think that wisdom is being able to answer every question every time.  Knowing the answers meant that you were smart.  I learned that wisdom so much more than knowing the answers and being considered smart by my peers. 

Wisdom from form heaven is so much more that knowing all the answers.  It is being able to pray anytime anywhere, it is giving all of our problems and the things that go great to God.  It is knowing that we aren’t really in control of our lives, but he is.  It is being able to forgive anyone for anything that they have done.  It is not showing favoritism, anger, judgment, or condemnation.  It is following God’s commands without hesitation. 

True heavenly wisdom is so much more than knowledge; it is trusting in God with all of your heart.  Heavenly wisdom is not gained through worldly experiences but is given freely to all of those who ask.  It is our duty to use the wisdom God provides us to serve him better. 

God we come to you today to ask for your help.  We ask that you help to bless us with your wisdom.  Help us to discern the difference between worldly wisdom and heavenly wisdom.  Lord we thank you for everything that you have given unto us.  We ask that you help us to use all of the wisdom you have blessed us with for you.  Show us how and where you need us to use our gifts.  Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. Amen