Listen & Be Wise

 

Proverbs 23:19

Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in The Way.

    Listen. Pay attention. Consider what I am saying that you may comprehend exactly the words which I speak. Hear what I have to say, think on these things which I have said, and then act on what you have heard. 

    Be wise. Be men and women of God, obedient to His Wisdom, as were the three young Hebrew men who were captured in Daniel 1:17, 20. Be men and women of honor: don't just hear The Voice of God speak, but be obedient and do what He says to do. 

    Listen. His Voice is not always a thunderclap. He is the still small voice that whispers to your hearts. He is the calm in the storm. He is the gentle curvature of wing that encircles and comforts. 

    Be wise. Be wise in the ways of The Lord that you may live according to the wisdom of The Word. Make wise choices. Put God first: honor Him with our lives: choose what is right and do that Every Single Time. 

    Listen. Hear the words of my instructions as student to student, disciple to disciple. Take in the knowledge which I have gleaned from my walk with The Lord and what I have learned throughout my years. 

    In The New Testament, The Lord directs our attention to the flower-covered fields: Consider the lilies. What is there to consider in lilies? In Matthew and Luke the lily blooms for a day and is then gone. Yet God chooses to clothes them in beauty. 

   Consider this: In Hosea 14:5, Israel is compared to a lily whose growth comes from the dew. We need God to be the dew for us, too. We need Him to cause us to grow in the way He would have us to grow. 

'I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like the lily and take root like the cedars of Lebanon.' 

    Without God as our Instructor, our Teacher, our God, we will get nowhere. Our days will be lived in futility. Our hearts will have gleaned nothing from The Word of God because we chose not to consider what He had to say. 

    Direct your hearts. Lead your hearts. Don't let your heart dictate your actions. Following your hearts is a fool's game. The heart is deceitful and cannot be trusted to make wise choices on its own. We need to guard our hearts-Proverbs 4:23. 

    Learn to rein in your hearts. We need to train our hearts in The Ways of The Lord. And that is only accomplished when we Listen to His instructions and Obey His directions. 

Proverbs 28:26

He who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.

    Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us that not only are we to trust in The Lord, but we are to do so with the understanding which He gives us and not in our own dense way, so to speak. Our minds tend to wander when left on their own. But when we are focused on the things of The Lord, the wandering becomes a thing of the past. Now we are motivated to 'stay the course'; to 'run with endurance the race set before us'.  

    We have made the decision to put God first in everything we do, and when a conscious decision to follow The Lord Jesus Christ is made, then He takes up residence in our hearts, and our hearts no longer wander. We are a 'new creation' and our new roots are settled in The Word of God. 

    Now God makes our paths straight. Does this mean that our lives are comfy now? Not hardly. When we put God first, He lays out the way we should go, whether we climb the mountain in front of us or tell it to get out of the way. Many an obstacle in The Way, has kept a person from being fully committed to Listening to and Obeying The Word of God. 

    It may look like a narrow path, but it is also the safest course of direction for living a life that glorifies God. I hope you remain committed to Listening, to Being Wise, to Directing your hearts in The Way. I know I am. 

    

    

Guard Your Heart - - Invest Your Time Wisely

 

Ephesians 5:16, 17

 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

*Strong's Ex. Conc. No. 1805

Redeeming: buy up, ransom, rescue from loss

From the Greek word 'exagorazó' (pronounced ex-ag-or-ad'-zo). I buy out, I buy away from; I ransom, I redeem, I purchase, I choose.

'Time is a talent given us by God, and it is misspent and lost when not employed according to His design.' - Matthew Henry Commentary

    To pay careful attention is to closely watch, keep an open eye on. To be very attentive to. 

    Do we drive with our eyes closed? Kinda hard to see the potholes that way, isn't it? Can we even walk alone with our eyes barely open? I can't. Even within my home I am thankful for even floors and close walls: I hold onto the walls and take baby steps on the floors. I walk cautious.

    It is the same in our spiritual walk with God. Being ready to walk requires preparation. Have we knelt before God and given Him our allegiance? Our full allegiance, not just lip service, but heart service. 

TALENTS OF TIME

    Remember the Parable of Talents? The Master took away from the fearful servant, who had the least amount of talents, and gave it to the one who had been given the most, the one who doubled for the Master the talents he had been given. 

    Now, money-wise one talent equals one year's wages. Imagine being given double your wages. But not for your own pleasures. The two years worth of wages is yours to invest and return to the Master when He returns. 

    But consider, as Matthew Henry does, that one of the talents being given is Time. A reckoning of time spent will be required by The Master at His return. We must consider now, therefore, how we have invested the Time He gave us. 

    Have we honored Him with our time? Have we invested our time or wasted our time? Not all my times on this earth have been used to glorify God; to my shame. Coming to the realization that my time is not my own, I endeavor to glorify God with the best use of my time, that time which God has given me, that I may show Him when He returns and claims again the time He gave me. 

DEVOURER OF TIME

John 10:10 "The thief comes only that he might steal and might kill and might destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."

1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: Resist him, standing firm in your faith and in the knowledge that your brethren throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering."

    Our time is best spent in serving God. In searching Him out in His Word, in seeking His face in our prayer times. In submitting ourselves to His service the way He desires to be served, not the way in which we think He should be served. 

    The enemy of our souls seeks to devour our time, to fill it up with emptiness and dissatisfaction. Time spent not serving God according to His Word, His Will and His Way is time lost; time lost cannot be recouped. 

REDEEM THE TIME

    Acknowledging that we are not the best at deciding how to spend the time we have been given should lead us to seeking God on how best to use the Time He has placed in our hands. And He always has an answer for us. We choose to take back time and use it for Him, not wasting it on us.

    Seek first the kingdom of God.

        Matthew 6:33

    Repent and be baptized.

        Acts 2:38

    Ask Me for Living Water.

        John 7:39

    Love one another as I have loved you.

        John 13:34

    Clothe yourselves in Righteousness.

        Ephesians 4:24

    Put your spiritual battle gear on.

        Ephesians 6:10-20

    Persevere in your race and Endure with patience every trial.

        Hebrews 10:36

    Pray without ceasing.

        1 Thessalonians 5:17

    There are many, many more ways in which we can increase the value of the Time we are given. We just need to study the Word for ourselves and come together as a group (what is commonly referred to as 'going to church'), that the Word of God may be made plain to us who want to hear the clear Truth of God's Word. 

    Our hearts must be ready(prepared to be His sanctuary) and willing (eager to hear) to receive what God wants to plant in us. Let us be ready for Christ's return, not spending the time we have now in regret, but using it for Him. 

Redeem The Time Medley