Today’s Scrip-Bit   29 January 2024 Proverbs 21:4.

29 Jan 2024 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Proverbs 21:4.       An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing (lamp) of the wicked, is sin.

And as Sunday goes into the annals of history, Monday comes storming in like a bold, proud warrior, so sure of himself that he defies anyone to defeat him! But little does Monday know that there’s a group of strongmen called Christians, believers in the Lord of Lords, King of Kings and Light of the world, Jesus Christ, just waiting to devour him in His bright sunshine, as he comes strutting in with his pompous self. He obviously doesn’t know that the Leader of that group of strong, steadfast and faithful believers, Almighty God, hates pride and arrogance, and summarily destroys all those who bear those negative traits. 

It says so, right in the Lord’s Word, per Cousin Sol. ‘These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look (haughty eyes), a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations (devises wicked plans), feet that be swift in running to mischief (trouble). A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.’ (Prov. 6:16-19) Yes friends, those seven things and people who reflect them, our Lord hates with a passion. 

But please note which one Cousin Sol puts first: the man with the proud and haughty demeanour, or behaviour. The Lord dislikes such a man because his behaviour indicates to the Lord that he is above the dictates of God, and therefore has no use for Him. And there’s nothing that gets the Lord’s anger going like one of His petty human creations playing the big man and refusing to bow down to Him. 

And Bruh David said it thus in Psalm 101, when he describes the perfect King, hoping that he himself would follow those dictates, but also foretelling of his descendant, Jesus Christ being the one to fulfill that ideal picture. Re pride, he says: ‘’Whoso privily (secretly) slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off (destroy): him that hath an high look and proud heart will not I suffer (endure).’ (Ps. 101: 5) That just goes to show that the perfect king, that’s Jesus, dislikes the proud and will not put up with him. 

Meanwhile later on in Proverbs, Cousin Sol states it thus: ‘An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing (lamp) of the wicked, is sin.’ (Prov. 21:4) As one translation puts it: ‘Arrogance and pride – distinguishing marks in the wicked – are just plain sin.’ That’s for certain sure! But the plowing of the wicked basically means: ‘their work, all they do; for it is not done to please God but themselves; nor carried on in His strength, but in reliance upon their own, and therefore it is “sin,” not pleasing to Him.’ 

And the bibleref.com website gives this commentary on the verse. ‘This proverb notes that immoral people are guided by arrogance and selfishness. In effect, the arrogant person worships himself. Their life is defined and guided by their preferences, instead of a sincere interest in God’s truth (Proverbs 3:1-5). Such attitudes are completely incompatible with submission to Him (Proverbs 6:16-19; Psalm 101:5).’  You cannot dispute those statements my brethren, because they are pure truth. Our God dislikes anything that smacks of arrogance and selfishness. 

Then, in Romans chapter 1, where Bruh Paul talks about ‘God’s Wrath Against Ungodliness,’ in the long list of ungodly deeds and doers, he includes: ‘Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful (violent), proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,’ (Rom. 1:30) Yuh see that the proud have also made it to Bruh Paul’s list of ungodly things. 

And Jesus verily informed us that ‘There is nothing from without (outside) a man, that entering him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile him.’ (Mark 7:15) Then he ended his discourse with these words. ‘Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness (licentiousness), an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.’ (Mark 7:22-23) Jesus said it; therefore, it must be true! 

That’s why James could advise us about being enemies of God, if we desire to be friends with the world, and one of the many things the world prizes is pride. James says: ‘But he giveth more grace, Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ (James 4:6-7) That means if we’re seeking God’s grace, then the first thing to do is be humble before Him, because He prizes humility above most of the other human attributes. 

And being humble doesn’t mean being fearful and weak kneed, but showing the proper reverence and respect for our powerful God and Creator, knowing that our dreams and desires, our very lives are in His mighty hands. And we’ll take this last potent scripture from John’s first epistle, where he solemnly warns us. ‘For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh (physical desires), and the lust of the eyes (personal desires), and the pride of life (self-interests), is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ (1 John 2:16-17) 

Now,  with those awesome words of wisdom, let’s go to the throne of grace, humbly, but confidently, and through our Monday Morning Battle Hymn, ask for divine help in this our time of desperate need. Altogether now: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, we, Your humble servants, praise Your Holy Name and thank You this Monday morning for life and strong faith in Christ, despite the mass confusion in our world. Heavenly Father, You are the ONLY ONE with the power to solve our many problems. 

Yes, we have all sinned and seriously disobeyed Your Word, but You are a merciful, forgiving and gracious God, who has faithfully promised to hear and answer our prayers when we humble ourselves, pray, and sincerely seek Your face. So, we come to You now, with sincere repentance in our hearts, pleading for wise guidance and direction to alleviate our problems. Oh Father, please ease the pain of the many suffering from negative situations, show them Your awesome grace and mercy. And faithfully keep Your promise to prosper us if we turn from our evil ways. Show this evil world that You are indeed Jehovah Rapha; the God who heals! We pray this in the holy and blessed name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen! And again, we say: Amen!’ 

And there’s only one way to get divine help, that’s by turning from our evil ways to godly ones! Much LOVE!

…only by pride cometh contention (strife)…but with the well advised is wisdom… (Prov. 13:10)

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Today’s Scrip-Bit 9 November 2019 1 John 2:17.

09 Nov 2019 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 John 2:17.    ​And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
 

Ah Lord eh people! The devil surely knows how to interrupt our day and cause us to get into an unholy tiff! I was down here fairly early to write the Bit, even opened the internet access and checked some emails, and replied to a couple. Next thing I know, the computer’s telling me there’s no internet access, so they couldn’t be sent. On checking, there seems to be some problem with my internet provider, the great Bell Canada, so right now I have no internet or TV access. Steups! I was having problems with the old computer, so I bought a new one, now I’m having problems with the internet provider. 

Then, I was planning to come and write the Bit on Word so it could be easily sent out whenever the situation is rectified, but today is Saturday, time for our friend Anselm’s quotes, but I can’t even get to them because they are in my internet mailbox. So everything will just have to wait! Glory Be! What else can I say eh? I’m chuckling here, because there’s nothing much I can do. You can’t even get through to Bell on the phone; the line’s busy. Oh, the duchess just told me that everything is back, except the internet…Whoopee dee! 

You know I’m even surprised that I have such a good attitude. I expected to be quite annoyed…and guess I was, because earlier on it gave me a headache. That good attitude must be the Lord’s doing yes, because I certainly can’t remember pressing the good attitude button. (smile) So that’s it until the internet comes back. (9.16 a.m.) Yuh know what, I can’t even save this, because it has to go through the server!  Chuh! What a way we’ve become beholden, de facto slaves, to electronic technology! 

Yeaaah! It’s come back at 922! So we can go right into our friend Anselm’s quotes and see how he aspired to inspire us this week. Here is the first one: ‘You do not find the happy life. You make it.’ And that’s oh so true! Unfortunately too many of us seem to think that a happy life comes naturally, especially believers who have just hooked up to Jesus. But that’s one of the devil’s many lies. If you want to have a happy life, even with Jesus, you have to do your part to make it so. And the best route to happiness is obviously the one that runs through Jesus! Praise His holy name! 

And the second quote advises us to ‘Limit your “always” and your “nevers”.’ Now that’s not bad advice because life is so contrary, that one moment you’ll say you’ll never do something, then the next find yourself having to do it. I can speak to that from personal experience. There have been so many things I claimed I’d never do, but eventually ended up doing them because of life and its contrary circumstances. So let’s not make too may extreme statements, because life just finds pleasure in making us eat our words. 

Moving on to the next quote: ‘When you are through changing, you are through.’ Now that leaves me somewhat confused because I don’t really understand what it means. (smile) Taken exactly as it’s written, it makes sense; when you’re done changing, you can’t change anymore. Unless it means that when you are finished changing, you have come through the changes, like coming through a tunnel or something. But let’s not forget that one of the few certainties we have in life is that it’s always changing, which means we too are always in the process of change. 

And we all know the verity of this next quote: ‘Nothing is impossible. The word itself says “I’m possible!” Yeh friends and fellow believers in Jesus Christ, we know that for a fact, as the angel Gabriel told Mary, Jesus’ mother when he informed her that she was going to bear a child without knowing a man. (Luke 1:26-35) Wow! ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible.’ (Luke 1:37) And so it should be my people! The creator of our great universe can do any and everything! And that benefits us oh so much, that I don’t understand why so many people are turning away from Him, rather than running into His ever ready, waiting and LOVING arms! 

But hopefully this last quote will help us see the wisdom of turning to God, through Christ Jesus. It says: ‘Everything comes to pass, nothing comes to stay.’ And that’s gospel truth my brethren! And we’ll look at a few scriptures that support that statement, starting with Bruh Paul’s contention to the Corinthians: ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.’ (2 Cor.5:17) Yes friends, the first step in becoming righteous means a passing away of one’s old life and all the ungodly things that existed in it. 

And then too friends, our earthly and mortal bodies will pass away. But, per Bruh Paul: ‘Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.’ (1 Cor. 15:51) Our bodies will go back to the dust from whence they came, but our spirits will live on forever with our Triune God, all thanks to Jesus Christ, who gives us that eventual victory! 

Now hear John in his first epistle. ‘For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.’ (1 John 2:16) Ah mih people, sin and our evil desires are so much a natural part of our human existence it’s difficult to run away from them, but we ought to, since as John continues: ‘And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.’ It could not be any plainer or straightforward than that my brethren! 

And John seals it all with this vision in his Revelations. ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.’ (Rev.21:1) Yeh friends, just like Isaiah predicted in Is. 65:17 and 66:22, a new world will eventually replace this old one, a world cleansed of sin and all negativity! Wow! Am I ever looking forward to that time! But one word of warning; we’ll only be able to enjoy that sinless world if we have stood strong and steadfast with Jesus during our earthly lives. Any other lifestyle will lead to death and eternal damnation, eternal separation from Jesus! And that’s the worst thing that can happen to a spiritual being!  Much LOVE!

…what passes doesn’t matter…when you’re in league with Jesus…

Today’s Scrip-Bit 11 August 2017 Romans 12:2.

11 Aug 2017 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Romans 12:2.   And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Oh friends, the week finally finish! Glory to God! And for us Canadians, after the Caribana weekend, it was indeed a short week. So now we have a li’l time to rest and recuperate from all that exhilarating action. (smile) 

But for some really exuberant folks, the weekend will always be the time to totally celebrate the couple days off from work. Consequently they are now excitedly shouting: ‘TGIF! TGIF! Thank God is Friday oui! The Lord give us two days to party, so leh we party hearty nuh! 

We can’t afford to waste the li’l time we have for weself in foolish thinking about work and all the other nonsense. Just let it all hang out, free up yuhself and doh worry about nothing till Monday! That’s why we have the weekend! Thank God for Fridays and the weekend yes!’ 

And I dare say that many of us believers would like to let it all hang out on the weekend, (smile) but we know that is not the Christian way; that is the way of the world. Now that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the weekend, but just that we need to put some limits on the ‘carefreeness.’ 

We definitely don’t want to be dissolute and licentious and give Lucifer any opening whatsoever to come against us. We need to think more like our Friday Chant says: ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through another week of work! It hasn’t been easy, but with your generous help, I made it through. 

Now, please help me to get sufficient fun, fellowship, rest and relaxation in these two short days off, so that I can be renewed and refreshed in soul, body and mind, to go back out and do it all over again next week, furthering your glorious kingdom with each step I take. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.’ 

Yeh mih breddren, that’s the Christian way; we enjoy the time off, get some rest, relaxation and fellowship, so that we can handle the upcoming week with new energy and enthusiasm. 

If we don’t apply some limits to our life with some resuscitation along the way, we’ll just keep going downhill until we burn out completely, and worst of all, won’t be able to do a good job on Christ’s behalf, which is our major calling. 

So though we may feel to let it all hang out on the weekend, let’s hang in there, persevere with some circumspection, remembering that we are disciples of Christ, ambassadors for His kingdom and we can’t afford to behave like the world does. 

That’s why Bruh Paul was so emphatic to the church at Rome as our Bit declares: ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’ 

That’s only basic common sense friends, for the world does not recognize the things of God nor His kingdom. So if we want to be true followers of Christ we need to abstain from a lot of things which the world thinks is right, but which our heavenly Father totally abhors and detests. 

And the scholars offer this explanation. ’12:2. Be not conformed  (lit. “stop conforming yourselves”): They are to resist being poured into the mould of the present thinking, value systems, and conduct of this world. This term is used only here and in 1 Peter 1:14.’ 

And since most of us won’t go and read that verse, I will spoon-feed us. (smile) Peter in his call to Christian dedication, says: ‘As obedient children, not fashioning (conforming) yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.’ Meaning we should not go back to being the old kind of persons we were before we found Christ and put on the ‘new man.’ 

Now let’s look at a couple of scriptures which also admonish us to stay away from the evil, ungodly world. Listen to James: ‘Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of  (with) the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will (wants to) be a friend of the world is (makes himself) the enemy of God.’ (James 4:4) 

It’s that simple friends. As Jesus said: ‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon (the world, material possessions).’ (Mat. 6:24) So you obviously can’t serve the One True God and also worship, or idolize, or run behind the material possessions of the world. 

And we’ll conclude with some of the most authoritative words on the subject from 1 John. ‘LOVE not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man LOVE the world, the LOVE of the Father is not in him. 

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.’(1 John 4:15-17) 

Oh my fellow believers, it couldn’t be put any simpler and plainer than that. As Christians we ought to LOVE God and do His will first and foremost. 

Remember Jesus’ words to the hypocrite Pharisee who asked Him. ‘Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus saith unto him, Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.’ (Matt.22:36-38). 

So friends, let’s go and do just that nuh, for it is the wisdom of heaven! Much LOVE!

…seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…that’s the Christian’s mandate…