OWN
“If thou turn away thy foot from
the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a
delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon
the high places of the earth…” Isaiah
58:13, 14
Psalm
122:1 says, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the
LORD.” This was one of the first memory
verses I learned as a child. My
grandmother was my teacher and she made going to church and Sunday school a
precious and pleasant thing. I looked
forward every Sunday to being with my church family and being in her Sunday
school class. Sunday was a special
day. We dressed up. We had family time. We did not do work on the farm or go to
“worldly entertainments”. It was a day
to rest and just be together.
When
I came across this verse in Isaiah 58 I was challenged by the instruction. Now, New Testament Christians do not observe
the Sabbath as they do in Jewish culture, but the idea of keeping a day set
apart for God and holy is not a bad one.
Look at the things the Lord challenged them to lie aside during this
time – “…not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking
thine own words…”
It
got me thinking. How many times do we go
to church on Sunday all the while thinking about what we have planned for the
remainder of the day? How many times do
we see Sunday as just another day, nothing special, just a time to do our thing
as Christians? Do we really see Sunday as
a “…delight, holy and…honourable…?” Are
we really glad when we are told it is time to go to church? Or are we caught up in our own ways and our
own pleasures and our own ideas?
There
is always a blessing attached for those who put the things of the Lord ahead of
their own.
OWN
“Trust in the LORD with all thine
heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding….Be not wise in thine own
eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from
evil.“ Proverbs 3:5
Pride
is a vicious spiritual disease. It
leaves us thinking that we can solve our own problems, go our own way, and
judge our own motives. We might call it
being self-sufficient or confident, but it is really a matter of our own pride
trying to convince us that we have no need of humility or subservience to our
Creator. We go at life as if we have all
the answers and nothing and no one is above us.
Another
word for it is conceit. A conceited
person is convinced that his understanding is better than others. He looks upon himself as wise and fully
sufficient to judge not only his own motives, but also the motives of
others. His pride has him persuaded that
superiority is key. God tells us
differently. Romans 11:25 warns us to not
be “wise in your own conceits” because that is akin to blindness. Like the Laodicea church, the conceited man
does not even see that he is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and
naked…”
I
can’t count the times God has called me to “heal” when I allowed my own ideas
and pride to lead. That old song, “If I
Ruled the World” resonates in my ears!
Oh, if I ruled the world what kind of place would it be? We all think that our way is the best way and
that our idea of right and wrong is valid.
All the while we are failing miserably in trusting the Lord and fearing
the Lord. We have set ourselves up as
God – and we are NOT God.
If
you take time to consider the last little phrase of the verse you will have to
admit where following our pride and conceit will take us. “…depart from evil.” Pride is in direct opposition to the
Christian life and will always lead the follower into sin. Pride is the source of contention and at the
root of nearly all sin. Better for us to
take a step back and get in line with God than to continue traveling down our
own path to ruin.
OWN
“The way of a
fool is right in his own eyes; but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is
wise. Proverbs 12:15
“All the ways of a man are clean in his own
eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.
Proverbs 16:2
We
have already talked about pride, but there is a way about us that can seek to
excuse or even deny accusing ourselves of pride. We can simply move over into
stubbornness. We are totally convinced
that our own way is best. We stubbornly
believe God is a fool and those who waste their time trying to please Him or
adjust their lives to His standards are fools as well.
Such
a stance is self-destroying. It will
come to no good. We can read story after
story in the Bible about the outcome of people who were stubborn. And, it doesn’t take much time to read
history to see the downfall of many others - Adolf Hitler for example. Whose downfall was the result of believing
they were right to go at life their own way.
And, even Hollywood and an abundance of authors attest to the
understanding that those who stubbornly refuse to yield wind up destroying
themselves and those around them. It
makes for a good plot.
So,
if even without a Godly admonition we can see that stubbornness yields bad
fruit, why in the world are we so thickheaded?
I think it is because we want to be right. We want to say that we have it all figured
out. We like to believe that God is on
our side and if so, we have no need to change.
We can travel down our path unhindered and unbothered.
But
everything around us tells us differently.
We run into conflict with our family, our church, and work mates. We are bombarded with God’s Word and choose
to ignore it. We excuse our stubbornness
calling it perseverance or steadfastness.
Yet, God calls it foolishness.
He
admonishes us to come face to face with the truth of our spirit and instructs
us to seek godly counsel. You see -
stubbornness is the pride of self. To
admit weakness and to yield to instruction is humility and wisdom.
If
you want the type elevation and praise you think you will find by stubbornly
holding onto your own ways, you are deceived.
Stubbornness is sin and God will not bless it. Only by yielding will you ever find what you
are searching for - before honour is humility!
OWN
“Also take no heed unto all words that are
spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee: For oftentimes also thine own
heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.” Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
Learning
how to handle hurtful words is a hard lesson.
No one likes to hear disparaging words about themselves. Godly wisdom teaches us how to conduct
ourselves in this matter and how to deal with others. We are not angels, we are fallen people, and
as such, we are liable to speak unkind words.
We should be ready to make amends and seek forgiveness when we are
guilty and be ready to forgive and even overlook those who injure us, acting as
if we did not even notice.
Being
overly interested in what others say of you can be distracting. Too much praise is not good for us, and too
much criticism is also damaging. If we
pay too much attention to what others are saying we may hear something we don’t
like. It is easier to not seek to hear
than to deal with what has been said.
Better that we to be more concerned with our own attitude and standing
with the Lord. “When a man’s ways please
the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Proverbs 16:7
Our
own faults are sufficient to keep us humble and in prayer. If we are honest, we must admit that we, too,
have spoken out of turn concerning others.
Matthew Henry writes, “Be not enraged at those that speak ill of thee,
for oftentimes, if thou retire into thyself, thy own conscience will tell thee
that thou thyself hast cursed others, spoken ill of them, and thou art paid in
thy own coin. If we be truly angry with
ourselves, as we ought to be, for backbiting and censuring others, we shall be
the less angry with others for backbiting and censuring us.”
How
do you deal with hurtful words? Seek
vengeance? Spout more hurtful
words? Seek to set the record straight? Better be checking your own heart and observe
the words of Proverbs 16:3 – “It is an
honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.”
OWN
“Give her of the fruit
of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.” Proverbs 31:31
This
Proverbs 31 Woman is a challenge for all of us.
Seems she can cook, clean, sew, keep her husband, children and
neighbours happy and cared for, and all the while run a business. Amazing.
As we look at this last verse we can see the result of the sum of her
work. She produces fruit. This isn’t just apples and pears; it is the
produce of all of her ventures.
The
Bible says, “In all labour there is
profit...” Proverbs 14:23 It’s that
old law of sowing and reaping. This
woman has put her life into her family and community. There will be a reward for her. Matthew:6:4
says “That thine alms may be in secret:
and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” God will not forget her work of love. She has given faithfully and she will be rewarded.
Her
reward will be open. “…in the gates.” means that the whole
community will know of and speak of her good works. What she has done by simply doing her own business
and doing it well speaks for itself.
Others have only to look at the care she has given and they recognize
her quality.
I
heard someone say once that a woman should not work to be recognized. She should serve in silence and
quietness. And that is true, however,
God does not allow any servant to go without due recognition. Someway, somehow, God will let the servant
know that He approves of and recognizes a work done for Him.
The
opposite is also true – a woman who goes about doing things and calling
attention to what she is doing, or, who does things only to get recognition and
praise, is going about it wrongly. This
is the odious woman spoken of in Proverbs – she is loud, in the streets, and
not truly caring for her home.
We
will all be rewarded for our own work.
God will be the judge. In the end
our greatest reward will be to hear that, “Well
done, thou good and faithful servant…enter thou into the joy of the Lord.” Matthew 25:21