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January 5 - December 31, 2019
filth). It also makes us haughty and disdainful toward others (verse 13). Fin...
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ruthless and unjust to those with less social power t...
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was through Pride that the devil became the devil:
Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”104
Pride makes sympathy nearly impossible. Pride keeps us from really noticing people, from putting ourselves in their shoes, from recognizing when they are hurting or unhappy. It keeps us absorbed with our own agenda and needs. If the proud see someone suffering, they think they are too smart to let that happen to them, or they feel too sorry for themselves about their own problems to care about someone else’s.
Lord, I confess that my own self-pity and self-absorption make me impatient with people who have problems. I want to surround myself with “low-maintenance” people. But if you had done that, where would I be? Reproduce your sympathetic heart in me. Amen.
when the love of pleasurable physical sensation dominates, it is the deadly sin of “gluttony.” Today this word means only overeating, but traditionally it meant the inability to live a life of delayed gratification.
Gluttony may lead to literal addictions to food, drink, or drugs, to gulping them down, but even if it does not, the spirit of gluttony is always to take the easy way out.
The great mistake of gluttony is to seek happiness directly rather than as a by-product of living responsibly.
Laziness is not just a temperament but a moral failing. Sloth is self-centered rather than loving.
If you’re not doing work, and work in which you can take pride, you’re being cut off from part of your humanity.
What are the marks of a friend? The first we can call constancy.
gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (15:1)
GENTLE WORDS. When Proverbs talks of kind words, it speaks of our speech’s motives. When it speaks of gentle words, it is speaking of speech’s form—its tone and demeanor.
Being gentle does not mean agreeing (August 6), but it does mean being respectful and friendly.
Closely related to words being apt is that they also be timely. Sometimes the best wisdom is to not speak much at all (12:23).
When you meet with a grieving person who just lost a loved one, words should be sparing.
Another kind of untimely word is being too familiar before the person feels you have the right to speak to them in that way. A third kind of untimely word is when something is said publicly that should have been saved for a private time. Finally, words are untim...
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Timeliness is difficult to achieve, because our natural temperaments usually incline us toward being too quick or too slow to sp...
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To answer before listening is both a practice and an attitude. At the most practical level, this describes someone who habitually interrupts. Interrupters see no real need to let the other person finish.
a deeper level, however, speaking before listening means to be prejudiced, to literally “prejudge” someone before you know the full truth about them. Prejudice assumes somebody is the way “all those kinds of people are” instead of caring enough about the truth to find out what this particular person is like, what this particular person is really saying. We habitually assume that all people of different gender, races, classes, vocations, and cultures are basically the same. But when someone treats us that way, we feel dehumanized. Prejudice is a form of answering before listening.
Lord Jesus, if you were prejudiced, you not only would not have died for people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, but you wouldn’t have come to human beings at all! When I am tempted to look down at “that type,” help me to remember your unprejudiced, free grace for me. Amen.
Lord, I am not teachable because I’m too proud to want advice and too scared that I might hear something I don’t want to hear. So remind me of your greatness to humble me, and remind me that the gospel itself, my very joy and life, was something I didn’t want to hear.
All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD. (16:2)
Love quarrel—love sin.
Mockers’ main currency is the insult, the often hilarious and even brilliant put-down.
An insult is a kind of verbal cartoon.
you have a propensity for insults, you will always be undermining relationships. Strong medicine is prescribed here.
God is all-powerful, infinitely loving, and perfectly wise in how he loves us and in what he brings into our lives. “He works out everything according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), and that is for our good (Romans 8:28). This is the greatest comfort. No matter what others may try to do, God’s purposes for you will stand.
is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
In a sense, for a Christian, there is no “plan B.”
The plans of the heart belong to us—they are our responsibility. The way God controls history does not force us to act. Yet all we do—every one of our steps—is part of his plan.
If you trust God, then as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times will turn you into the kind of person whose plans and decisions are more and more wise.
Lewis Smedes wrote: “Truthfulness is one more invisible fiber that holds people together in humane community. When we cannot assume that people communicating with us are truthful, we cannot live with them in trust that they will respect our right to freedom to respond to reality. [sic] If we cannot trust each other to respect this basic right, we have lost our chance to be human together in God’s manner. . . . Speak the truth, be the truth, for your truth sets others free.”174
this saying reminds us that we are not all fitted, by character or capacity, for any role in life we may want. Many roles require talent, gifts, and in some case physical abilities that not everyone has. Modern culture tells children, “You can be whatever you aspire to be,” but some of our aspirations are for wrong things and others simply don’t fit the reality of what we were designed for.
fear the Lord (know God and enjoy fellowship with him)
shun evil (change your life to align with his will)
Christians are virtual envoys—ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20)—to those whose knowledge of the truth depends on us.
Don’t be dripping your criticism in painful little jabs that only evoke similarly brief angry responses in return. Instead, pour. Take time to sit down, to identify the problem behavior instead of attacking character, and to propose practical ways to change, mixing all with often-expressed love and encouragement.
Foolishness is to be destructively out of touch with the reality of God’s created order.
How can we pass our wisdom on to our children so they make it their own? There are three factors here. The first is words
The second is a parent’s blameless life (20:7)—a word that means not perfect but consistent.
The third and most important, you must cherish your children (4:3).
A child should feel they are the object of powerful, unconditional love from the parent.
Grandchildren open a room in your heart that could not be unlocked by anyone else.
One’s spiritual family includes all who trust in Christ (Mark 3:31–34).
Lord, we long for leaders who put the people’s good ahead of personal political gain, and who put truth ahead of ideology. We ask that you would raise up such leaders, and meanwhile prevent us from thinking we would do a far better job, and thereby to despise the leaders we have. Amen.
Let all I do be fueled by a desire for love and service rather than power and control. Amen.
A society is as strong as its care for its weakest members.
Woman Wisdom offers her disciples food and drink (9:1–3), so Jesus offers himself as the Christian’s food and drink (John 6:53).
