Proverbs 16:18 (16:16 LXX)

Arrogance goes before destruction
And folly before a fall.

Personal Challenge

Arrogance, or pride, comes in all kinds of forms. The challenge is to recognize it for what it is, sin, and flee from it. Am I dealing with feelings that drive me to believe that I deserve something just because I want it.? This is pride. Am I bullying those around me to do things the way that I want them to because it makes me look good? This is pride. Do I expect God to give me my every wish because I want it? That is pride. Pride only does one thing. It builds me up at the expense of others so that my fall will be even greater. The enemy cherishes that fall so that he can drive me even further into sin. What is the answer to pride? Humility! Putting others before ourselves. Loving our neighbors. Loving those who hate us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

John 6:35

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

Encouraging Words

Jesus is our source for everything that we need in our lives. Most importantly He is our source of life, both physical and eternal. He does not dangle some kind of carrot in front of us, expecting us to behave a certain way in order to receive His gift of life. He gives us this gift of life and then shows us how to live our lives so that we can fully reap that which He has for us. So, what should be my response to this gift? Take it! Cherish it! Let it permeate my life, my actions, my thoughts, and my desires so that it changes me into His image. Jesus made it clear that if we are to be recipients of His bread of life and never feel hunger or thirst again, then we must act and come to Him. He is the Gift. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Psalms 120:1-4 (119:1-4 LXX)

To the Lord in my affliction
I cried out, and He heard me.
O Lord, deliver my soul from unjust lips
And from a deceitful tongue.
What should be given You, and what added to You,
Against a deceitful tongue?
The arrows of the Mighty One are sharpened
With hot coals from the desert.

Encouraging Words

My God, our God, is always there for us, especially in our times of need or affliction. It falls upon us to cry out to Him to fulfill our needs and to submit to His judgment of what is best for us. Glory be to God!

Proverbs 16:7 (16:4 LXX)

He who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness,
And those who seek Him rightly will find peace.

Encouraging Words

Don’t we all desire to have knowledge, especially godly, righteous knowledge? Don’t we all desire to have peace in our lives, especially in these chaotic times? The writer of the Proverbs tells us how to get these in our lives. We get these by rightly seek the Lord. Fast forward about 4,000 years from this writing and we find Jesus walking the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming that He is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one can find the Father except through Him. Jesus is the personification of what this Proverb is telling us to do. We can find righteous knowledge by seeking Jesus. We can find peace by seeking Him. Glory be to God!

John 6:14

Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

Personal Challenge

Here in John, Jesus had just finished feeding 5,000 people. It was this sign that caused the people to proclaim Him to be the Prophet of God. He Had already performed many other miracles, This one made such an impression because so many individuals were impacted and collectively they started to proclaim who they thought He was. The problem with this way of thinking is that it only looks for Jesus in the grandiose miracles that He performs when He is just as much in the mundane one-on-one miracles of everyday life. Even today, we continue to look for God only in the big, grandiose, and spectacular things of life. We look for the big miracles, the big shows of His blessings, and forget to look for Him in the little things that He is ever so present in, This is one of the reasons we are told to be still and know that He is God. We need those quiet times with God to see Him, hear Him, and know Him, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, the mercy on me, the sinner!

Psalms 118:147 (119:47 LXX)

I arose at midnight and cried out; I hoped in Your words.

Encouraging Words

My God is always present in my life. He is always available to me when I call out for His assist­ance in my life. He is where my entire hope in this life rests. He is when I find my confidence to make it through each day and to find true peace in the chaos of life. He is constant even as everything around me is in constant change. Glory be to God!

Proverbs 16:3

The beginning of a good way is to do righteous things,
And this is more acceptable to God than to offer sacrifices.

Encouraging Words

The author of Proverbs reminds us that the journey toward living a godly and righteous life begins by doing righteous, or good, things. He is not saying that our righteousness comes from the things that we do, God is the source of our righteousness through Christ. But when God has begun His saving work within us, we humbly follow in the footsteps of our Lord and start doing good things that glorify Him and begin the process of building righteousness in our lives. This is much more acceptable to God than sacrifices. Glory be to God!

John 5:39-40

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

Personal Challenge

Jesus is not a book. So many people today act as if the leather-bound Bible is Jesus, however, it is the inspired Word of God that was canonized by the church a few hundred years after Jesus walked upon this earth as the incarnate God. Up until that canonization the church operated from the traditions and teachings of the early church fathers. Those traditions and teachings still exist, in addition to the canonized scriptures. Our modern approach to Christianity has abandoned the foundational components of our faith and substituted for them the expositions and interpretations of so many individuals. No wonder the modern church has fractured and splintered into thousands of denominations and self-defined institutions. In the early church, this would have been viewed as heresy. If we really want to have a full understanding of who Jesus is and enter into a deep and life-changing relationship with Him, we must do as He said in this verse over 2,000 years ago, and go to Him in order to have the life He has for us. We need to return to the ways of the early church and the early church fathers. Come and see!

Psalms 118:133 (119:133 LXX)

Direct my steps according to Your teaching
And let no lawlessness rule over me.

Personal Challenge

This verse, like so many others, poses a dilemma for a modern person. We believe today that we have the final say on who we are and what we do. We live in a very individualistic and self-focused society. The Psalmist reminds us that it is God’s teaching that we submit to if we desire to live a godly life. His teachings come from His Word, His Church, His traditions, not what we determine to be taught. Glory be to God!