Untied Shoes

Untied Shoes

Psalms 141:3

Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

               What is it about untied shoes that drives us nuts?  Since the time we were young children we may remember that nagging voice saying, “Tie your shoes.”  At the time, untied shoes didn’t bother us; we didn’t really care.  We were only focused on playing and could really care less what we looked like or if our shoes were tied or not.  Somewhere in our lives though it became an automatic thing to tie our shoes if they became untied.  Besides being a bad presentation, it was annoying and it was a trip hazard that could dump us embarrassingly and painfully on our face.  So, what’s tying my shoes got do with anything?

               Shoes might be somewhat like a tongue without discretion, wagging away and speaking whatever comes to mind.  We surely have learned by now that not everything that goes through our mind needs to be expressed through our tongue.  The Word makes it abundantly clear that the tongue can get us into all kinds of trouble.  Psalms 39:1 says, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.”  James is another one that really speaks to the issue of an unkept tongue.  James 3:2-12 says, “3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”  That little untied shoe can come off and cause a lot more grief than we could have ever imagined, so it is with our tongues.  God is telling us to get it under control, “keep your shoes tied.”  It is going to make a much better presentation of who you want to be seen as in Christ and it will not lead to regrets, embarrassments and destruction.  Proverbs 15:4 says, “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.”   God’s good advice for us is, ‘keep your tongue tied!’

Blessings,

#kent

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Cistern or Septic

Cistern or Septic

James 3:7-12
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Jesus makes this statement Luke 6:45, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” The tongue and the speech of a person are the reflection of the aquifer of a man’s soul. Many things touch us as we go through life and how we process and the attitude with which we handle them can make all the difference in the world in how they affect our life and who and what we are. Most of us, at one time or another, will experience hurts, disappointments and offenses at the hands of another individual. It can be someone who might have been a friend or it may be from our closest and most trusted loved one or relative. Offenses, hurts, wounding can come from many directions, but no matter where they come from, it is how we deal with them that becomes important.
When water falls upon the earth it percolates down through the ground into voids, pockets and underground reservoirs. Many of us have had or at least drank from wells supplied by underground water. What is it that makes that water either pure to drink or in some cases septic and contaminated? Usually it is the process of filtration as it goes through the ground and works its way down into the reservoir. We have a filtration process that we have to take the events of our lives through. What we find in the Word is that if we process our lives with an attitude of the world or if we allow offenses or hurts that may be very real, to be processed the wrong way it can allow our inward cistern of life to become polluted and defiled. It will not only defile us, but it will make our speech and attitudes septic, which can, in turn, defile others.
The bait of satan is to get us to take offense, after all we are justified in doing so, we are the ones that were wronged. In Mark 11:25-26 Jesus makes the statement, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” You see our soul and our heart can be a cistern of life giving water or it can become a septic tank of bitterness and unforgiveness. What would have happened if the Lord had taken the offense of our sins, disobedience and rejection into His heart and held unforgiveness? If we still had life at all there would be no hope and there would be no avenue of relationship. If the Lord had only dwelled on our offenses and had not offered forgiveness could we have known anything but misery and death? As the Son of God was hanging on the cross, grossly beaten, abused, tortured and now crucified of men, His words were “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He didn’t hold the offense. He released it and the destructive power it could have contained with unforgiveness.
Maybe some of us today are sensing that our cistern has been polluted and made septic by offenses we have been unwilling to forgive and release. That unforgiveness hinders the forgiveness of our offenses to the Lord. It must be as the Lord’s prayer says,’ forgive us our sins, our debts, our offenses, as we forgive those who have sinned against us, have unpaid debts toward us and who have offended us.’ This process can be a painful one and in a sense it is like turning the other cheek to forgive when everything within us wants to return pain for pain, an eye for eye and a tooth for tooth. We want the offender to hurt and suffer every bit as much, if not more, than we have. We have a mighty God who is our avenger and just judge before which all of us will stand and give account. Allow your heart to be freed of the offenses that you have held so that you may have a clean heart and know God’s wonderful love and forgiveness for you that we could never deserve, yet He freely gives.
Filter out the offenses and the hurts that want to go into your heart and mortally wound your soul. You must filter them with the love and the forgiveness that the Lord has given you. You must extend the grace that He has given at the expense of his mortal life. It is the only way to purify the living waters of your heart so that you might issue forth life and not death.

Blessings,
#kent

Acknowledge the Lord in All of Your Ways

Proverbs 3:4-5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Acknowledge the Lord in All of Your Ways

This is probably one of those scriptures like John 3:16 that we have heard so often that we tend to lose and neglect the real impact and significance of what it is telling us. As we hear this scripture or read it perhaps you, like myself, tend to think yes Lord I acknowledge you and I trust you, but if we really listened we would hear the Holy Spirit say, “Do you really?”
Yes, generally for most of us, our faith is based in Christ. We trust Him. We pray to Him. We go to church or tithe or do charitable activities. The things is, God isn’t looking for a people that have just general generic type faith, He is looking for those who will walk with Him minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. He truly wants us to acknowledge Him in all of our ways. We tend to be a very self-reliant people and like most men, we only want ask for directions or read the instructions when all else has failed. Yet the Lord is instructing us here to abide in the instruction of His Word and to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit in every endeavor that we have in life. Prayer and relationship are a mandate and not an option. In this state we go through life always listening with our spiritual ears for what the Holy Spirit is speaking and meditating on the Word and how it applies to our circumstances at the present. When we rely upon our human understanding and reasoning we will often rationalize away the spiritual. We will tend to tune out what we don’t want to hear and do. So it takes a continually submitted heart and spirit to acknowledge the Lord in all of our ways, but it is the place where we learn to really walk in the Spirit and deny the flesh. It is the place where God’s will and purpose becomes more important to us than our own agendas.
The Word says that if we will acknowledge Him in all of our ways He will make our paths straight. Our path becomes straight because we are focused and our aim is upon what pleases the Lord. Our heart is set upon obedience and love, that is our motivation, not fear, unbelief or self-will.
When I was a kid I used to work in the summers plowing fields down in Oklahoma. The farmers liked to have the rows straight, because I think it said something to others about what kind of farmer that they were. In order to start out your rows straight you had to pick an object in the distance and then aim your tractor and plow directly for it. You couldn’t become careless and forget or you would find that you were off course and your rows would be crooked. It is the same way in our lives. We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and never take them off of Him. When we do we start to get off course and our rows become crooked.
It is not so important that we understand all the God is doing or why. It is far more important that we simply trust Him and obey. Allow Him to continually fill your thoughts and do those things that continually keep you mindful of Him. Praise Him continually; allow His Words to continually be upon your lips. Listen to music that glorifies the Lord and set your eyes upon those things that are wholesome and full of life. Have a continual dialogue with the Lord throughout your day. He is your constant companion. In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

Blessings,
kent

Apples of Gold

Apples of Gold
Proverbs 25:11
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Throughout our lives we’ve all come to know and experience how cutting, hurtful and harmful words can be that are spoken in a way that is mocking, cruel or unkind. Words are like a two edged sword, on one edge is life and on the other is death and the flat sides are neutral. As Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” We have these tremendous weapons in our mouths and often we so carelessly use them and abuse them or we fail to use them in a positive way at all.
It is wonderful to think about the power we have to edify and build up another through the power of our words. When we look to speak the best about people then we will see the best in them. Sometimes we all need words spoken to us that are hard for us to hear, but they are truth. The words of a true friend are not always going to make us feel good, but hopefully they will help us to be better people and reveal to us things we need to know about ourselves that we are blind too. Proverb27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” In other words, we don’t just speak the words that make us feel good, but we speak the words that help one another grow, the words that challenge us and exhort us.
God’s Word has many passages that give us great hope and purpose. It can greatly edify us and build us up. God’s Word can also cut us to the bone and reveal the ugliness of our sin and wrong motives. Hebrews 4:12 tells us, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God’s Word goes to the heart of the matter. If correction is needed, it will correct us and chastise us and if edification is needed, it will build us up and set our feet upon a right path. While hard words are difficult for many of us to hear, we will hear them and receive them more readily if we know that the person’s heart is pure who is speaking those words. If we know the motive for speaking hard things to us is love, then we are more apt to receive those words into our heart in order that they might produce life and betterment in us.
Proverbs 25:11, today’s passage, paints for us a picture that right words, spoken in season, can create rich and beautiful things. If we are walking in the love and spirit of Christ then our words should be moved and spoken out of a right spirit and a contrite heart. In other words, when we are speaking right words into someone’s life we are doing it in love and without spiritual pride or haughtiness on our part. We all need ones that will speak both blessing and correction into our lives, in love. Those are our true friends. Those are the ones that know how to speak out of the nature of God and in the spirit of redemption and mercy. Their words are ‘the apples of gold set in pictures of silver.’
How will we use the sword that God has put in our mouths? Will it produce apples of gold or a bloody mess? Let us choose our words wisely and pray that the Spirit of God directs what, where, when and how we speak. Remember the power of death and life is in your tongue, both for you and for others. Ask God to put a watch before your mouth that you may speak out of both wisdom and love.

Blessings,
kent