“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3, ESV).
For most of us, the job we do to earn a living may seem far removed from serving God and advancing His Kingdom. This proverb tells us how to reconcile this seeming incompatibility of working at your job with serving God.
When you commit the work that you do to the Lord, then you are asking God to consecrate it and use what you do to accomplish His will.
” Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:13-15, ESV).
Sometimes when we make a mistake and sin, we attribute the cause for the evil that we do to God. We say it is God causing this temptation in order to build our faith. Some may even flippantly say, “the devil made me do it.”
“For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first” (2 Peter 2:19-20, ESV).
Peter speaks here of false teachers who “bring in destructive heresies” (II Peter 2:1) and the people they lead astray with these detrimental teachings. If you succumb to these false teachings or their teacher, then you are a slave to whatever is controlling you.
“But Aaron burned the incense and purified the people. He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague stopped.” (Numbers 16:47-48, NLT)
Numbers 16 is the record of yet another rebellion by the Israelites against Moses’ leadership and God’s authority.
This rebellion seemed to be a power struggle that was a more egregious challenge to God’s authority than any of the previous rebellions. This rebellion was led by certain Levites who had some of the most important duties related to the upkeep of the Tabernacle.
“Well, I will bring them safely into the land, and they will enjoy what you have despised” (Numbers 14:31, NLT).
Moses sent twelve men on a reconnaissance mission to the land of Canaan. When they returned, ten of the twelve reported to Moses and the people of Israel that even though the land was rich and fertile, it was inhabited by potentially formidable foes.
The testimony of the faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb, which was to conquer the land immediately, was rejected and rebellion against Moses’ leadership and threats of violence against Joshua and Caleb spread through the entire Israelite community.
“If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. None of you, however, should suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. But if anyone suffers as a ‘Christian,’ he should not be ashamed but should glorify God in having that name. For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God? And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? So those who suffer according to God’s will should, while doing what is good, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:14-19, HCSB).
Let me begin this post with a disclaimer: You might find something I say in this post offensive to you as a Christian. Please don’t get mad at me because I want you to like me and keep reading my daily devotionals.
Instead, get mad at the Apostle Peter, because he’s the one that originally said it! I’m only explaining what Peter said in the context of our post-modern lives.
“For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.” (Psalm 149:4, ESV).
Don’t the people you love the most, your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, brothers, sisters, parents, or friends, make you happy?
Isn’t it your love for them that makes you happy?
“Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3, ESV).
Being the humblest person on earth is not a character trait we usually associate with Moses. Moses was a great leader of the Israelites, so we assume he had to be assertive, a Type A personality.
After all, to be an effective leader you can’t be humble and expect people to follow.
Proverbs 8 extols the value of acquiring wisdom. It does so by personifying, even deifying, wisdom.
In a previous meditation I said that acquiring wisdom is important because wisdom is the creative energy of God.
Proverbs 8 enlarges on that supposition: “The Lord made me at the beginning of His creation, before His works of long ago. I was formed before ancient times, from the beginning, before the earth began… when He laid out the foundations of the earth. I was a skilled craftsman beside Him. I was His delight every day,always rejoicing before Him. I was rejoicing in His inhabited world, delighting in the human race” (vs. 22-23,29-31).
With wisdom God established the universe and through wisdom God declared the knowledge of Himself to people.
In Matthew 25 Jesus tells a number of “second-coming” parables, one of which is the well-known and oft-quoted Parable of the Talents.
In this parable a man makes an extended trip to a far country so he entrusts his servants with some of his financial resources to invest while he is away. He gives one servant five talents (talent was a unit of weight, about 75 pounds, to measure coinage and now is used to indicate an ability), one two talents, and the other one talent.
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