Author: admin

Few things are as rewarding as children who honor their parents. We can accumulate many rewards and honors over the years, but they don’t compare to offspring who love and respect their parents.

The challenge for some is that they invest their time and energy into winning the respect of their peers and colleagues but not in earning trust and devotion from their children. Such people would do anything for their colleagues but are preoccupied when dealing with their family. No problem is too great at work, but household issues are draining. There is a way to beget a wise child: pour wisdom into them. If we want our children to respect us, we must relate to them in a respectable manner.

Likewise, as children, we have the power to bring enormous blessing to our parents. Living wisely brings them honor. Expressing gratitude and appreciation to them bestows great blessing. Conversely, living foolishly dishonors those who gave us birth.

How is the way you are living bringing honor to your parents? How is the present way you are raising your children sowing seeds of future honor for you?

Though our souls may be reborn from above, our flesh continues to suffer from its contamination with the fallen world!. Our carnal flesh constantly desires to satisfy its every whim. Food and drink are two of the most powerful temptations we can indulge in, but there are many available to us.

Some practice constant self-control over their body and its appetites. Others willingly and carelessly surrender themselves to whatever they desire at the moment. Stay away from such people. Those who joke about how much they overeat or those who brag about the level of drunkenness they attained are fools. They demonstrate disdain for their Creator by the way they abuse their bodies. They disrespect themselves through their lack of self-control. They also endanger others by luring them to join them in their abandonment of restraint.

While people may boast of their parties and wild merriment, there is a price to be paid. Such lack of self-control ultimately leads to ruin. If people cannot control themselves, how can they be entrusted with the care of others? If people would abuse their own precious body, what else might they treat carelessly? Beware those who live in excess!

One of the greatest joys in life is developing the ability to do something with excellence. Performing average or mediocre work is commonplace. It occurs every day in every corner of society. It is what we generally expect of people. Many people function from the attitude that they should do as little as possible to achieve the maximum reward. How sad that we are pleasantly surprised when people actually provide services for us with excellence.

Most people do not realize, or care, that they rob people every time they give them less than their best. People deserve, and need, our best. Society can only achieve what God intended when people rise up and offer their God-given excellence to others. To give less is to shortchange people and to dishonor God. What a burden to have to “make due” with someone’s half-hearted effort.

What a joy it is, however, when we receive the gift of excellence. This happens when someone goes the second mile to serve us. It occurs when people refuse to offer us less than their best. When we encounter people who do things with excellence, we want to be around them! We want to hire them! We want to make use of their skills, and attitude, as often as possible.

Are you known as someone who always gives your best? Do people recognize the high quality of your work? Is your work performed at a higher standard than the mediocrity of your peers? When you excel in your work, there will always be another opportunity waiting for you in the future.

What’s in a name? Everything. Biblically, peoples’ names reflected their character. To learn their name was to know what they were like. That is why when God transformed people such as Saul of Tarsus or Jacob the deceiver; God issued them a new name.

Unfortunately, there are people who are careless with their name. As long as they get what they want, they are indifferent to what people think about them. As a result, people know them as pushy, rude, self-centered, or a bully.

Christians ought to live their lives with a keen awareness that their behavior reflects on Christ’s name. When people relate to them, they ought to come away from that encounter impressed with Christ. How sad, that many in the world today have a mistakenly low view of Christ because of their experience with one of His followers.

We may think we are just “doing business” or “getting the job done” when we treat people harshly or rudely. But we are not. We are, in fact, letting people know what we are really like. Every word we speak. Every action we take. Every encounter with people is establishing our reputation. Are you comfortable with the way people view your life? Does it honor Christ?

Wise people thoroughly prepare for upcoming challenges. They take nothing for granted. They are meticulous with every detail. They do their homework. They leave no loose ends. But, at the end of the day, they astutely acknowledge that God will work out His sovereign purposes, regardless of what they have done.

If God is not on our side, it matters not what preparations we have made. Our ultimate trust, therefore, cannot be in our own plans, however meticulous they may be, but in our God. No plan can outmaneuver God’s will. Likewise, no defense is foolproof if God is not actively working on our behalf. With God we are invincible. Without Him, nothing is secure.

Likewise, it is foolish to assume that, because you walk with God, you should not also thoroughly prepare yourself. God often lets us reap what we have sown. Nevertheless, after we have done everything we can to prepare ourselves, we ultimately place our trust in God. Those who have fully prepared and who are also wholly trusting in God are a formidable foe.

God does not need our offerings nor is He dependent upon our worship. It is we who are desperate to worship our Creator. At times we can act as if any old worship is acceptable to God. In fact, considering our busy schedules, God ought to be pleased we took the time to stop by the church and attend a service at all!

Today, God’s people act as if God must adjust Himself to their tastes and schedules. We determine what our offering to God will be and assume He will be pleased with it. But the reality is that we do not worship or serve God on our terms, but on His. He determines what is acceptable. Furthermore, it is not merely our sacrifice that is the key, but our heart. We could submit one billions dollars worth of gold coins to God as a sacrifice, yet He would view it as rubbish, if our heart was wrong or our motives impure.

God has no price tag. He does not compromise His standards based on the size of the gift He receives. He detests sin in any form, at any time. If we are attempting to serve God or offer Him our sacrifices with a sinful heart, we are wasting our time. God will not look past our sin to our offering. Our sin will instead transform our gift into an abomination.

God can afford to reject our gift. We cannot afford for God to no longer listen to our prayers. How delighted is God with the offerings you have been giving to Him lately?

Great accomplishments seldom arise from meager planning. It is foolish to assume that we will accomplish much without solid preparation. Great accomplishments tend to result from solid planning. Rarely do haphazard, last minute efforts achieve the spectacular.

Many people believe in planning, they just never have the time to do it! Typically that is symptomatic of people who are either lazy or investing themselves in the wrong things. We generally do have time to do what is most important, if we will steer clear of the less crucial tasks. But planning also takes hard work. We must first be diligent to get today’s tasks completed so we have time to plan for tomorrow. If we are constantly bogged down in yesterday’s concerns, we will have no time to prepare for tomorrow.

Planning is also something that does not cry out to us as being urgent. So we feel we can put it off until later when we have more time. Such thinking leaves us embroiled in the urgent issues of today that clamor for our attention while neglecting the essential work of preparation that will determine our ultimate success.

Are you prepared for tomorrow? What thought have you given to it? How diligently are you planning for what is to come?

Everyone likes a good deal! Business people thrive on making lucrative sales. But what is the limit you are willing to go to get what you want?

Our words have a way of coming back to bite us. Words we used to entice and convince someone to enter an agreement can return to us when they are exposed as false or exaggerated. Promises made carelessly can haunt us in the future. Scripture is clear: We will reap what we sow. Our words are seeds that will take root, sprout up, and eventually bear fruit that we must feed on. For some people, their words make a bitter meal.

How blessed is the one whose words are seeds of grace and truth. Their conversations scatter seeds that produce a pleasant harvest in due season. Such people never have to worry about being caught by words they spoke previously. For, as Mark Twain once mused, people who tell the truth don’t have to remember what they said previously!

The temptation to resort to deceit can seem compelling at the time. But its end is always the same. A time will inevitably come when those very words condemn us. As difficult and costly as it may sometimes appear to speak the truth, it is a lifestyle that leads to peace and contentment.

There is a difference between listening and hearing. There is also a disparity between looking at something and truly seeing it. Too often we are satisfied with listening or looking without fully experiencing and benefiting from what is right in front of us.

Why do some people perceive opportunities and dangers better than others do? Why is it that certain individuals recognize trends as they begin while others are constantly trying to catch up after the fact? Why do some people identify warning signs in peoples’ behavior while others are oblivious until disaster strikes? Why are some people always prepared while others are constantly being caught by surprise? It is a matter of being able to perceive what is before us.

More importantly, why do some people regularly hear God’s voice while others continually experience heaven’s silence? Why do some people recognize God’s activity all around them while others never see a thing? It has to do with our spiritual senses.

Jesus once chastised His disciples because they had spiritual eyes but they were not seeing, and spiritual ears but they were not hearing anything (Mark 8:18). Is it time for a spiritual eye and ear checkup? Are you fully perceiving and experiencing all that God is doing around you?

People often have more wisdom than they know. Years of experience can teach much. Failures as well as successes provide abundant lessons for life. Just because some people do not mount a platform and deliver a lecture does not mean that they do not have much to teach us. The reality is that there is a bonanza of wisdom deposits hidden in the lives of people all around you. Our task is to discover them and to energetically mine them.

Just as treasure hunters develop a discerning eye for locations where there are valuable deposits of minerals or items of great value, hidden from view, so an astute person is always on the lookout for deposits of wisdom in people around them.

You are unlikely to learn from others if you are doing all the talking. Asking good questions rather than making pronouncements is the key to unlocking the wisdom deposits in others. Some people have no idea how much they know! Their modesty leads them to assume that everyone already knows what they know. Yet they are wrong. Not everyone understands how to succeed in business without compromising their integrity or harming their family. Not everyone perceives how to raise their kids in a secular world so they grow up to love God with all their heart as adults. Not everyone is cognizant of how to meet all the demands of the workplace and yet develop a growing and intimate relationship with both God and their spouse.

So, when you come across people who have apparently achieved such fetes, don’t wait for them to wax eloquent about their methodology. Start asking questions! (and taking notes!). Learn from such people, whether they see themselves as teachers or not!