Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Proverbs 14:16-20
Prov 14:16-20
One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless. A man of quick temper acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated. The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. The evil bow down before the good, the wicked at the gates of the righteous. The poor is disliked even by his neighbor, but the rich has many friends.
1 Thess 5:16-22
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
One of the great tragedies of the technological age is the decline in the ability of people to think. We use a GPS instead of studying a map. We depend on our contact list instead of learning phone numbers. Almost everything is computer based and we allow it to think for us. Most of us have been at places where the cashier didn’t know how to count change, especially if you give them change to make it come out to even dollars in return. Thinking is no longer taught.
This may not matter in a lot of areas but in most things it does. It makes a lot of difference in anything that determines what we believe or how we live. I was in a discussion with a friend about a particular religious practice and after a while it was obvious that he had no scriptural or even logical basis for what he was trying to defend. I asked why he believed it and he said that was what they always did in the church where he grew up. He smiled and said that didn’t make it right.
I encounter people every day who do not know how to study and then think and reason what they have read. They just parrot what others have told them in the past. This is true with politics, it is true with religion, and it is true with choices about lifestyles. If we are going to please the Lord, we must learn to think for ourselves so our faith (what we believe and why we believe it) is our own. Just because our parents or the preacher or a political party or a professor said it, does not make it right. Think! It will often disturb others but think for yourself.
O Lord God, give me wisdom to study and then to think and reason from your word to know what is right. Help me to know how and to be willing to think “out of the box” but not to just be different for difference sake. I know that people always want to discover some new truth but help me remember that Jesus is truth and real truth is eternal because it comes from you. Be with your people in places where there is famine and where there is persecution. Use me to do what I can for them as you protect them and provide for them. In Jesus’ name.
Robert
