BAD COMPANY

BAD COMPANY

            I was reading in Proverbs 10 this morning about the tongue and what an awesome instrument it can be, both for good and for evil.  And it caused me to think about the words we speak daily. 

Proverbs 10:11:

The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life:  but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. (KJV)

Proverbs 10: 20-21:

The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is of little worth.  The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for lack of wisdom.  (KJV)

            The other Scripture that came to mind this morning was 1 Corinthians 15:33:

Be not deceived.  Evil communications corrupt good manners.  (KJV)

            Some of the other translations substitute the words “bad company” for “evil communications.  But doesn’t it stand to reason that keeping bad company and hearing words that are not uplifting would cause our minds and our hearts to flounder?

            The Bible says that we are snared by the words of our mouths.  Snared…the picture in my mind’s eye is of a trap set for something (or someone) to walk into.  The tripwire is released and it (or they) are hanging, often upside down, and unable to free themselves. 

            How many times to we let words fly, whether in the heat of the moment, in a moment of anger or hurt, and they become a snare for us?  Words hurt.  They wound, sometimes deeply.  Word wounds are not often easy to see, but they scar just the same.

            Think about the company you keep, that your children keep, the communication that they see on a daily basis.  It is evident by the words that come out of a person’s mouth what kind of company they’ve been keeping, what kind of communication they’ve been hearing.  On nearly a daily basis, I am hearing words come out of the mouths of teenagers that I know they hear at home as part of their daily lives, that they are hearing on a daily basis from their friends, on the media that they watch, the music they listen to.  And, I am constantly reminding them to mind their mouths, that their communication offends me.  It inevitably leads to a “sorry” on their part.  But it amazing to see how easily those words “slip” out of their mouths.

            There is an old saying that says that you are known by the company that you keep.  It’s sort of a paraphrase of Proverbs 13:20:

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise:  but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. (KJV)

            You are the company you keep.  Foolish friends will destroy you.  Wise friends will help you to succeed.  Don’t be deceived.  Allowing evil into your life will cost you your good manners.

Barb Scott

Originally written January 2015.

A PSALM OF THANKS

A PSALM OF THANKS

(Originally written 11/24/14

Psalms 103: 1-5

Praise the LORD,O my soul;all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits--who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. (NIV)

            It’s been said that praise is a lifestyle.  If so, what should this lifestyle look like?  And what does it mean to praise God, anyway?

            Glad you asked!  The dictionary defines the word “praise” as “expressing admiration for”, “rave about”, “make much of”, “admire”, “hail”, “to laud”, “to boast about”.

            When the psalmist David exhorts us to “praise the Lord” twice in this writing, he is including all those definitions of the word.

            When are we supposed to do this?  Anywhere, everywhere…not just in church on Sunday when we gather together with other believers   Praising God should be something we do at home, in the car, at work, a daily part of our prayer life and our life in general. 

            Praise Him as part of our prayers?  Too often, we are guilty of asking of God:  “I want” or “I need”.  God does want us to ask, but he also likes to hear us brag on Him and the things that He does for us.  Praise is also an expression of our faith in Him, to know that He is in control of our lives and circumstances.

            I start out each of my daily prayers to God with simple thanks.  I thank Him for His mercy and His grace that are fresh and new to me every single day.  I also thank Him for His provision for me.  I do not take for granted His protective hand over the circumstances of my life and the blessings that He allows to come into it.  And if something happens at work that I know that He’s had a hand in, I stop right then and there, raise my hand and thank Him.  Now, if it’s a major answer to prayer, I’ve been known to head to my workroom, drop to my knees and weep.  That’s happened a few times.

            And then there are His benefits.  A benefit is “an advantage, a privilege, a right”, “a resource”, “a result of an action”. 

            I was reading an interesting article tonight, and it spelled out seven benefits of praising God:

1.       It changes the spiritual climate.    Bad moods lift when you praise God.  Prison doors open as well (Acts 16:25).

2.      It fulfills your purpose as God’s creation.  That’s what God created us for.  If we’re silenced, the rocks and stones will cry out (Luke 19:40).

3.      It gives us power to do great deeds.  Peter was able to do great things after he acknowleged the Lordship of Jesus  (Matthew 16:16).

4.      Praise puts things in the right perspective.  No matter what is going on in your life, God is still on the throne and still in control.

5.      It reminds you of God’s presence in your life.  Praise reminds us that He is always near.  His Word says that He will never leave us or forsake us.

6.      It crucifies your pride.  Praise humbles us and allows us to elevate God.

7.      It attracts God’s presence.  God is drawn to where He is welcomed.

And then there were all of the other benefits that Pastor Ray enumerated this morning:  forgiveness of sins, healing, deliverance, crowning us with love and mercy, and satisfying us with good things and renewed strength.

      Who wouldn’t want all these things and more?  There’s the peace and the joy that God gives to us.  Those are certainly benefits! 

      So, on this Thanksgiving week, take the time to say a prayer of not only thanks but of praise to God for the great things He has done in your life and in the lives of your loved ones.  He’ll love to hear it!

Barb Scott

THE LITTLEST MEMBER

THE LITTLEST MEMBER

James 3:5

Likewise, 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. (NIV)

                My last devotion concerned the power of the tongue and how we are sometimes entrapped by the words that we speak.  In reading today’s chapter of Proverbs, I found that it has many verses concerning the tongue and the pain it can inflict.

                One of the Bibles that I use is a Dake Annotated Reference Bible.  Along with Scripture, each page is bookended with notes on those Scriptures. 

                Today’s Scripture that I keyed in on was Proverbs 17: 4-5, which reads:

"A wicked person listens to deceitful lips; a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.  Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished." (NIV)

                The footnotes to these Scriptures in my Bible gave this commentary: 

4 great sins:  lying, deceit, mockery, gloating.

                Notice that each one of these sins involves the tongue!  Let’s take a look at them individually.

1.        Lying—the telling of lies, false statements, untruthfulness,  being deliberately untruthful.  The Bible says that lying is a sin.  It is displeasing to God.  Think back to the Garden of Eden.  Eve was told a lie.  There’s even a Commandment about not lying (“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”—Exodus 20:16).  Remember Ananias and Sapphira?  They paid for lying with their lives!  It’s never right to lie.

2.        Deceit—concealment or distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading, fraud, cheating.  Deceit is much like lying, but it includes not only words, but actions that are intended to make people believe things that are not true.  We might think about these as “false promises”.  Sometimes people make promises that they have no intention of keeping or know that when they make them, they cannot keep them.  In Genesis 29, Laban deceived Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel, when Jacob had agreed to work seven years for Rachel.  Moses was deceived by Pharoah in the book of Exodus by thinking that Israel would be set free after the plagues were removed from Egypt.  It didn’t happen.  The old adage “actions speak louder than words” is certainly true in both of these instances!  It’s never right to knowingly deceive.

3.                   Mockery—to ridicule or imitate in a ridiculous manner, to treat with contempt.    In the book of Acts, the disciples were mocked on Pentecost, with the people supposing that they were drunk on “new wine”.  Jesus was mocked by the soldiers before He was crucified.  In 2 Kings, two people who mocked the prophet Elisha met with a bad end as a result of their mocking.  According to the verse in Proverbs above, mocking someone shows contempt to God.  After all, we are made in His image.  Mockery is making fun, and in its true form, it’s NOT funny.  Mockery causes hurt and anger.  It’s never right to mock someone.

4.       Gloating—to look at or to think about with great or excessive, often smug or malicious, satisfaction; to voice such.  In Genesis 9, Noah’s son Ham gloated over his father’s sin.   You could say that the Pharisees and Sadducees gloated when they thought that they had silenced the voice of Jesus.  We might also think about gloating as taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.  Perhaps someone has hurt us.  We find out that something bad has happened to them.  Sometimes our immediate reaction is “well, they deserved that”.  But, as Christians, it’s wrong for us to gloat over the misfortune of anyone.  Jesus told us in Matthew 6:44 to love our enemies.  It’s never right to gloat about someone’s fall or failure.  We are to grieve, not gloat!

Yikes!  How many times do we find ourselves guilty of any of the above?  To be sure, none of us are “super saints”—we are all sinners saved by grace.  Any of us can stumble at any time.  But through God’s grace…and His infinite mercy and love for us…there is forgiveness.  And forgiveness isn’t just a one-time deal.  It’s there whenever we need it.

So, what’s the solution?  Well, let’s look to the Bible again:

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

And not only should we think on such things, we must train our tongue, that “littlest member” of our bodies, to speak of such things as well!