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Proverbs 17:1-19:29<\/strong><\/span> Proverbs 17 verse 1 is so very wise\u2026 \u201cA dry crust eaten in peace is better than a great feast with strife.\u201d <\/em>I don\u2019t know about you, but this Proverb hits home.\u00a0 I have eaten very simple meals in peace that have been so beautiful.\u00a0 And I have also eaten at great feasts filled with drama and angst and strife.\u00a0 The world may preach to us that the latter is better \u2013 the feast with all it\u2019s drama.\u00a0 But, I think the still small quiet voice of God through the Bible indicates the former is better.\u00a0 Which do you think is better?\u00a0 The peaceful crust or the strifeful feast?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Below is an image of a \u201cstrifeful feast\u201d to say the least from the artist Rembrandt again.\u00a0 This is from Daniel chapter 5 verses 1 through 6 \u2013 \u201cKing Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them.\u00a0 While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.\u00a0 His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 (As Paul Harvey would say, check out the rest of this story in Daniel chapter 5 <\/span>at this link<\/span> and learn what the writing on the wall means!\u00a0 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin!)<\/span><\/p>\n I love Proverbs chapter 17 verse 3 today \u2013 \u201cFire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>I think sometimes in our lives we tend to forget to live from our hearts.\u00a0 We live from our minds I think so often \u2013 and we can tend to silence our hearts.\u00a0 But God wants our hearts.\u00a0 He wants our hearts to be fully his.\u00a0 God oftentimes will speak to us through our hearts \u2013 sometimes I find that God\u2019s \u201cstill small voice\u201d or God\u2019s whisper can only be discerned through my heart.\u00a0 So, let us live from our hearts.\u00a0 And let us realize that God is very interested in our hearts \u2013 and will test the purity of our hearts.\u00a0 The heart is so critically important for our spiritual life\u2026\u00a0 how is the landscape of your heart today?\u00a0 What would God find inside your heart right now?\u00a0 Is your heart pure?\u00a0 Is your heart for God?<\/span><\/p>\n Proverbs 17 verse 5 is quite convicting for us to consider: \u201cThose who mock the poor insult their Maker; those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 That is a powerful realization \u2013 if you mock the poor, you mock God.\u00a0 If you care for the poor, you care for God.\u00a0 I have a friend who met Mother Teresa many years back at her home for the sick & dying in Calcutta.\u00a0 And my friend when he met her was trying to tell her all the great stuff he was doing in his life and in his ministry.\u00a0 But, Mother Teresa really didn\u2019t care to hear about all his ministry stuff.\u00a0 All she said to him was \u201cDo you want to meet Jesus?\u00a0 Do you want to meet Jesus?\u201d\u00a0 And of course he said \u201cYes!\u00a0 Of course I do Mother Teresa.\u201d\u00a0 So, she led him by the hand down a hall and into a room where a man was on his deathbed.\u00a0 She sat my friend down at a chair by this man\u2019s bed.\u00a0 And she placed my friend\u2019s hands on this dying man\u2019s hands.\u00a0 And she said, \u201cNow you will meet Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 And she left the room\u2026\u00a0 and left him in the room with the dying man for about 30 minutes.\u00a0 \u00a0And you know what \u2013 my friend met Jesus that day in a way he had never done so before.\u00a0 So, how about you.\u00a0 Do you want to meet Jesus?<\/span><\/p>\n Worship Video: <\/strong>Today\u2019s readings in Proverbs remind me of the Selah song \u201cUnredeemed:\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \n
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