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Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles!
I love the book of Proverbs because it is so clear sometimes it takes my breath away yet so vague it makes my brain numb! I read Proverbs 21:23 and was struck by the double meaning in this verse. I hit myself on the forehead in awe of how God teaches me about my errors. Let me tell you my story.
The Unguarded Story
I host a women’s retreat bi-monthly, I bought them some yummy chocolates knowing I have been watching my girlish figure and so has my mom, who was on her way to visit! We have had food issues for as long as I can remember! I put those yummy chocolates out at the retreat then when I got home, because my mood was such that I was weak, I put them out again. After teaching all day I was exhausted and vulnerable. Previously on my way home I had a chat with myself regarding my tongue so I would not say something in my weakness to offend BUT I should also have had a chat with myself about my mouth too. I guarded my tongue but not my mouth! Not only did I fail to protect myself but I also failed to protect my mother by putting her into the same temptation! Oh, how I long to get the drive to my house back to speak to myself again for my soul now has trouble! When my soul has trouble I have only two choices, I can harden my heart to the trouble or I can relieve it by righting the situation!
Hardened heart cold soul!
Hardening our heart means we are turning off our feeling of love for others and turning in to self! Maintaining our pure feelings for others is not easy and the Words of God never say it is! There are lists of what the result of a hard heart looks like in man. These scenarios happen from time to time in the Scriptures. When I harden my heart I don’t care about putting people into temptation nor do I care whether people have hope. My feelings are more important than you therefore your feelings don’t matter! This is not a permanent choice I will make as a follower of Jesus! I may make it initially because I am human filled with sin but the skills I have learned from Elohim will not allow me to put my own selfish soul in front of my mothers or anyone else’s. If we profess to love Jesus this is the only stance we should take therefore the only thing left to do is right the situation!
Guarding my mouth and tongue!
I didn’t guard my mouth so well but I will make amends with my tongue because my soul has trouble! I know my soul has trouble because the Spirit is pinching it. If your soul never has trouble than I can say with all honesty Satan controls your soul but if it even has the slightest trouble the Spirit is taking control. When the Spirit has control He leads us with a soft heart for people and ourselves. He not only helps us to see what we have done but He provides us with a way out! The way out includes the vision for a future hope of this not happening again affectively avoiding future soul troubles. These plans are called ‘setting up boundaries.’ This is a life skill many fail to establish and if they do they fail to protect them! The Spirit pinches us about the offence then He draws our attention to a verse we have read before then with our remembrance of said verse we become aware of the gravity of our offence. Our soul becomes so troubled we begin to cry out for relief. This is when we know for certain we have chosen them over us!
A Permanent Guard!
It makes complete sense we should get to this place if we are a child of Elohim but our goal should be to never get to this place again by setting up a boundary/rule about this situation or others. Perfecting the life skill of setting boundaries will serve you well in the future. Adhering to boundaries takes practice and determination but the clear speaking of it is the very first step. If we look at my situation clearly we can determine I was vulnerable from a whole day of teaching plus the days before from prep work! My mind was exhausted, but not dead, therefore I was able to make positive decisions such as talking to myself about my tongue but my mouth was left unguarded therefore I made a bad decision in regard to what was going into it. I still snapped at my husband but I was quick to apologize never to do it again on that night because I had talked to myself. I had the wherewithal to guard the output but not the input.
A way out and a way never!
I have the way out of this situation (make it right) but I must come up with way for it never to happen again (put a guard up for my mouth). I will not fool myself into thinking I can cure this particular soul trouble over night, as I told you food has been a problem for my mom and I for as long as I can remember. Reality has to remain a factor in setting boundaries and maintaining them effectively. Since, I am effected by this exhaustion for days before and the night of, I must hold to a mouth and tongue boundary for several days before as well as on the very day. I bought the said junk food the day before the retreat without the prior plan to buy it, my first mistake. It was a quick decision based on a lack of a plan for this mindset, no plan was my second mistake. To overcome the soul trouble resulting from brain exhaustion I will set a food boundary during this time – the buying of it and the eating of it! I will set this boundary while I am free from exhaustion and thinking clearly about what I should eat and what I should buy. Since my next retreat isn’t for two months I will have plenty of time to practice this boundary before the actual time arrives.
You know your weakness…
Since boundaries are about the yes’s and the no’s we have to discover our weaknesses and also discover what will work for us to overcome it. It takes practice to know what will work but you too can plan in advance what you will say or do during a weak moment. You alone (and the Spirit) know when it will occur and what it will take to overcome the event that will cause soul trouble. This is the very thing Jesus is talking about when He says, “To him who overcomes!” He knows we need reward but He also knows when the stakes are high we will come through. It is not about the deed it is about taking the way out and planning a way to stay out. To do this we must know who we are and what our weakness are and plan to tap into our strengths as our way out. This is something we are fully capable of doing when we use what God gives us plus making the choice to be an overcomer in the Kingdom of God!
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Perform My Good Word Toward You!
Recently Elohim has blessed me with reading two very different but similar areas of the Bible one right after the other. Take a few minutes and read Psalm 73 then Jeremiah 29:4-23.
Reprimanded by God
My Christian life thus far has not been filled with blessing as most people describe blessings. I have been stripped of every ounce of financial security, every reliance to my profession, every reliance to people, a church body to hang with, and most of my friends. I was in Babylon (a place of punishment and growth). I felt as if I was being punished for becoming righteous while others were prospering in their wickedness. Elohim kept reminding me it is not about them, it is about me! Just as Asaph is reminded in the Sanctuary of God, I am reminded in my deep place with Elohim, all men are reprimanded by God (Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12:6; Revelation 3:19) but some do not listen and harden their hearts to His Words. We are all to heed the call to be holy just as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16) individually and corporately. We become holy by allowing Elohim to reprimand us into holiness.
The Sin in and of the Body of Christ
In both Psalm and Jeremiah we will read of the progression of sin in Israel until Elohim removed the right for His people to live in the Holy Land. These are God’s chosen people who were becoming wicked rather than holy but, not only were they becoming wicked, they were condoning it too! I have to say, I did not go through all of these “70 years” of trial to condone wickedness from someone who professes to be Christian. Asaph learned the wicked would get there payment individually and Jeremiah learned corporately the wicked would be punished as well. There is sin in the Body of Christ that will be dealt with individually and there is corporate sin to be dealt with as well and God will do both but we a not to condone it from anyone in the Body of Christ.
Wickedness doesn’t just wake up one day and engulf the Body of Christ. It is brought in by an apostate or an imposter. They are allowed within the Body because the leaders/followers are afraid to stand strong for the Body of Christ. Our righteous anger doesn’t exist. We do not hate what God hates. The world has creeped into our holiness and we have redefined holy. We say it is acceptance rather than salvation. We say it is love rather than discipline. We have defined it as tolerance not hope. We have restated God’s good Words toward us and they sound nothing like the Words in the Scriptures because they are empty. They do nothing for the human race except condone sin. We know sin leads to death (James 1:15) but that seems fine to us rather than doling out correction causing them to go to God for guidance.
His Good Words will not Come Back Empty
Today, due to Elohim’s guidance, I am on the turn from the discipline of God because I have endured and overcome the trials set before me to make me holy. Romans 8:28 is a reminder for us of God’s Words working out for the good to THOSE WHO LOVE GOD AND ARE THE CALLED! Proverbs 16:4 tells us Elohim has made everything for Himself and He also makes those who are wicked, yes, He even makes the wicked for doom! Everything we see happening today is predestined to happen. Every person on this earth at this moment is predestined to be here, whether holy or wicked. The sins of the person and the sins of the corporate will get worse and it is up to us individually and corporately to make sure we learn the skills from Elohim to overcome during this time. His Words are what helps us overcome. His Words are what gives us the skills to endure and overcome and plan for the future. His good Words will never come back empty!
Know What His Good Word Is!
These skills for overcoming are all about knowing what Elohim’s good Words are unfortunately the world has redefined good but as Christians we need to know God has defined good as being and doing righteous. His good Words are His righteous Words. His righteous Words sometimes hurt our soul but they are meant to bring our soul in line with His Spirit. His good Word is like a sword to the wicked but His good Word is as a warm cozy blanket to the righteous. His good Word leads us to Salvation. His good Words teach us to love! His good Words give us hope for eternity. His Words are not empty. They are not subject to mood, time, situation or people. They are what they are and they are not changing just because we do not understand them. What God has said will happen WILL happen. He will perform His Word toward you! Are you listening?
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Diligence is a Man’s Possession
Do you work hard for everything? Nothing comes to me easily as I am sure the same is for most women. I have worked hard and long for the possessions I have. Nothing has been handed to me on a silver platter. I was not born to a rich family nor did I marry into one. Today, some folks may think they are entitled to riches and deserving of poverty because of who they are or where they live. Neither one of them are important because each one of them can change at the drop of a hat. The only possession we should treasure is diligence but some of us tend to use it only when we feel like it as if it is a book to be pulled off the shelf.
Whoever thinks life is easy is a lazy man!
If diligence is a book we leave on the shelf collecting dust we have deliberately given someone else a part of our life. Think of it this way. Knowledge and understanding are not things we can rely on other people for. We must learn for ourselves and get understanding on our own to improve our own life skills. Each act or discipline we learn contributes to knowledge and understanding therefore the less we do the less we know. Proverbs 12:27a says the lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting. This Scripture refers to more than just hunting meat. Elohim is saying the lazy man is the one who does just what is expected of him and even less. Those of us who think life is hard and complicated and convoluted are the ones who work hard to overcome each and every obstacle but those who think life is easy are the ones who start a job and never finish it because it got too hard. It is easy to hunt and walk away from the kill while others pick up the kill, haul it to the butcher then go pick up the prepared packages and cook it for you. A lazy man makes life easy for himself at the expense of his life skills but a diligent man takes possession of his diligence to gain knowledge and understanding.
Take Possession of Diligence
What causes us to be lazy? Think hard because it could be many things, or a combination: pride, jealousy, co-dependence, fear or habit. The list is endless for reasons and boundless in excuses. When we take possession of our diligence we are agreeing to work for what we want and improve our life. Proverbs 12:27b tells us diligence is a man PRECIOUS POSSESSION! Acting with all diligence does not always mean instant success each time but it does supply instant knowledge. Diligence doesn’t always continue in the direction started since correction IS heeded. Diligence sometimes resigns due to an understanding gained. Diligence may never results in physical possessions but always results in knowledge, understanding and wisdom that will ultimately result in knowing what we possess does not possess us. Diligence does not protect us from life it simply protects us from losing everything!
To Diligence Everything is Untouchable
When we take possession of diligence we see physical possessions as something corruptible. It’s the skills we’ve learned that are incorruptible therefore they become everything to us. We use those life skills to gain more life skills. When we get lazy and stop learning we forgo the skills to care for ourselves therefore we cannot take care of our loved ones. When calamity happens we blame others and never take responsibility for the calamity or even our own laziness. It is the fool who says, “I am lazy!” but never changes it. The only control we have in life is the ability to let our family know we care about them by using all diligence to meet the needs they have whether it is money, food, or love and encouragement.
Pay the Price for Diligence
Nothing in life comes without a cost; either we pay cold hard cash for it or calories. When we are diligent to make our family matter we do what is right for them to keep them safe from harm. The price for diligence is our own wants. The price for diligence is our won bad habits and the price for diligence is our own lame excuses for our lack of success in caring for our loved ones. When we pay the price there will always be a reward. The price is doing what Scripture so thoroughly teaches us to do. There is no other Book that can completely teach us how to live. As we get into the will of God we improve our skills to diligently overcome the issues of life. Each time we overcome a reward is credited to us toward life on the New Earth (Revelation 1, 2, 3). Heaven is not our permanent home, the new earth is (Revelation 21 & 22). Acting with all diligence teaches us to overcome knowing we will have rewards given to us when Jesus comes.
The proof of this is just a few verses away. Proverbs 13:4 The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. Take possession of diligence on earth to gain your rewards for eternity!
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God is Not Blessing Us, We are Already Blessed!
I was reminded recently how much we are blessed! Our mindset on a daily basis either decides we are blessed or decides we are cursed. How do we know the difference for certain? If you love Jesus you are blessed and if you do not you are cursed! Paul was definitely blessed by God. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees moving up in the ranks very quickly into many leadership positions. He was trained under Gamaliel, a doctor of the Jewish Law. Gamaliel warned the Pharasees not to stop the work of God (Acts 5:34-40). Paul didn’t know then his life was being orchestrated by God to get him in place to write all the letters he wrote to the churches. At the time of Gamaliel, Saul thought he was blessed because he earned it however by the time he sat to write the letter to the Ephesians he believed with all of his soul he had earned none of it! He knew he was already blessed then and now!
Paul was a man of understanding and he used it to teach the churches how they should act inside and outside of the Ekklesia. The one piece of information he wanted all of us to understand is God does not bless us, He HAS already blessed us. He tells the Gentiles in Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Even better to be added to this is Proverbs 11:22 The blessing of the Lord makes one rich and He adds no sorrow with it! Each one of these verses tells us Elohim has blessed us prior to us seeing the blessing and sorrow is not part of the blessing. I have learned two truths in my walk with Jesus, if we live in the blessings daily we will never need a miracle and we must never allow anyone to rob us of the blessings bestowed upon us.
Live in the Blessings
Elohim has spoken a blessing over us in His Words, which existed long before we came into being. I know how hard it is to think of being blessed when all hell is breaking loose in your life, when you lose your job, when you have used up all your savings, when family is sick and needs you taking you away from your current life. I want you to know this – it is all in the way you see, receive and speak the blessings of Elohim. We need to know God to see the blessings He has already given us to see and recognize. Once we recognize Him in everything we see the blessings and hope abounds. Hope abounds because we learn to receive the blessings knowing Elohim abounds on the earth. Knowing that we begin to speak the blessing over others and ourselves while living daily to see, receive and speak them aloud! Living for this we understand everything happening to us and the people around us will result in good rather than sorrow giving us more hope for the future. If you start looking for what you have been blessed with, receive it with joy and speak it over your life it makes it hard for someone to steal it from you.
The Blessings Bestowed Upon Us ARE Ours!
You know you are blessed and they are yours but one day while walking in God’s will for you someone says to you, “Did God really say that?” You walk away questioning your idea of what God has been clearly training you to do. At the very point you begin questioning God is the very point someone was successful in robbing the blessing then you continue to not allow the blessing to be activated in your life. You affectively quench the Holy Spirit in your life because someone asked a question to curse you. To be robbed of any blessing is to disobey God. When God blessed us with every Spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places He gave them to us to do His works on this earth so if you are not doing His works because a person got involved in a God works then you are in sin. I am not saying you should not try to understand I am saying you should never question God because a human questioned you. You know yourself better than any other human being. You know God’s work in your life better than any other and you know what God has trained you to do so just do it. If you have obeyed God in the past and it blessed you than why would you stop because a human cursed you. You see the blessing in your life, you have received it and you have been speaking it in your life, don’t stop just keep obeying God because no one has the right to question what God is doing even you.
If it is God No One Cannot Overthrow It!
We all hear the folks who are always talking about being blessed and I figure they say it because they are trying to talk themselves into it. The issue with that is they are not speaking blessing the are boasting blessings. When we become Christian we automatically are blessed with all Spiritual blessings in the Heavenly places and no sorrow is added to them. Gamaliel recognized God at work and he was a Pharisee why do we have such a hard time as Jesus followers to recognize our blessings already in place? If we see them, receive them and speak them into our lives we will recognize each and every one in place before the world was. They will be our stronghold against the robbers of this day. If it is God you cannot overthrow it so walk in it. This week ask Elohim to open your eyes to the blessings in His Words so you will recognize His works that cannot be overthrown.
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We are Ensnared by the Words of Our Mouth!
Three ways to overcome this!
I wonder if this has ever happened to you? Have you said something then regretted it when you actually had a chance to ponder it? These words weren’t vulgar nor deceptive just unwise words, unthought-out words. Words we will now have to stand by although we really don’t want too. Maybe they were haughty words said to make you look tough and unmoving as a result someone now has the impression you are standoffish. There are many things we can say leaving people with a different impression of than we actually wanted to portray. In this day and age words mean very little but to a Christian they are extremely important. God spoke the world into being before it was!
We will speak our works into being before they ever are. We speak ourselves into being before people know us. The writer of Proverbs tells us we need to guard our heart because out of it springs the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23) and out of our heart come the words to reveal our life too. Fortunately Solomon gives us the way out, the way to be an overcomer of this issue in life. First we should keep God’s Words in the midst of our heart, second put away our deceitful mouth and perverse lips and third ponder the direction our feet are going (Proverbs 4:21-27).
His Word in the Midst of our Heart
The Words of God will never come out of our mouth if they are not in midst of our heart. We will always speak like the world. The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit will speak for us when we are in trouble (Matthew 10:20) but if we don’t know Him He cannot send words of wisdom or words to give life from us. We need to read the Scriptures with the intention of keeping it in our heart so we can speak life and not death (Proverbs 18:21) to those we are speaking too and to ourselves. God is not just worried about the folks around us He is also worried about us. When God’s words are in the midst of our heart we not only say them but we ponder them. We ponder the truth of them and the validity of them. Eventually we believe them and we live them and the issues of our life are now the issues in others lives. When we have God’s words in the midst of our hearts it gets easier to put away deceit and vulgarity.
Put away our Deceitful Mouth and Perverse Lips
Solomon didn’t just think a deceitful tongue is bad but perverse lips too. The language of the people we are around today is very curse and full of lies. I admit I was similar when I was unsaved and for some time after being saved I continued to speak like the world. I would shoot my mouth off before my brain was loaded inevitably hurting someone and becoming filled with guilt. It is hurtful and shows I care nothing about what people have to hear when I talk to them. I am worried more about grieving the Holy Spirit than I am grieving people or myself because I know His Words. When we know His Words we are held responsible for how we have portrayed them. I have to talk with myself constantly about this particular thing. Guarding our heart against this is much easier when you know what God expects from us. He expects us to put it away especially if we know our feet are headed to do God’s works.
Ponder the Direction of Your Feet
When we know God has a plan for us (Jeremiah 29:11) and we have been predestined to walk in it (Ephesians 2:10) we can ponder the direction of our feet. When we begin to look at this seriously with wisdom we begin to understand doing the will of God has consequences in the world and we need to be ready to accept them and be overcomers during the process. Elohim will equip us to do His works but we have to be able to pull all the pieces together and go in the direction we find. Pondering the direction we walk is essential to knowing what God really wants from us. When I guard my heart in the direction of my feet I am much more diligent in making the works of God happen.
His plan includes our Heart
The three ways to guard our heart and avoid being ensnared by the words of our mouth will definitely help us to be who God has created us to be. This process is cyclical. We have to do it over and over again to get it right. Put God’s words in your heart, put away deceit and vulgarity, look where you are going, get the Words, put away garbage, watch where you are walking – again – get the Word, put away, watch where you are going. It keeps going like the pink Energizer bunny but each time we are successful at accomplishing results we are given strength we did not have before and are less ensnared by the words of our mouths. We not only will say what we mean we will make our yes’s mean yes and our no’s mean no (Matthew 5:37). This is super freeing! This week free yourself from doing something or saying something unwise by putting god’s words in your ear and putting away the words that kill and the path of your feet will be directed.
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I’ve Gone into Shafts for the Gold Mine!
I do not know how many times I have picked up a self-help book completely excited about what I would learn only to find out it was what I learned in the last book. If that is the case why do I read so many of them? Why bother to read any at all if they say the same thing? It’s for the nuggets! Did you know there are nuggets of gold in every book that we read but the Bible has a big advantage over all those books; it is the gold mine! All the other books are in the shafts leading to the Gold Mine! I willingly go into the shafts mining for nuggets knowing they will all lead me to the ultimate gold mine.
At this moment around my desk I count five books with bookmarks in them. Each one of them is meant to help improve my life because that is what I am all about! My focus, in reading these books, is about improving my life by changing the way I approach decision-making and problem solving. We can be sure of those two very things; each day we make decisions and each day we solve problems. Those are the two things that also hang us up and get us into more trouble than we bargained for.
At first I was gleaning huge nuggets from the self-help books and my life was improving significantly. I was mining every piece of gold I could get from those books and applying them to my life. These authors are geniuses. I became debt free because of Dave Ramsey and Mary Hunt. I made significant strides in my thinking patterns thanks to many women authors especially Beth Moore. Even though the authors I listed are Christians I don’t shy away from non-Christian books and authors such as Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie and the like. Seems I had a fondness for self-help books Christian or otherwise. I had heard the Bible was the book of Life but to be honest I thought they were talking about the verse that tells us that Jesus is the Life (John 14:6). How could a book about Jesus show me how to improve my life?
What I didn’t take into account is our awesome God who knows all and sees all. He continually impressed me with the Words in His Book. I told you in a previous post (blog post) that I write life skills workshops to teach women using the Bible. I decided I would research the Bible, before I actually read the whole Book, to see if each of the topics I was going to teach about was somehow, miraculously, talked about by Elohim. I called the workshop Leading Yourself to Success (2005) having criteria I wanted to follow. First, I wanted them to see themselves as a success right where they were, then begin to change their thinking from negative to positive (James Lehman teachings), discover who they are, set boundaries and goals and finally commit to the change. I knew this to be a task but I started writing and every time I made a point I looked for proof in the Bible that my point was valid. I could not believe my own eyes; the Bible already spoke of every point I made. The workshop became a secular representation of how God wants us to live.
I had found my way into the gold mine through the many shafts. My nose went straight into this Gold Mine every time I needed information about life. Each and every year I live I read other books only to find my way back to the Bible for where the information actually originated. I have discovered every self-help book on the market is published because God ordained it therefore in each one of those books we will find the nuggets we need to bring us right back to the Gold Mine – the Bible.
Don’t stop going into the shafts because they all lead to the Gold Mine! Every written work published is meant to bring us back to God! When you look at these books, meant to help us, we can always compared them to the Book of Life and find multiple similarities. Make sure you set your mind to read the Gold Mine to test this theory for yourself. You will be amazed how our ELOHIM has used secular writers to bring us back to Him. Go to Proverbs first to see wisdom in her full display then find the Gospels (Matthew; Mark; Luke; John) to meet Jesus. Not one day will go by with regret for spending time learning from God Himself, I can guarantee it! If other folks can do it and live a better life as a result so can you!
