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Well, if you’re Tim Stevens, executive pastor at Grainger Community Church, you rejoice that there must be those in that group that are new believers or unbelievers.

When I first saw the stats of Grainger’s Reveal survey on Tim’s blog post it kind of threw me. Grainger is well-known for being a relevant church at the forefront of cutting edge stuff. They must be baptizing and discipling tons of people. Well, I’m sure they are, but in a church of 5,000 people on any given Sunday to know that they are attracting a lot of people to explore their faith is pretty great.

It just shows that different methods are being used to reach people and that God will be glorified through it all. People come to know Christ in different ways and their paths to the truth come about in various stages. One can’t expect that someone that wants to know the Lord personally may automatically believe the Bible to be fully true and without error or contradiction. For me though, I believe that engaging people in a missional environment where they have the chance to see lives changed through the power of the Holy Spirit will lead people to want to believe passionately that the Bible is relevant and truthful as they see things unfold in front of their eyes that mirror things they read in the gospel.

Whether missional or attractional, churches will still struggle with balancing what to do for both the believer and non-believer and it is open dialog such as what Tim Stevens is doing that will help us all obtain the goal of one day seeing the kingdom of heaven on earth.

There is something that we as Christians must always heed. No man on this earth has the authority to alter the Word of God. Yes, I know that the Bible as we know it today was written through the hands of men. However, my emphasis is on adding words to the scripture, not interpretation.

There are people out there that claim they are the embodiment of Jesus coming back to claim his bride. There are signs that will follow so that we may know the real Christ. There are people out there that will call upon you to dig down deep into your pockets so that they can expand their ministry with a new jet aircraft. They say it is God’s will for them to travel in such an elaborate style, but with Jesus not even knowing where he would rest his head at night when he came upon some cities, does a personal jet really become God’s will for an evangelist?

I’m not criticizing or being judgmental. I am merely asking you to really look for confirmation of what someone tells you by God’s own Word first. Be in prayer and seek wisdom. Don’t just believe that because someone looks like a pastor or has a title or serves within a particular capacity within ministry that they always speak God’s truth.

Proverbs 30:6 Do not add to his words,
or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

As we are about to conclude our 31 days of prayer and mediation in Proverbs this week, I ask that you will prayerfully seek the Lord’s will as you read the devotions and pray. Always uphold my words against the living word of God and follow God’s Word over my words always! May you do the same for everything that is presented to you through man that is credited to be from God.

Proverbs 29:19 A servant cannot be corrected by mere words;
though he understands, he will not respond.

This is something that I believe all of us understand in theory, but don’t always put into practice. Too many times I have heard stories from teens where their parents will punish them for their language, but their parents use worse language and that is okay. It gets even deeper. Parents will tell their children not to have sex before they are married or not to take drugs or drink alcohol, yet the kids know their parents have done these exact things. Then, the parents will say that just because they did it does not make it right and it is their hope that the kids will learn from the mistakes of the parents and benefit from their wisdom. ERRRRRRRRR! Just stop it right there! This tactic just doesn’t work. Do as I say, not as I do has no credibility in anyone’s world!

If we aren’t willing to be examples of what we teach, how can we expect others to follow our ways? That is the awesome thing about Jesus. Not only does he give us wisdom through his teaching, but he lived the life in the flesh for the world to see. He never stumbled or compromised. When Jesus teaches something we can know that he lived it himself.

What can you eliminate from your life that sets a bad example for others? Especially if you’re a parent, I would hope you would take this verse to heart. Could you give up drinking to avoid putting yourself in compromising positions? If you think taking out your co-workers for drinks after work and then saying some dumb things will help them respect your authority in the workplace, you are totally wrong. if you tell your girlfriend to be more responsible in staying in touch with you, shouldn’t you do the same thing? There are so many things we do, consciously and sub-consciously that reveal us to be somewhat hypocritical. Let’s seek the Lord, ask His forgiveness, and start being better examples of what we say. Respect cannot be demanded, but it must be earned.

It’s rare to find someone that isn’t a professing Christian that really understands this idea, but lying, stealing, cheating, and being deceitful to cover up your mistakes really doesn’t gain you anything. It has nothing to do with whether only Christians can be moral. When I was an atheist I felt I had a strong moral compass. However, when one is not a Christian it’s easy to rationalize taking advantage of others for our own personal gain or to do some things we can get away with because they aren’t smart enough to figure it out and it’s not your place to educate them. In reality, this mindset is just wrong!

Proverbs 28:13 tells us:

If you hide your sins, you will not succeed. If you confess and reject them, you will receive mercy.

If you’re an unbeliever reading this, it probably seems like it’s false. There are people that hide things and yet they are very successful, right? However, the context of this verse has to do with being successful from a heavenly perspective, not a worldly one.

Not only is confessing our mistakes to God a continual process in humbling ourselves before God, but it removes a tremendous burden from our shoulders always! We’re better off confessing our mistakes to others and taking what happens as a result than we are by trying to continually keep lying to cover it up. God doesn’t want anyone to feel guilty, yet without God we can find plenty in our lives that cause us to feel guilty.

If you’re feeling guilty about something, stop it! Confess it to God and He will offer forgiveness and remove it from his memory as if it never happened. He will never use it against you in the future or cause you to feel guilt or shame. Whatever is causing your guilt, won’t you connect with the person you were dishonest to or took advantage of and just let them know you’re sorry and ask their forgiveness? Isn’t it about time? Take the opportunity to let go of that burden and start enjoying the life God wants you to experience. Let the guilt be replaced with peace and joy.

One of the things that we tend to struggle with is giving in to anger or emotion or retribution because we are provoked by another. It’s easy to make excuses and blame others, but with Christ in us, can we really say, “Tom made me do it?” or whoever it is that you believe caused your mis-step? If we are to be a reflection of Jesus, can someone else’s words really make us look bad? Should we really stand on our own pride and ego if we are to be Christ-like in our ways?

This is one of the most difficult things to do as Satan knows we are sinful in nature and therefore we are going to be prone to be temporarily blinded when someone gets in our face and calls us out and we respond by lashing out verbally or physically as we sense a threat or damage to our pride. As Jesus told us in Matthew 5, it’s not eye for an eye, but turn the other cheek. It’s almost impossible to comprehend when someone is trying to get us riled up, but the one thing that ends this is to let them have their stupid way and eventually they leave to go pick on someone else, or they come to realize how stupid they are acting and just stop. It goes much farther than giving into their way and trying to fight back.

Just know that Proverbs 27:3 really is true:

Stone is heavy and sand a burden,
but provocation by a fool is heavier than both.

The weight of publicly feeling like we are being made to look like a fool or the butt of someone’s jokes or being asked to respond to the idiotic question, “What are you gonna do about it?” is really heavy. However, the weight of giving into the provoking from another is an even bigger burden and it sets a never-ending trap to always respond the same way. Be above the urge to play Satan’s game and just stop. Let them have their fun or appear to have the upper hand. In reality, as you have Christ on your side and his love in your heart, you will prevail. It’s a matter of trusting in God or trusting in the greatest liar Satan. The choice is yours.

Have you ever had a time–maybe even now–where things seem to be closing in on you and you don’t know what to do? You question why you of all people should have to deal with such a thing? After everything you’ve been through, you ask, “When will it all end?”

As difficult as it is going to sound, I’d ask you to just step back and believe that you are going to get through it. Whether it is a threat of something due to not having enough money or losing a job while you have debt or struggling with temptations…whatever it is, just pause and give it all to the Lord. Tell him that you’re believing this isn’t for you and that you will rise above it by trusting that God has bigger and better plans for you and that he intends to prosper you rather than harm you just like it is revealed in Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV):

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Don’t let the deceit of Satan the liar get the best of you. All sorts of calamity may appear to be raining down upon your head or your house, but do not fear. Stuff is always going to happen around you, but you have been given faith in order to have hope and know that there is always a positive outcome in the works of the Lord.

Reflect today on the words of Proverbs 26:2 this time from The Message translation:

You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse
as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.

Believe the curse is undeserved because God would not cause you harm! Treat it as if you were being descended upon by a tiny little sparrow. Obviously, the much-smaller sparrow would not intend you to be its target so you would not be concerned. In Christ, you are bigger than anything any devil would throw at you. It’s time to take a stand and profess in the name of Christ that you are not going to give in to the lies and fear and the stress of this world. Trust in God and he will see you through anything. Even though the sky is dark and the clouds look ominous, you may see the light of day before you see any rain.

In verse 4 of the King James Version (KJV) we find that the language used isn’t common for most of us today. The word dross is used:

Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.

What is dross? Well we can guess or look it up, but I’m sure you know what we typically do. We’ll just skip over that and go onto to the next passage. When we do this, we lose a lot as the passage we skip must be relevant and intended to be known by us or it would not have been included in the scriptures.

One of the things I like to do is go to other translations and see how verses are interpreted or sometimes even spend longer periods of time just in one different translation to get a different perspective. For study this isn’t good as some translations are paraphrases and not completely accurate to the original language (Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic), but for meditation it is great in my opinion!

Let’s take a look at verse 4 in other translations and see if it helps:

NIV: Remove the dross from the silver,
and out comes material for the silversmith;

This is exactly the same translation used in the KJV so most-likely we’d just skim past it too.

NLT: Remove the impurities from silver,
and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith.

Ah, this is beginning to make sense now to those of us that don’t know the meaning of the word dross. It’s like impurities. We could have probably guessed that, but should we approach the Bible guessing about what it means?

Let’s look at one more translation and see if it offers any more help:

CEV: Silver must be purified

before it can be used

to make something of value.

Can you see how this elaborates even further than the NLT version? It’s not just that the impurities must be removed from the silver before the silversmith can use it; instead, we must have the impurities removed from the silver so that the silversmith can make something valuable. Now that is something that most people can read and come to understand clearly without a dictionary or without having to guess.

I’d encourage you to refer to translations like the NLT (New Living Translation) or the CEV (Contemporary English Version) to help in your devotion and meditation time. It will allow you to know and understand some of those things that God wants you to give up (impurities) so that he (silversmith) can present you as something valuable to others. We must keep in mind too that we are of tremendous value in God’s eyes just as we are! We should remember that he would leave the 99 to go after the 1 that went astray (Matthew 18:12-14). So, we don’t remove impurities to be more valuable to God, instead we become more valuable for God to use us so that someone else can be found.

May God be perfecting you as precious silver so that others can look at you and see the beauty in God and all that he creates.

Proverbs 24:26:

An honest answer
is like a kiss on the lips.

Some of us need that sweet kiss of honesty and some of us need to offer more honesty. There really isn’t thing good about a lie regardless of the context. It sets a trap to justify more lies. Stand firm in your honesty and it will be as if those around you just got a kiss on the lips.

Is there someone you weren’t completely honest with that deserves to know the whole truth? Won’t you make an effort to seek their forgiveness and give them the rest of the story?

Truth…what is it? Unfortunately we live in a day when many will say what is true for me may not be true for you. However, if the truth you know is more valuable than gold and someone paid the price of death so that you may come to know it, is it really relative to you and not others? At what point does it become a call to save the life of another rather than something you don’t want to impose on someone else?

Proverbs 23:23 in the Amplified Bible reads:

Buy the truth and sell it not; not only that, but also get discernment and judgment, instruction and understanding.

What does that mean? Well, I believe it means that truth comes at a price. We must give something in order to know it. However, once we have sacrificed to know the truth, we shouldn’t be so quick to sell it and walk away from it, regardless of how green it looks on the other side. You see, the devil is a liar! He is a tempter that comes like a temptress. Don’t become his next victim! Guard the truth in your heart with sound judgment and discernment. Seek instruction from the Lord through prayer, through reading his word, through wise counsel. Desire to understand everything in the context of God and his kingdom rather than of earth and the ways of darkness. If you do this, then we know that by John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Have you ever noticed that there are some traits of people you associate with that have become of your own personality? Like if you are around people that have no patience you tend to start losing patience too? Unfortunately, who we keep company with will ultimately influence us. Sometimes it can influence us negatively in that we begin emulating their negative traits, but sometimes it can influence us positively in that after observing their negative behavior we commit not to do the same things.

Verses 24 & 25 (New Living Translation):

24Don’t befriend angry people
or associate with hot-tempered people,
25or you will learn to be like them
and endanger your soul.

It’s really hard to know that if we are around people that can influence us negatively that we will have the wisdom and resolve to not start acting out their negative behavior. Therefore, please be careful when you are around others frequently that do the wrong things. Please be in prayer for yourself constantly and also pray for them to have the Lord breakthrough the negative behaviors.

Is there someone you know that needs to be broken of being hot-tempered or is there someone you know that you probably shouldn’t be around so much because of their hot-tempered nature? Won’t you take the time to pray about these relationships and seek higher ground from the Lord?