Faith Builders Devotional

If you want to live a prosperous life there are many things you have to do. You have to be just, work hard, and work smart. Spending time in His presence will be a key to getting those “God ideas”. But there are some other areas that we have to be thinking about.

Proverbs tell us we have to protect, or guard, our hearts. The entrances to the human heart are the five senses, but especially what you see and hear. As believers we need to be careful what we expose ourselves to. The insights of wisdom continue in Proverbs.

Remember your soul (that you must guard) is your mind, will, and emotions. If we want to be successful followers of Jesus and the Way, we must guard our hearts daily.

In University, I learned that what I watch and listen to can change the way I think. I turned to Jesus in primary school in Oregon. But at University, I noticed my strong knowledge of Him and His ways faded a bit because I got a little too much into watching films. I allowed the morals portrayed in the films to shape the way I think. One day I had to slap myself because I went from knowing that sex is something between a husband and wife to slipping and starting to believe “Oh, maybe it is okay outside of marriage”. Well, I was on track to be deceived because I wasn’t guarding my heart. Praise Him I got quickly back on the highway to heaven! If I wouldn’t have noticed my thinking slip, I could be in big trouble today. What you think, is what you become. I have heard others say, “You are what you think.” What are you thinking? It doesn’t matter what Dad, Mom, or your spouse thinks. It is what YOU are thinking.

You have got to hate what is evil. Rom 12:9 says to “Abhor what is evil”. Abhorring something is to hate something with passion. When you hate something with passion, you act immediately and don’t want to be anywhere near it.

I was on a flight from Tokyo to Sydney with my daughter. Usually, the airplane movies are edited, but as I was sitting next to my daughter I was shocked. This asian airline didn’t edit anything. A somewhat historical-themed movie played before me, it wasn’t the magical fantasy themes that got me, but when they began to show the dirty sexual things I knew it was time to shut it off. And that is exactly what I did. I hate evil, and I refuse to give it place in my life. We have to learn to hate or abhor what is evil, and love what is good.

I later heard an evangelist in the United States talking about this ‘great’ movie. I turned him off and stopped watching him. Within 6 months, he had left his wife and children and gone to live with another woman. Although the signs and wonders performed in his ministry were valid, he had clearly not protected his heart and his family paid the price for it. Sin separates, and sin divides. Love unites.

What great advice for us to be thinking about, meditating...and acting on.

Today’s Reading-

See www.VWC.jp
Proverbs 14

An anointed preacher of the Word could preach on these four verses for a month. There is so much treasure in these passages it is incredible. The reason for the depth of these scripture that it is all about love. Love is why you and I are here on the Earth. It is because God loved. He has been around, He created the time that we live and operate in now. He is so big that it is hard for our minds to completely fathom Him. Isn’t it interesting that we are ‘made in His image’? He is pure and unadulterated love.

Love is not about taking, love is about sharing. As the text says,
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I would like to take it one step further. Love IS all things. God IS all things, and He is love. By Him, all things hold together. Without Him, all things fall apart. Without Him, the world would fall apart.

We are supposed to be imitators of God. We are supposed to do what He does.

It is so easy to get pulled into a situation. Something happens, you reacted (maybe it was or wasn’t the best reaction), then you went to bed and couldn’t sleep because you keep thinking about it. Finally, you got to sleep. The next morning you woke up and it was the first thing on your mind. You know God, you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you are right with Him, but for some reason you can’t get that situation off your mind for days maybe even weeks. What are you to do?

You must get your soul (mind, will, emotions) from the thinking about what is going on in the physical realm and think about what is happening in the spiritual realm. When you are anxious about something, you are in the physical. You need to get your soul pulling your spirit into the spiritual. How do you do it? By taking your mind off the issue at hand through singing and praising Him. That is what many successful believers have done. In 2 Chron 20:22, when the enemy came against the people of God, they prayed about it and then starting singing and praising Him for the victory. Then God took care of the enemy.

When you know Him and trust Him, He will take care of your issues. He will take care of your situation. He will bring you through with the victory. Why? When you praise Him, the heavenly host begins to work on your behalf. Is that why the Psalmist said this?

When you praise God, you are showing that you trust Him and you are submitted to Him. It is not always easy. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were beaten and put in prison, but at midnight they were singing songs and praises in that dark dirty dungeon. That lit up that whole place spiritually and the other prisoners were listening. When that sang and praised Him, that is when the breakthrough came through. They couldn’t see it, but their praise brought the result. That prison couldn’t hold them.

When an enemy was arrayed against Elisha, he knew God. His assistant was nervous, as he saw more and more people coming. But Elisha trusted God and knew the power of praise. They were surrounded, but Elisha knew not to just look at the circumstances. He prayed that his assistant would be able to see the spiritual with open eyes.

The man saw that God had surrounded the enemy with His heavenly hosts. There was nothing going to happen to Elisha and those whom he covered.

Are you in what seems to be an impossible situation? Are you nervous and losing sleep? Are you in need of His peace? Well, first you have to repent and turn to Jesus the Messiah, but then you need to start singing and praising Him. Praise engages you with the Kingdom.

Today’s Reading-

See www.VWC.jp
Proverbs 16

Union, unity, teamwork... these are important words. Many companies in the world are trying to build these traits among their teams because they know the power of unity. Unity can accomplish amazing things. However, disunity can bring everything to a halt. It can bring poverty, violence, and even death.

Here in 1 Cor 6:17 we see the importance of believers being in union with Yahweh. But this union isn’t related to a sports team, a company division, or some type of outdoor club. It is related to a something more intimate. Sex. Read on.

Marriage is a wonderful thing that every man and woman should look forward to. It takes work, but having this life partner is beautiful. When you marry, it is interesting to see how you grow together. You begin to like the same things. Enjoy similar music, food, conversations, and going out and doing the same things. You can know exactly what your spouse is thinking. You even begin to talk like each other. Marriage is a union. We followers of Jesus and His Way are to be in union with God. This is not sex of course, but it is a spiritual union like what happens in a marriage between a husband and a wife. When you are in union with God, you enjoy what He enjoys, you talk like Him, you want to go where He is. It is a spiritual union.

We live in a physical world which is filled with distractions. It is so easy to forget about the spiritual world when you a smashed into a busy commuter train. You must be ‘born again’ spiritually, literally Jesus said we must be ‘born from above’. This is the first step.

Let’s unify with the Almighty God and we will glory with Him!

Today’s Reading-

See www.VWC.jp
Proverbs 17

It was a gathering of chief executives from Swiss, French, German, American, British, and other well-known firms. They were gathered to hear a CEO from an East Indian company speak that was visiting Tokyo. His firm was apparently known for work in the information technology (IT) area. The room was filled with confident people, after all they were nearly all representatives of their company in Japan and Asia.

The East Indian CEO was so self confident and arrogant acting that many executives at breakfast meeting started to tune him out. Throughout the presentation he gloated saying things like, “Our company is the best company in the world. Everyone wants to work for our firm”. “We have the most satisfied employees in the world”. As a believer sitting there and observing this pride and arrogance, I saw it’s ugliness. It was so despicable to see someone say so many things about how great their company was. It was a perfect illustration before my eyes of why when lucifer let himself rise up in pride, he had no way to go but down. How could a created angel ever fill the shoes of the Creator of the universe? Pride and arrogance will bring anyone down if they don’t eliminate it.

This man’s pride was so ugly I got curious and decided to do a bit of research. We did some checking after the meeting with bankers whom he said were his customers. We also checked with other companies in India. It was very interesting to note that while there were apparently a lot of employees at this company, it was a considerably unknown firm both in the industry and even in the home country. Pride gives you the wrong perception of yourself and gets you in trouble. It makes you think you are more than you are. That is probably why Rom 12:16 talks about not thinking more about yourself than you actually are.

Don’t think you are better than you brothers and sisters at church because you are on the worship team, teaching, or preaching. Don’t think position yourself higher than others in you mind because you are the biggest tither. Don’t think you are the most intelligent person in your church because you know the Bible so well. Remember pride comes before a fall. We are supposed to lift each other up. 1 Cor 1:10 exhorts us to be of the same mind. Phil 1:27 tells us to be of one mind and one spirit in the church. 1 Peter 3:8 says,
Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; NKJV

Today make every effort to walk in love towards your brothers and sisters in Jesus and the Way. Build them up, don’t tear them down. If you see a follower of Jesus going through a hard time, volunteer to help them, grab their hand and pray for them, or intercede for them separately in your prayer time. Whatever you do, lift them up.

I learned at that CEO meeting that pride can mess you up, and that arrogance is ugly. But unity and exhortation, joy and faith, these things are beautiful! God is all about confidence, He’s all about victory and winning but it is not at the cost of pulling others down.

John 1:5-7 says it well.

God is light! If you know Him, then you should have His light. Now it is time to spread it around!

Today’s Reading-

See www.VWC.jp
Proverbs 20

In March of 1978 in a Baptist church in Aloha Oregon, I repented and turned to Jesus. I will never forget that day. Actually, it was my spiritual birthday. My entrance into the earth was a bit different. I was conceived by my mother and father and born and at hospital in a different city in that same state. That was an important day for me of course. Without it, I would not be here. However, without being spiritually ‘born from above’ I will not be there, with Him forever and ever in heaven.

But once we get past that new birth, we must go deeper with God. So many believers just think, “I’ve got that salvation ticket, now I will just go to church each week and I am on my way to heaven”. If we do that, we are missing the boat. There is much more. In Washington state where I grew up for middle school, high school, and undergraduate university we have many state-run ferries. That is because there is a large body of water there called the Puget Sound that takes up much of the Northwest part of the state. You drive your car onto these ferry boats and they will take you to the other side of the water.

When you miss one of those ferry boats, you either have to spend hours driving to the other side of the Sound by car (if you are not stuck on an island) or wait a few hours for the next boat. When you miss the boat you could end up waiting hours at the dock with other people in their cars. It doesn’t matter if you are 1 minute late or 1 hour late, it is all the same. Before God, sin is like this. Whether it be big or small sin, before our perfect and awesome God, it is all sin and sin separates us if we do not confess it and turn from it.

For some 10 years, I missed the boat with regards to knowing God. I knew Him, but I was so busy with my sports, my music, and my studies in school that I really didn’t know Him well. That all changed in University. I started asking Him how I could know Him... and He responded.

Hebrews 8:10 articulates it beautifully as he He started putting me around people who knew the Word. It wasn’t just the pastor but people in that church who were also hungry for Him. I learned not everyone at church is hungry for Yahweh. We have to get His laws (that’s His Word, the Bible) in our minds. Romans 12:2 tells us to renew our minds. The only way you can do it is when you study, pray, and meditate the Word of God. As you renew your mind, your wacky ways of thinking change and you begin to think like He thinks. Then we really become His people because we know His will.

We refer to the Bible as the Word of God, but actually Jesus is the perfect Word of God. To get to the spiritual, our physical connection is the Bible, the written Word of God. That’s why there is no power in just carrying a Bible. You have to meditate on it constantly. It must become a part of you. You’ve got to get the Word from your Soul (mind area) and into your spirit. That’s why 2 Cor 3:3 says,
clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. NKJV

Always carry the Word of God with you. When you have spare time, when you are commuting to the office on a bus or train, when you are waiting for a friend, pull it out and read it. If you want a change, you’ve got to make a change. The only way to really change yourself or anyone else it to get that inspired writing from God off the pages of the Bible and into your heart.

Today’s Reading-

See www.VWC.jp
Proverbs 21