SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/20/2013
8:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Wisdom Helps Us See Life Clearly PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eccl.
7:14-18
Message of the
verses: We will pick up where we
left off from yesterday’s SD.
Adversity and Prosperity (7:14): “14 In
the day of prosperity be happy, But in the day of adversity consider-God has
made the one as well as the other So that man will not discover anything that
will be after him.” (NASB) “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in
the day of adversity, consider: without question, God has made the one as well
as the other, so that man cannot discover anything that will come after him.” (HCSB)
If there is anyone in the Bible that understood this verse
or what is written in this verse it would be Job. Job handled what happened to him in a
wonderful way. I realize that Job was
complaining to God about different things, but when it came to losing all of
his family and losing all of his wealth he said in Job 2:10 “But he said to
her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from
God and not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his
lips.” Job stated the following in Job 1:21 “He said, ‘Naked I came from my
mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has
taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.’”
Yes I would say that Job understood what is written in this verse from
Ecclesiastes.
Dr. Wiersbe writes these wise words “God balances our
lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep
us humble. If all we had were blessings
in our hands, we would fall right over, so the Lord balances the blessings in
our hands with burdens on our backs.
That helps to keep us steady, and as we yield to Him, He can even turn
the burdens into blessings.”
Some may wonder why it is that God constitutes our lives
in this way. I think that as we look at
the attributes of God we will see that God is balanced, for example God is
love, but God is also just. God desires
us to keep in balance and by doing this we will depend upon Him so that what we
do in the power of the Holy Spirit will bring glory to the Lord. If we have too many blessings we will begin
to worship the blessings and not the Giver of the blessings. We must never forget that we are but dust and
we can never do anything for the cause of Christ without the leading and the
guiding of the Holy Spirit and when we do this it will bring glory to the
Lord. We are not really in charge of our
future is what Solomon is saying here, but as believers we know that God is in
charge of it.
Righteousness and sin (7:15-18): “15 I have seen everything during my lifetime
of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and
there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. 16 Do not be
excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? 17
Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before
your time? 18 It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the
other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them.” (NASB)
“15 I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death
of good young people and the long life of wicked people. 16 So don’t be too
good or too wise! Why destroy yourself? 17 On the other hand, don’t be too
wicked either. Don’t be a fool! Why die before your time? 18 Pay attention to
these instructions, for anyone who fears God will avoid both extremes.” (NLT)
This is an age old question that is being brought up here
and that question is why do the good suffer and the evil prosper, why do the
good die young and the old live longer lives?
There are those who would point to OT passages that God had given to
Israel as promises stating that if you do good you will live a long life and if
you don’t you will not live a long life.
Dr. Wiersbe quotes a man who lived a long time ago, Francis Bacon
(1521-1626), and he wrote “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament;
adversity is the blessing of the New.”
Dr. Wiersbe continues “Our Lord’s opening words in the Sermon on the
Mount were not ‘Blessed are the rich in substance’ but ‘Blessed are the poor in
spirit.’”
The next point we need to look at here is that the wicked
appears to prosper “only if you take the
short view of things.” The only
reward that those who are not believers get is what they get right here on
earth, however the rewards of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their
Lord and Savior will be throughout all of eternity. Our example is in our Lord who suffered first
and then came the glory. I have a very
hard time understanding how the Lord, knowing what was going to happen to Him
at the end of His life here on earth was as calm in those three years of
ministry that He had on earth. I think
that we as believers can learn that it is probably a good thing that we don’t
know the future, but have faith that God controls it and will bring good to us
and glory to His name through our lives here on earth.
When we look at verses 16-18 we may get the wrong idea of
what Solomon is trying to say. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “In the Hebrew text, the verbs in verse 16 carry the idea of
reflexive action. Solomon said to the
people ‘Don’t claim to be righteous and don’t claim to be wise’ In other words, he was warning them against self-righteousness and the pride that comes
when we think we have arrived’ and
know it all. Solomon made it clear
in verse 20 that there are no righteous people, so he cannot be referring to
true righteousness. He was condemning the
self –righteousness of the hypocrite and the false wisdom of the proud, and he
warned that these sins led to destruction and death.
“Verse 18 balances the waning: we should take hold of
true righteousness and should not withdraw from true wisdom, and the way to do
it is to walk in the fear of God. ‘The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Pr. 9:10), and Jesus Christ is to
the believer ‘wisdom and righteousness’ (1Cor. 1:30), so God’s people need not ‘manufacture’
thses blessings themselves.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I suppose that even as believers we have a tendency to
want to take over our lives when things are going good, and stop relying on the
Lord. I know that I have faced this
situation on different occasions, and I kind of feel like Peter when he was on
the spiritual mountain top stating that Jesus Christ was God’s Son sent into
the world, and then a few minutes later he said that Lord you cannot do
that. He fell of that mountain top in a
hurry and I can do the same thing too.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Proverbs 3:5-6 states “5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do
not lean on your own understanding. 6 In
all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Cor. 5:17-20
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all
these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave
us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg
you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Naaman” (2 Kings 5:1).
Today’s Bible
Question: “The Gospel of Mark was
written for what people?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
5/20/2013 9:02 AM
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