Joyful, Wise People

Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in His paths
Psalm 119:1-3
We can all think of people who have made a choice to do the right thing, even though they had to go against the flow. They may have even had people turn against them, and they still stuck with their decision to live a life of integrity. Those kinds of choices may not always be easy, but they bring the joy and peace of knowing you are doing the right thing.

How joyful are those who fear the Lord- all who follow his ways! Psalm 128:1
God has plans for His creation and His ways are above ours. Following His way is the way to joy.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

We can google just about anything, we can know a lot about many topics, but that is not real wisdom. We can have multiple college degrees, PhDs work specialties,  and all kinds of expertise, but true wisdom starts with a reverence for God; being in awe of who He is.

Wrong and Right

        This post contains excerpts from "That's Just Wrong,"

How do we know what is wrong and what is right?

        This question could be asked by anyone. We may have asked a question like this ourselves. We must look to Jesus Christ and to His Word, the Bible, to see the source of right. We see people choosing to act in ways that hurt themselves or others and our world is full of wrong because of these choices. In the Bible the list of wrong choices is long:

"They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless."  Romans 1:29-31

       The idea of wrong and right is “written on our hearts” the Bible says in Romans 2:15. It sounds harsh, but even we can see that the result of wrong living is death. Even though we chose the wrong path again and again, God loved us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to rescue us from ourselves. Since death is the result of our sin, Christ chose to die instead of us, even though He had never sinned. He died so we could be seen by God to be righteous- not sin-filled. 

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. "

Rom 3:22-24

Three days after He died, Jesus Christ miraculously rose from the dead! We can live for Him, knowing that our sins are forgiven.

Follow your heart or follow His?

       Most of the instances I think of involving my heart misleading me are when I was chasing some relationship with a guy! I have to admit that being in a relationship was such a major focus for me when I was in high school. I wish I could take back some lost time that I spent wishing some guy would notice me, or pay more attention to me. I would've been better off to pour that time into my relationship with Christ!

So I know the truth in the statement, "My feelings lie to me." Have you ever followed your heart just to find out that it was leading you wrong? The path I think my heart is leading me on may end in a trap. But the great news is that the Lord rescues me from traps! Even when I become trapped simply because of my own hard-headed stubbornness and silly pride.

"The Lord is good and does what is right; He shows the proper path to those who go astray. he leads the humble in doing right, teaching them His way. The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands." Then,"who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose." Psalm 25:8-10, 12

     There are so many times that my prayers include a plea that God will show me the direction I should be going. He is faithful to show me His way, but I'm not always faithful to follow!

       So what are we to do? The world tells us to follow our feelings, follow our hearts and yet that leads nowhere. The way of the Lord can be found. If you seek God- He will be found:

       "I will be found by you," says the Lord. Jeremiah 28:14  

        I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways, the paths of life marked    

         out by Your law. Psalm 119:15

     

       He is waiting for you to seek Him. God's heart is to be found by you and anyone who will seek Him. If we seek Him He will be found- you can't get much more straightforward than that! I need that kind of clarity sometimes when my heart is so confused by the emotions that try to lead me.