The House You're Building

Prepare Your Heart: Read Luke 8:15-17.   What references to wisdom are in this passage?   What will happen at the end that will be revealed?   Spend some time in prayer about your personal honesty. Honesty is one of those areas in life that we all know of, but doesn’t always take a priority in life, as it’s easy to cover up.   It seems almost acceptable to exaggerate, tell white lies, keep the whole truth from people, etc.   Our culture has a greed and entitlement- mindset and it’s easy as a Christian to get caught up in following how everyone else is living in regards to being honest.   As a kid I thought that honesty was simply not telling lies.   Later on, my view of what being honest was expanded through a Crown Ministries study.   This organization exists to help people become proper stewards of how God teaches through His word to manage money, much like the well-known Dave Ramsey.   Before looking at the practical matters of mon...

Prepare your heart: Read Matthew 15:16-20.   Reflect on how often our culture points to everything but but the sin nature to explain violent behavior?   Pray that God would open up your heart to hear His words for you today. Jesus had a lot to say about the feelings in our heart that we don’t act on.   Matthew 5:21,22 describes the situation this way-though you may not murder, to feel the feelings for anger on the inside, by the court (His Father’s judgment) you are guilty of eternal punishment if not covered by the blood of Christ.   It is easy to read verses about murder and revenge and think it doesn’t apply to us.   Yet if one looks deeper, we may be harboring feelings inside that could lead to these actions.   Matthew 5 calls us into account to pray for a softened heart, and give those feelings over to God.   Have you ever been secretly glad when something bad happens to someone you don’t like very much? You may be guilty of revenge. ...