Have you ever been dry emotionally? Or worse, have you been heartbroken and turned to a fellow Christian hoping for compassion, empathy, some word of substance…something deep? And, instead, the person made light of your situation or said one of the thousands of empty phrases many have been trained to say?

“Be blessed and highly favored, brother!” “Chin up!” “Shake it off!”

“Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, and like vinegar on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” (Proverb 25:20)

How would you feel emotionally if it was VERY cold outside and someone took your coat? In addition to being physically cold, you would feel rejected or neglected because you NEEDED that coat and someone took what you needed.

When a person is experiencing a heavy heart, he needs something.

That is the ultimate beginning of that person’s emotional heaviness.

Something is lacking.

What he does NOT need is some superficial thing like someone singing to him, telling a silly joke or some other shallow act. That would be “like vinegar on soda” – which causes a fizzing sensation and then evaporates.

Going on autopilot and doing or saying something superficial and shallow in reaction to a person in real emotional pain is actually worse than doing nothing. To a hurting person it is like we are dismissing their pain…minimizing it. Because when we do that, we are making light of it.

If we even notice the pain of another and try to do something to help we often feel like we have to say or so something. This might not be what the person needs.

The hurtful things satan brings into the lives of people cause them to withdraw from one another. His goal, it seems, is to isolate us all.

“…one who sings songs to a heavy heart” more likely than not causes the one with a heavy heart to feel even more alone.

So, what CAN we do?

Let’s ask the Lord what the other person needs…and, if they can think of what they need, simply do or say that.

Many people just need to know that we notice their pain and are praying for them and, PLEASE, let’s actually pray for them and not just say it and go on without really praying. I’ve learned to offer to pray right there and then. It seems to communicate that they matter and are not alone.

The most effective thing I have seen…is to simply offer to sit with the person while saying and doing NOTHING. I call this the “Ministry of Presence”. To be truly present with a person is respectful and personal and it counters the devil’s efforts to divide us in our times of heart heaviness. It’s very hard to feel alone when we feel the warmth of the shoulder of a caring friend or stranger next to us.

“Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, and like vinegar on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” (Proverb 25:20)

Let’s not do this. Let's not take coats from people when they are "cold" (the literal translation of that word "heavy" in that verse.)

Let’s, instead, love our neighbor by seeking God to find out what he or she needs…and supplying that if possible. When we do that, we will be loving God too. (Mark 12:30-31)

Amen.

“The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.” (Proverb 15:28)

Everything has a beginning…a foundation from which to proceed.

This Proverb tells us that what happens in the heart is the beginning to what we do and what we say. The heart is the human soul. It is the “control center”, if you will, of all people since our soul is the part of us that thinks, decides and experiences emotions.

The writer of this Proverb tells us that the “the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.”

This is because evil is the fruit produced by a wicked heart. Jesus spoke about this:

“…every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17-18)

So, a person with a wicked heart…in other words, a lost person, will pour out evil. Even “good things” they do and say will have wicked and/or selfish motives because their foundation is evil as they belong to their “father the devil”.

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:34)

In this Proverb the mouth of the wicked which pours forth evil is contrasted with truth that “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer” (Proverb 15:28a).

When we are born again the Lord makes us “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Christians are TOTALLY new…and righteous in Christ…but we REMEMBER how to live like we did when we were lost and wicked.

However, the DESIGN of this new creation is that we function differently than we did when we were lost. Christians are DIFFERENT in this lost world.
Instead of pouring out evil from our hearts (which are being renewed to be like the heart of Jesus), we are to take the time to live like this: “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer” (Proverb 15:28a). We must study how we will answer, or we will respond like a lost person does.

Let’s ask the Lord to teach us how we can stop REACTING to people and circumstances outside ourselves and, instead, SUBMIT to Him our thoughts, feelings and potential decisions about these things.

Let’s ask the Lord to teach us how to “STUDY how to answer” in these times – especially in the times that cause our emotions to soar.

Then, let’s answer in the ways HE directs us to answer.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

We Christians are no longer in involuntary bondage to the things of the world. The Spirit of God has made us free. Let’s live as free as we are.

Let’s FREELY choose to allow Jesus, the Counselor (Isaiah 9:6), to guide us and direct our answers as we RESPOND in Christ to what satan uses some people and circumstances in his attempts to regain control of us.

Freedom in Christ. What a wonderful thing!

“Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who deal truthfully are His delight.” (Proverb 12:22)

It seems that at least once a month someone will ask me if I think we are living in the end times. I always respond the same, “Yes! The ‘end times’ began when Jesus rose from the dead! The ‘end times’ will stop when Jesus returns from heaven.”

They ask these things because anyone with spiritual eyes can see that the world is becoming more discernably wicked – sometimes moment by moment. Only the spiritually clueless can miss this. This lost world IS getting worse and worse just like the Holy Spirit told us it would through the apostle Paul:

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

These do seem to be some of those “perilous times” of which Paul spoke. One of the signs of this is that fewer and fewer people seem to respect and practice truth.
We can see, though, that there have always been people who preferred to lie so habitually that they are described by Solomon as having “lying lips”.

“Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who deal truthfully are His delight.” (Proverb 12:22)

I once worked for a man who lied so automatically that one day he said it was raining outside and everything inside me wanted to go check. He rarely said anything truthfully.

Solomon tells us that people who live this way (and more and more people do) are an “abomination to the LORD”. That term “abomination” literally means “morally repulsive” and this is important because God Himself sets the standard for what we call “morals”. Lying lips make God want to puke.

Why? Let’s look at a contrasting thought a few verses earlier in Proverb 12:

“The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.” (Proverb 12:19)

People lie, essentially, because they do not trust God; so, they seek to “establish” or “make themselves secure”. As is always the case…this only lasts for a “moment” – and then instantly evaporates. In contrast, the “truthful lip shall be established forever”. Those who tell the truth habitually are made to be stable and secure; Someone greater than they do that for their benefit.

This is because the Being Who created the universe IS Truth.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (John 14:6)

And the here is how Jesus described the Holy Spirit He sent to dwell in and direct Christians:

“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of
TRUTH who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” (John 15:26)

The reason truthful people are a delight to the LORD is they REFLECT and REPRESENT Him accurately in a steadily declining world.

“Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who deal truthfully are His delight.” (Proverb 12:22)

And the reason those who lie habitually repulse Almighty God is that they reflect and represent their spiritual father, satan.

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44)

Let’s purpose in our hearts to walk in truth…have lifestyles that reflect reality and rightness. Then we can be a delight to God and to those who disciple us in the Lord, the way the apostle John did:

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” (3 John 1:4)

And, for those who seem sold out to telling lies and practicing all other sorts of sins…there is hope. Jesus changes people when they turn to Him.

He changed us! Praise God! He can bring their lives into order as well.

Have you ever noticed that when people are typically kind to others they themselves seem to always be at peace, happy and content? I have.

In contrast, have you ever noticed that people who seem to always be messing with others, trying to cheat them, being hurtful on purpose or otherwise cruel always seem to be suspicious, in a constant state of unrest and always paranoid or on guard? I’ve seen this too.

“The merciful man does good for his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.” (Proverb 11:17)

This is one of those “contrasting verses” we so often find in the Proverbs in which two very different lifestyles are compared.

Out of curiosity I checked out the Amplified Bible’s take on this verse and it sounds close to what I sensed the Lord wanted me to say about this verse.

“The merciful, kind, and generous man benefits himself [for his deeds return to bless him], but he who is cruel and callous [to the wants of others] brings on himself retribution.” (Proverb 11:17 – AMP)

People who are cruel to other people seem to think that everyone else is just like them: meanspirited - so they can never rest and can never be at peace…always expecting to be treated like they treat others: in hurtful ways. (“Hurtful” is the very definition of the word “evil”.)

In essence, THEY TROUBLE THEIR OWN SOULS.

In great contrast, kind and generous people (which is what “merciful” means) treat their own souls well as they treat others well. The term “does good” in Proverb 11:17 literally means “to treat well” but it also carries the sense of “ripening” with it.

A ripening soul. Sounds like a form of maturity, doesn’t it?

Let’s decide today what sort of people we will be.

Will we be cruel, like that enemy of human souls, the devil? Or will we be like Jesus, that kind, merciful and generous Being that He is?

Whichever one we yield ourselves to today will determine how we are. This is simply how the One True God made it all to work.

Let’s choose wisely.

Proverb Chapter 7 begins with an encouragement from Solomon to care about and keep God’s commandments, His law and to value His wisdom and understanding.
Then he says he observed something happening:

“For at the window of my house I looked through my lattice, and saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths, a young man devoid of understanding, passing along the street near her corner; and he took the path to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.” (Proverb 7:6-9)

God sees.

Have you ever noticed how many sinful things we do either happen at night or in a different kind of “dark”, as we hide what we do so that no one else will see and know?
GOD SEES. God knows. (I wish more people cared about that fact.)

The writer of this Proverb says he watched a “young man devoid of understanding” head out in the dark to do something the young man knew he shouldn’t do.

We’re all connected to someone else. We will often see something like this unfold and we will choose to turn away from it and not address it.

Perhaps we’re afraid the person will attack us with social media’s favorite indicator that someone else is out of order: the weak and childish cry, “DON’T JUDGE ME!”.
Maybe we just don’t care. Maybe it just seems to not really be our business and that it’s not our place to intervene.

When it comes to fellow Christians, I believe it IS our right to address things like this because Colossians 2:19 speaks of the Body of Christ…the Church being “knit together by joints and ligaments”.

“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12)

In Christ, we truly ARE all connected. Everything we do affects everyone else.

God built that.

Paul goes on in that passage in 1 Corinthians 12 to tell us that EVERY part of the Church…each person…is valuable and has his or her part to play.

The writer of Proverb 7 says he watched a “young man devoid of understanding” head out in the dark to do something the young man knew he shouldn’t do. I was asked recently if I would confront such a thing if I saw it happening. Here is what I replied:

1. I would hope my first move would be to pray for the person and ask the Lord if He thought I should address it.

2. If I sensed He would have me address it I would seek a grace-filled way to approach the person.

3. Then I would approach him and begin by somehow communicating my positive regard for him.

4. Finally, I would say what I thought the Lord gave me for the person and then move on.

What is the point of doing it at all if how I did it purposefully caused the other to not receive me? The goal would be to give the other person the opportunity to choose to change his course…not to make him do or not do anything.

“But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.” (1 Corinthians 12:18)

Intervening in the lives of others God has set in our midst benefits the entire Body. It’s well worth our discomfort to try. Will you love your neighbor enough to reach out and try to warn him?

When I read the last four verses of Proverb 7 I imagine the one who observed the young man head out in the dark to do spiritually foolish things speaking to him.

“Now therefore, listen to me, my children; pay attention to the words of my mouth:” (Proverb 7:24)

His words address his children and I know this is aimed at all God’s children, but as I read them, I was given the image of that observant man speaking tenderly to the young man. He is intervening to save the young man from himself.

Perhaps, as you read this today you hear him intervening to keep you from falling prey to sin’s seductive calls.

Will you listen?

May we ALL listen when HE warns us however He chooses to do so.

Amen.

“The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools.” (Proverb 3:35)

Over and over in the Proverbs we see that God gives some people true wisdom. Not everyone has wisdom because not everyone is willing to live the lifestyle of the wise as He only gives this to those who believe in (entrust themselves to) Him.
God is the ONLY Source of true wisdom:

“But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12)

“God understands its way, and He knows its place.” (Job 28:23)

There is a beginning of wisdom in any human:

“THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.” (Psalm 111:10)

So, we can see that God is the Source of wisdom and it is our fear of (awe in) Him which begins the movement of wisdom in our lives.

“The wise shall inherit glory…” (Proverb 3:35a)

As wisdom changes us from “fools” to “the wise” wisdom brings along with it other effects.

This Proverb tells us several things. One is that “The wise shall inherit glory”. It literally means that the wise will “occupy” God’s glory. This doesn’t mean that we simply get a quality of God: His glory, which would be amazing in itself. It means that His glory surrounds us and we get to live in it…enjoy it as our inheritance…perhaps even get to DISTRIBUTE God’s glory (His honor and goodness) to others.

Often in the Proverbs, a contrast is presented. We have seen the wonderful effect of embracing God and allowing Him to make us wise. Let’s see the contrast between the wise and fools:

“but shame shall be the legacy of fools.” (Proverb 3:35b)

The best thing fools can take away as a symbol of their lives is shame (disgrace). THAT is their trophy for living as fools.

The Amplified Bible puts it like this: “but shame is the highest rank conferred on [self-confident] fools.” (Proverb 3:35b)

What a stark contrast! Glory versus shame.

“The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the legacy of fools.” (Proverb 3:35)

Let’s choose how we want to live TODAY: either, as fools who deny God in their celebration of their own flesh…or, as the wise who die to their flesh (Romans 8:13) moment by moment and celebrate God in our choices.

We get to choose – something we could not do before we were born again. So, let’s choose WISELY and distribute God’s glory as our inheritance.