Posted on 07/03/2022 12:32:26 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress
“So shalt thou find favour [people will favor you] and good understanding [people will understand you] in the sight of God and man” (Proverbs 3:4 KJV).
Did you know that it is not hard to understand a person that is truthful? It’s difficult to understand a man when you don’t know if he is being truthful or not. You don’t know where they are coming from and you don’t know where they are going.
Some people set too high a standard. Why do people get mad when they don’t accomplish what they set for themselves? Pride. “Only by pride cometh contention,” you get made at yourself because you couldn’t do what you thought you could do. What we need to realize is that we can’t do anything without Christ. Without Him we can do nothing, with Him we can do everything. If something doesn’t come to pass, and you have relinquished yourself to Christ, then He didn’t want it to come to pass. There is no reason to get made then.
We might say, “I don’t get mad at anybody but myself,” that’s just pride. You expect something out of yourself that you can’t really attain.
“So shalt thou find favour,” that is approval. People will do you favors, and they will favor you over others. An employer wants someone they can trust, and someone that will do a good job and usually a person that is truthful and honest will give a good eight hour day. And so, they’ll find favor. That kind of person won’t have as hard a time finding a good job in hard times as other people.
If you work hard, if you are honest, if you are faithful, and if you are true, if people can trust you with responsibility, and people can trust you with money, you will “find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.” All relationships are determined by a man’s relationship to the law, and to his relationship with mercy and truth. Be merciful. Judge mercifully. Consider others mercifully.
If we had a real measure of mercy in us, we would want to witness. When we don’t witness, in a sense, we are saying, “Just go to hell.” That is a judgment that you pass upon that individual that they are not worthy of your witness. But a merciful heart, with a merciful spirit, is like to want to witness to that person and tell them about Christ.
To confess one’s sins freely to God is one of the supreme virtues of man. To confess to others against whom one has sinned is no less imperative. And to withhold such confession is certainly one of the world’s most devastating sins.
Under its blight, the prayer life withers, the favor of God departs, and the personality reflects the fact that something precious has been lost. Beyond all this, these actually develops a hatred toward the person whom one has wronged. This unwillingness to confess may involve one in the further sin of unwillingness to forgive.
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Excellent study.
“If you work hard, if you are honest, if you are faithful, and if you are true, if people can trust you with responsibility, and people can trust you with money, you will “find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.”
Words of wisdom for the teens in my life right now.
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