Why Proverbs?

I know many of you have finished up your GEMS season and are just taking a break! I pray you find rest and peace and PASSION to start up again in the fall. If you are still considering attending conference, please sign up NOW! It is going to be amazing! I, for one, am VERY excited about hearing Ray VanderLaan AND about learning more about our new theme for next year. Conference is such a great opportunity to gather ideas for the upcoming year. Please prayerfully considering joining us in Colorado!

If you can't come to conference, your next best thing is our Fall Workshop. This year, we again will be in two different locations, so hopefully one of them will work for you. We will be in Olympia on September 10 and in Quincy on September 17. The workshop registration will hopefully begin at 9:30, a little later than in the past, to allow for travel time. We hope to end around 3:00 in the afternoon so everyone will have ample time to travel home again. If NEITHER of those workshop dates/locations work for you, please talk to me. I may have an additional option available.

To get you started thinking about next year, here's Lenae's devotional from this morning, discovering WHY we are studying this theme next year!

WHY PROVERBS?

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair.

Proverbs 1:1-3

Math is my most challenging subject. More often than not when a new concept was introduced in geometry or algebra and I was stumped, I’d groan to my parents, “Why do I need to learn this? I’ll never use it again in my life!”

For those who may question why it’s important to dedicate a year to studying the book of Proverbs, Solomon, the writer of the book, tells us. Within the first sentence of the first chapter, he lays out the purpose of the book (Proverbs 1:1-3).
Here’s Solomon’s purpose and God’s plan for you and me in the book of Proverbs.

1. To teach us to attain wisdom and discipline for understanding words of insight. We’re not born wise and we don’t automatically or magically become wise when we accept Christ as our Savior. True wisdom only comes from God (Proverbs 9:10). In order to live rightly we need to listen to God’s wisdom, discipline, instruction, and correction. Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise (Proverbs 19:20). It’s a continuous education program as we sit under the teaching of His Word and Spirit.

2. To teach us to acquire a disciplined and prudent life. Our culture calls the prudent killjoys, spoilsports, and wet blankets. It’s God who gives the true definition of being a prude. The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways (Proverbs 14:8a). The prudent make choices based on the knowledge of God and have a God-given understanding of where they are going.

3. To teach us to do what is right and just and fair. Righteousness, justice, and equity are attributes of God that He desires to see in our relationships with one another. Through His wisdom we will understand what is right and just and fair – every good path (Proverbs 2:9). These virtues are evidence of His wisdom at work in our lives.

The book of Proverbs is God’s handbook on how to live rightly. Studying and then habitually choosing to live by the wisdom found in the book of Proverbs will provide life-changing discipleship that will inspire us to walk wisely and live a life that goes beyond the gold.

Wisdom Step: How well have you been listening and obeying God’s advice and instruction in His Word? If a course correction is needed. Be wise and begin today.

The goal of Proverbs is to grow ever closer to the God who is Wisdom. Knowing God is the proper definition of the good life, and the highest goal of the Proverbs-driven life.

Anthony Selvaggio

As we end the "Feed the Fire" theme...

Most of us have participated in GEMS Sunday and are finishing up our GEMS year, or will be doing so within the month. This devotional, from the GEMS Service Center April Newsletter, gives us encouragement to keep that fire burning in our hearts, even when we are on a break from GEMS for the summer!

The Fire Must Be Kept Burning

They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Luke 24:32

In the book of Leviticus God gives instructions to the priests about burnt offerings that still apply to us today. The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out (Leviticus 6:12-13).

What was true for the altar remains true for our hearts: The fire on the altar of our hearts must not go out! Warren W. Wiersbe writes, “Let’s follow the example of the priest and each morning get rid of the old ashes, stir up the fire, and offer a burnt offering to the Lord.”

Daily we must fan into flame the gift of God (2 Timothy 1:6). Our lives are to be living sacrifices that must be kept burning. Therefore, I urge you, brothers (sisters), in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:1-2).

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu conformed and compromised God’s commands about how offerings were to be sacrificed. They took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command (Leviticus 10:1). How did God respond to their disobedience? Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD (v. 2).

When we conform and compromise God’s commands our hearts become lukewarm. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were either one or the other (Revelation 3:15). How does God respond to our disobedience? So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth (v 16).

Being a children’s ministry volunteer doesn’t necessarily mean that the fire within the altar of our hearts is burning brightly. For example, Children’s Ministry Magazine reported that the average children’s volunteer reads the Bible only once or twice a month when alone. Surely if the priests only attended to the altar’s flame once or twice a month, the flame would die out.

May we daily keep the fire burning so the words of the two believers on the road to Emmaus may be true of us, too. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

PASSION Step: What will you do today to keep the fire stirred and burning within your heart?

Give me the love that leads the way, the faith that nothing can dismay, the hope no disappointments tire, the passion that will burn like fire; Let me not sink to be a clod:

Amy Carmichael, Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.