AM I CHOOSING WISDOM?

During our Good Friday Service Mark talked about the two thieves hanging on either side of Jesus during His crucifixion. I really liked the contrast this picture presented of the condition of everyone in the world; either we humbly bow and asked God’s forgiveness, or we lean towards an arrogant attitude of doubting God and challenging Him to do something for us if He really exists. As be begin our study of Proverbs a similar contrast presents itself; will we be wise and listen to God’s instructions about life, or will we ignore God and live as we please. God’s always gives us His wisdom for our benefit and His glory; to ignore such teaching brings with it an unnecessarily difficult life.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)

Ladies, I’m excited to have you join me as we look in detail at the great and perfect wisdom of God during the next few weeks on Thursday mornings. We cannot ignore the instructions of the Proverbs. Please join us for this very encouraging study.

This coming Thursday morning Patricia will be leading our class while Mark and I are attending our area wide fellowship of churches meetings in Everett. We will return on Saturday.

Our dear babysitters will once again be caring for our little ones.

Please be praying for Bonnie Campbell who lost her dear twin brother this week. Also, pray for Gary and Roberta Cowden as he is in extremely serious health.

PSALMS--A PLACE OF PRAISE

Earlier this year while Mark and I enjoyed a walk together we were overwhelmed by this magnificent sunset. Read on to see how Spurgeon uses just such a display.

In reference to Psalm 102 that we studied last week, Kate Storset shared comments from Spurgeon concerning the entire Psalm that struck me strongly. “The whole composition may be compared to a day which, opening with wind and rain, clears up at noon and is warm with the sun, continues fine, with intervening showers, and finally closes with a brilliant sunset.” If you have lived in the Gig Harbor area for very long, you can clearly understand this beautiful description of Psalm 102. 

Recently Julie Scott also shared with me a contact where I found a wonderful quote that should be an encouragement to all of us as we deal with the daily difficulties normal to life. “I know it’s not my circumstances that make me anxious, impatient, or annoyed. Those circumstances are revealing my heart. I am asking Jesus to change my heart and thoughts into His, to help my heart submit in obedience to His Word.” Andrea Griffith Consider this—for the average person attitude is influenced 10% by life’s circumstances, 50% by our default attitude (which can be changed by the Lord), and 40% by our daily choices of what we think about and do (which also can be changed by the Lord.) “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalms 19:14)

Our study in the Psalms has been encouraging and beautiful. This Thursday we finish up with Psalms 147 and 148 in a grand finale of praise to our eternally amazing God. Thank you for faithfully studying the Psalms with all the ladies in our class. Next week we quickly jump into Proverbs!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE GOSPEL CONFERENCE

This past Thursday morning during our Bible Study time we changed up our plans a bit as God impressed on my heart the need to share some of the meaningful things He had shown me in the past few days. First I briefly shared some highlights from the opportunity I had to speak on Biblical marriage to the ladies in Valdivia, Chile. Then the bulk of our time was spent telling of the wonderful conference Chris, Mark and I attended last week on preaching the gospel. If you missed Thursday morning and would like to know some of the content of my presentation to the Chilean ladies, let me know. For now I plan to share some of the crowning quotes from Steve Lawson’s 3 day conference on preaching the gospel taken from Romans 1-3.

• Our church needs to be as much like Heaven (not the world) as possible.

• We must not sugar coat what God Says.

• God has heated passion against sinners (Romans 1:18)—no one giggles through the Narrow Gate. Rather, they come limping.

• Don’t separate the sin from the sinner. God sends sinners to Hell. (Romans 1:18b—and many other verses.)

• Professing to be wise, they became fools about the true meaning of life (Romans 1:22). Man now worships himself—total depravity.

• “Depraved minds” (Romans 1:28-32)—not able to think straight; common sense is gone.

• Romans 1:29ff—longest vice list in the Bible; an overwhelming sense of self.

• There is only one way out of this—the gospel. There are no political solutions to a spiritual problem. Democracy cannot work if the people are reprobate! We need the gospel. Gospel preachers are the only hope for our society.

• You are a great sinner—Jesus is a great Savior.

• Strong preaching produces soft hearts; soft preaching produces hard hearts.

• Justification—God declares us righteous—not makes us righteous.

• Sanctification—growing in righteousness.

• Sin will be present, but not president of your life.

• The greatest joy in life is to know Jesus. The 2nd greatest joy is to make Him known.

• For every one look at self we need 10 looks at Christ. Burnout is when we look at ourselves 10 times and Christ 1—then we are done.

• We are saved by works—just not our works, but Jesus’ works.

If you would like to know more about any of these points Steve Lawson preached on, please let me know.

This Thursday we will be discussing Psalm 102. We have had 2 weeks to meditate on it—so we should be all set for a good time of discussion. Also, please come prepared to show our appreciation for our dear babysitters in the nursery. Liesel and Anne are so faithful to come every week and care for our little ones. I’m very thankful for them. See you on Thursday morning.