The Fool and His Many Blows
“A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” Proverbs 17: 10. Provers 17 contrasts the value of peace, wisdom, and character with the destructive nature of...
Tagged: God's Discipline
Is the Fiery Furnace for the Righteous or the Wicked?
“So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing...
How Truth Will Set You Free and Lies Imprison You
“And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. But the hair of his...
Birth Pains and Judgment: The Link
“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” James 1: 15. This passage encourages believers to endure trials with joy, as these tests build...
The Discipline of the Lord and A Good Life: The Connection
“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” Proverbs 22: 15. One doesn’t need to be a child to have the heart of...
A Hard Heart: How Does God Soften It?
“But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said” Exodus 8: 15. The second of the ten plagues God brought upon Pharaoh for...
When Afflictions are Just What We Need
“. . . No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” Psalm 84: 11b. Psalm 84 is a joyful song of longing for God’s presence and celebrating the blessings of dwelling in His...
I’m Suffering. It Is My Own Doing?
“Her nobles send their servants for water; they come to the cisterns; they find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are ashamed and confounded and cover their heads. Because of the ground that...
The Storms of Life: Why We Will Always Need Them
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew...
God’s Mercy in Judgement Makes Us Glad
“. . . he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him” Proverbs 23: 24b. This verse tells us a father is glad in or delights in a wise son. Solomon was...