Practical Rules To Live By

Proverbs 3:1-8   

My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.  

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and men. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. 

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

My Prayer:

O my dear Father, please help me to never forget Your teachings; help me keep Your commands in my heart, so that they can prolong my life many years and bring me health and prosperity.

Let me always to live in Your love and faithfulness; let me wear them on my shirt, help me to know them by heart. Then my life will win the approval of both You and those among whom I live.

Teach me to trust only in You and Your ways, and not depend on my own understanding: let everything I do reveal You and Your ways; and Father, I know You will direct my steps into Your straight paths.   

Who Do I Depend On?

Jeremiah 17:5-8   

Personalization:

Bonnie, don't trust in politics, or business, or those who make decisions that affect your life and society. Those who trust in Politicians will have a scarcity mentality, always feeling deprived and isolated, and won't even notice when prosperity comes.  

But depend on Me, Bonnie, realize that I will provide everything you need, and more than you need. You will always have an abundance, Bonnie; there will always be plenty of whatever you need, even in times of political and financial falling-off-the-cliff; you will not suffer loss of anything you really need in this world. You can depend on Me, Bonnie, beause I will always take care of you according to My glory, My magnificence and My generosity--you are My Princess, My precious daughter, and I will always see to it that you're not deprived of any good thing, in Me you will have it all.   

End Times in Isaiah?

Isaiah 64:1-2   

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your Name known among your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

Rend the heavens--The Sixth Seal in Revelation 6: "There was a great earthquake, ... and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places." The Seventh Trumpet in Rev. 11: "A mighty earthquake." And the Seventh Bowl in Rev. 16: "A great earthquake struck--the worst since people were placed on the earth. . . . And every island disappeared and all the mountains were leveled."  

Come down to make your Name known . . . cause the nations to quake--Zechariah 14: "On that Day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split apart, making a wide valley running from east to west. Half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south. . . . The Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. . . . The Lord will be King over the whole earth. On that Day there will be one Lord and His Name the only name. . . . Plague will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem . . . survivors from all the nations . . . will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles."   

Our Brief Life

Psalm 90:5-6   


You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning--
Though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.

We are all subject to death. However long we will live our lives, however many years, days, hours, it is certain that we will face death, our enemy. And we will not win--we will enter the sleep of Death. Our life we experience in our body does not originate in our physical body, but in our spirit; when our spiritual parts leave our body, then we call it death, for there is no life in our flesh. Without the spirit, the flesh is lifeless.

We start out in life like the new grass that comes up in the morning fresh with dew. But as the day fades into evening, the grass withers and wilts. And like the grass, in the evening of our years, we also can become dry and withered. Then our bodies will sleep in death, as our spirits depart and go into Eternity.   

Jesus' Prayer for Our Purpose

John 17:20-21   

My prayer is not for them alone.

Not only for His disciples and followers at that time.

I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message,  

Jesus looked down that hallway of Time and saw the rest of us; all the way to me! Jesus prayed for me!

That all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.  

Jesus and God the Father are unified in thought and purpose, one God.

May they also be in us  

We as His church need to be one in thought and purpose, God's thoughts and purposes.

So that the world may believe that You have sent Me.  

This is our primary purpose in our unity, that the world will see the Truth of His message. Whether they choose to trust in Christ for salvation, or refuse to, they will have no excuse. But the onus is on us. We need to stop quarreling among ourselves and focus on the basics.   

Treasure in Jars of Clay

II Corinthians 4:6-7   

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness" (Genesis 1:3), made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.   

What is in the jar is what is important, not the jar itself. When Jesus was "transfigured before them, His face shone like the sun" (Matthew 17:2), and when John was visited on the Isle of Patmos by Jesus, "His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance" (Revelation 1:16). When Moses spent 40 days on the Mountain in the presence of God, his face shone so much that he covered it with a veil so the people could look at him (Exodus 34:29-35). And we "all reflect the Lord's glory, being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (II Corinthians 3:18). Paul wrote of our Resurrection bodies in First Corinthians, chapter 15. As part of that discussion, he said, "We will not all sleep [die], but we all will be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality" (verses 51-53).

As we are being transformed now, gradually, to be fully transformed in the Resurrection, I visualize this continuing process now as though my body is a clay jar containing God's brilliant spiritual light. Light can't shine through opaque clay, but as the pressure comes and I seek His face and grow more godly, it's like God is replacing the clay molecules with molecules of clear crystal, or diamond, tiny bit at a time. So when I am in tune with God, and others see Him rather than me, it's because His glory is outshining my clay darkness through those minuscule cracks of crystal diamond.  So my clay jar is being transformed into a diamond vase, and one day I will "shine like the sun in the kingdom of [my] Father. He who has ears, let him hear" (Matthew 13:43).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Hope - Riches - Power

Ephesians 1:17-20    

The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, [why?] so that you may know Him better.   

To be able to know who God is and what He's like takes His wisdom to discern and revelation from Him to see the truth about Him and His ways, to understand how it all fits together.   

The eyes of your heart may be enlightened 

in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, 

the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, 

and His incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead into a glorious Resurrection body, and even enthroned Him; that same power is working in me! In us! I have access to the strength, the ability, the skill to be transformed into the very image of Christ, to think His thoughts, do His works, accomplish His purposes! 

So what am I doing down here?