Day 317 Bible Readings – Proverbs 15: 15 (ESV)

Ezekiel 24-25, Hebrews 11: 17-40, Proverbs 15: 11-20

Proverbs 15: 15 (ESV)

“All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast.”

Verse 15 from Proverbs 15 is great advice from the wisdom of Solomon. If you think your life is afflicted, you will feel that there is no joy in your life. But if you have a positive feeling in your heart and are cheerful, life will seem like a continual feast to you. The other way that this advice has been expressed is you either see the glass as half empty or half full.

I’ve heard some people of faith say that God wants us to always be cheerful and to always look on the bright side. This kind of attitude shows how much trust and faith that you have in God, and that you feel that whatever happens to you is a positive thing. But if you feel that your life is a mess, it may show that you have little faith in God because you don’t see how his plan is working in your life.

I think having a cheerful heart might have something to do with faith in God, because if you have total faith in God you will see everything that happens to you as part of God’s plan and will always see it in a positive way. If you have little to no faith in God, you will see everything that happens to you as bad sign or proof that God doesn’t love or care about you. But to have a positive attitude or cheerful heart is a choice based on your faith in God.

Day 316 Bible Readings – Hebrews 11: 1-3 (ESV)

Ezekiel 22: 23-31, Ezekiel 23, Hebrews 11: 1-16, Proverbs 15: 1-10

Hebrews 11: 1-3 (ESV)

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Verses 1 through 3 from Hebrews 11 gives us a great definition of faith. When you have faith you assure yourself that even though you don’t have the physical experience of something you want, you know without a doubt that whatever you are praying for will manifest itself into the physical world. Then the writer of Hebrews 11 compared faith to how God created the world. God spoke the world into existence. God had the faith to just say something existed and it came to be. God didn’t have to see the world to create it.

I love this definition of faith; that you can just speak into existence something that doesn’t exist and you know without a doubt that it will happen. But I know faith hasn’t been this simple in my life. Sometimes I’ve had to wait for a very, very long time for my prayers to come true. And my prayers were often answered in ways I wasn’t expecting; sometimes it was better and sometimes it wasn’t. But I never gave up my faith, even though I was sorely tempted to at the time. I think having faith is often the easy part of the journey. It’s the waiting period that is the hard part. I have so much evidence in my life that God has almost always answered my prayers, but this knowledge doesn’t make the waiting time any easier. I sometimes think the waiting time is when God is testing me to find out, do I really want what I am praying for? And sometimes the waiting has made me change my mind on what I thought I wanted. But when God did answer my prayers, I was always so amazed because the experience was always better than I thought it would be. These are the true miracles in my life that I hold onto when I am in a waiting period, waiting for my prayers to be answered.

Day 315 Bible Readings – Hebrews 10: 23-25 (ESV)

Ezekiel 20: 45-49, Ezekiel 21, Ezekiel 22: 1-22, Hebrews 10: 19-39, Proverbs 14: 25-35

Hebrews 10: 23-25 (ESV)

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

In verses 23 through 25, the writer of Hebrews 10 tells us that because of the death of Christ, we need to hold fast to the new covenant given to us by Christ and the promise of his faithfulness. The writer of Hebrews 10 also tells us to seek the community of faith so we can encourage each other with love and to do good works. We must also remember to meet together as a community in worship. When we meet together in worship, we can encourage and love another as people who have the same faith. The writer also tells us that we need to always keep in the mind that we do not know when Christ will return to earth, so we need to always live our lives as if that day is near. I believe the writer might also mean that since we do not know when we will leave this earth, we need to treat every day as if it’s our last day and worship Christ because we might be seeing him sooner rather than later.

I think these verses are great advice for any person with faith in Christ on how to live in the world. If we live every day thinking we might meet God the next day, then we will live very different lives.

Day 314 Bible Readings – Proverbs 14: 23 (ESV)

Ezekiel 19, Ezekiel 20: 1-44, Hebrews 10: 1-18, Proverbs 14: 15-24

Proverbs 14: 23 (ESV)

“In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.”

Verse 23 from Proverbs 14 stood out to me today. It might not seem like it sometimes, but I do believe that in all hard work there is some kind of profit. Most of the time that profit is financial, but sometimes there are rewards as well. I’ve always liked jobs where I was so busy that the day just flew by, and by the you know it was time to go home. Some people have said that hard work also builds character because you can see just what you are made of if you are made to work hard. There is also at times a sense of satisfaction when you work hard, and you see your work come to life. Even if it’s just planning an event which takes a lot of hard work, to see all of your plans come out exactly as you wanted is such an amazing experience. By the same token if you just talk about doing something and never do it, then there will not be a financial reward or satisfaction. You never get to see the dream you had in your heard work out and take shape in real life. You never get to see your idea become a reality and think, wow I thought that up. Or  I built that thing or I planned this amazing event and it worked and made everyone happy.