Do you know the difference between love and lust?  Chris Brannon continues in our series and helps us understand the difference between the two.  He talks about what Proverbs says about the consequences of living out our lust.  Also what it says about love.  Love sees the soul and desires it, taking whatever body accompanies it.  When you view each other through the eyes of love, you see as God sees.  Lust disregards the person and craves the physical.  It corrupts your marriage, but love vigilantly guards it’s purity.  By choosing love over lust, you are choosing God’s way, which always leads to life.

For Christians, the answer has to be complete “moral fidelity”.  Some would say that we are faithful so long as we have not touched, kissed or made love with someone who isn’t our spouse.  However, before physical infidelity becomes an issue, there are two precursors: mental and emotional unfaithfulness.  In all cases, infidelity violates a trust and breaks a bond.  Chris expands on what mental and emotional infidelity are and the damages they can cause.

Knowing all of this, how do we exercise faithfulness?  First of all, we must practice mental purity.  We must also have relational guards!  Everyone should know that you are happily married!  Be open and talk about potential “threats” with your spouse.  Morally preempting is another exercise.  Many people think it’s ok for a married person to receive emotional support from and opposite-sex work colleague over lunch.  However, doing so blurs the lines of appropriateness.  What it comes down to is that we must be responsible for our own thoughts and actions!!

How often do you experience anger?  Do you know how to overcome it?  Tom Maus continues in our Proverbs series by speaking on overcoming anger.  Anger in itself is not a sin, but what happens after we have been angered is what can be sinful.  It’s normal that you get angry, but that you get angry often is a sign of an unhealthy spirit.  Letting anger manipulate your actions is a choice on your part and is nobody’s fault other than your own.

Tom Continues by giving us five sources of anger:  Anger can be spiritually induced.  It can result because you try to be in control of everything.  Anger can be because of a lack of communicated love or respect.  It can be a conditioned response.  Anger can be a deficit of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now that you know the sources of anger, how do you overcome it?  First of all, stop giving place to the devil!  Secondly, invite the work of the Holy Spirit.  Another way to overcome anger is to feed your spirit the truth of God’s grace and mercy.  Release those who have caused your anger.  Lastly, seek to be understanding of those who frustrate you.

What is the desire of your heart?  Chris Brannon continues in our Wisdom for Life series by speaking on reordering desire.  The heart is the seat of your deepest trusts, commitments, loves and desires.  What the heart most loves and trusts, the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find desirable and the will finds doable.  Our desires can be influenced from the outside:  what material goods we have, who we hang out with and the activities we take part in.

Our desire should be God, but there are four God substitutes that Chris gives us.  The first substitute is approval.  Feelings will get hurt easily and we will tend to over commit out of a desire for acceptance because we fear rejection.  The only thing that will cast out that fear is a deep love for God.  Another substitute is comfort.  The Bible isn’t anti-pleasure, but it is the wise person who can identify and destroy anything usurping God’s place in their heart.  The next one is power and their greatest nightmare is humiliation.  The last one is control.  Rather than a failure to plan like the sluggard, the opposite error is to think you can control your entire future through planning and management.  Their greatest fear is uncertainty and they tend not to delegate and share power.

What would the dashboard for your soul look like?  There would be red and green lights and the red lights would be impulses in your soul that have the tendency towards departure from God.  Some examples of these are fear, pride, greed, anger, coldness in worship and any sense of going through the motions.  Watch the direction in which things are moving in your heart and keep your heart with all vigilance.

Chris leaves us with two questions to help us reorder our desires.  The first question to ask is: Is there a way in which you are failing to guard your heart?  The second is: Are there things you are seeing or doing that nay be moving your heart away from God?

So much is at stake in what we say.  That includes what we write, post, paint or sign!  Chris Brannon continues in our Proverbs series by showing us the power of the tongue and the damage, or good, that it can do.  Tongues can be the death of marriages, families, friendships, churches, careers, hopes, understanding, reputations, kingdom initiatives and governments.  Tongues can also make marriages sweet, families strong and churches healthy.  They can give hope to the despairing, advance understanding and spread the gospel.

The source of all things said is the heart.  Chris gives us some indicators of a heart filled with evil.  One indicator is critical comments out of a heart filled with hurt and discontentedness.  Gossip and slander coming out of a heart of pride or jealousy is another indicator.  Harsh, cutting comments come from a bitter heart.  Envy and covetous remarks come from an ungrateful heart and judgmental comments come from a self-righteous heart.  Words from a transformed heart are gracious, reconciling, encouraging, truthful, joyous and filled with love.

Chris talks how speaking evil comes in several ways.  You may be doing these things without even realizing it!  Do you gossip or talk in backbiting?  Do you slander or are you rude?  These are way of talking that tear down.  So how do we clean up our mouth?  Chris gives us a list of ten ways to clean up our mouths:

1. Fill your heart with grace by soaking in your Bible.
2. Every day pray the prayer found in Psalm 141:3.
3. Make your mouth a fountain of life.
4. Be slow to speak.
5. Encourage more than you critique.
6. Strive to speaking 100% truthfully.
7. Seek opportunities to speak kind, tenderhearted words.
8. Say something affectionate to a loved one at an unexpected time.
9. Purpose to only speak words that are good for building up and give grace.
10. Be a person whose mouth is full of life.

What is at the center of your reasons for parenting?  Jordan Brannon continues in our Proverbs series by speaking on Intentional Parenting.  Parenting isn’t about biology or a paternal relationship (when we’re saved).  Make sure God is at the center of why you are parenting!  There are two foundations to biblical parenting.  The first one is that God is God and man is God’s and the other is that the Word of God is true and everlasting.

Jordan then gives us two intentions for biblical parenting.  The first is to establish a purpose.  Ask yourself these questions: Why do I parent?  What is the outcome I hope for?  How are my answers to those two questions reflected in my daily parenting?  The other intention is to remember the stakes.  The bible is full of parents who remembered the stakes of their parenting.  Their actions spoke volumes to their children about who God is.

Now that we know what our parenting intentions should be, how should we act on them?  The first is to teach our children who God is.  God is not something we fear, like a boogeyman.  The next way to act on our intention is to teach them who you’re not.  Here are a few ways to demonstrate who God is and who you are not:  Pray with your kids, worship with them and share your testimony with them.  You also need to teach them God’s commands, for their good.  They need to be disciplined consistently for their own good as well.  The last action is to always extend grace.

What does the word “generous” mean?  Chris Brannon continues is our series, speaking on living a generous life!  He gives us some examples from the Bible of living a generous life and tells us why we should be generous.  There are a lot of benefits of generosity!  Radical generosity is an act of love toward God and toward others that exponentially increases love.  Another benefit is that generosity breaks the power of money over us.  So, what does generosity look like?  Generosity is cheerful, surrendering, obedient, sows bountifully and trusts in the wisdom and provision of God.

Chris gives us some questions to help us gain perspective regarding our generosity factor:

-How much time do you spend each month as a volunteer helping others?

-How much money do you give to charitable organizations annually?

-How do you give away your God-given abilities?

-Are you able to joyfully give when a need is presented?

-Do you try to rationalize your lack of generosity?

-Are you growing in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s call to generosity?

Are you a sluggard or a hard worker?  Chris Brannon continues in our Proverbs series by speaking on the Dignity of Work.  He defines laziness for us and shows us the life of a sluggard.  There are four attributes of a sluggard that we should know.  The first attribute is that they are a habitually inactive person.  The second is that they always seek the easier path.  The third is that they are inclined to be blind to consequences and the last one is that laziness always catches up to them at some point in time.

Chris then defines diligence and gives us the practical benefits of hard work.  The first benefit is physical provision.  The second is financial stability and the last one is influence.  He also gives us a list of questions to help us discern our tendency toward laziness:

• Do you work only out of a sense of duty?
• Do you work only in order to gain and serve the things you love?
• Is there a project you have not been able to finish?
• What are your go-to excuses when you really simply don’t want to tackle a difficult task?
• Think of opportunities that you have missed. What accounted for missing them?
• How would the person who knows you best answer this question: “Am I more unselfish, more at peace, and more disciplined than I use to be?”
• Do you undervalue physical labor?
• Do you mistrust or even despise people who have careers that take more skill and education than you have?
• If you were really honest with yourself, are you slack in your work?
• How could you stir up your love for the person who would benefit from it?
• How could a change in your motives change the way you approach your work?
• How can you become wiser to not miss opportunities in the future?
• How have you noticed, in your life, that laziness leads to more work?

The goal of Proverbs is simply to instill wisdom and discipline.  It’s the idea that we position ourselves in such a way that we would be ready to receive what God has for us.  Chris Brannon kicks off our new sermon series in Proverbs by speaking on the Wisdom and Fear of the Lord.  A proverb is a poetic, thought-provoking saying that conveys truth in a few words.  It’s important to understand that proverbs are not guaranteed promises, but wise observations.  The fear of the Lord must come before wisdom though.

There are three groups of people that Proverbs addresses.  The first one is the fool.  These are the people who dismiss the fear of the Lord and live aimlessly without Him.  They may have considered the fear of the Lord, but chose a position that they are going to take the control and not let anyone in.  The second one is the simple.  These are the people who don’t even consider the fear of the Lord and live passively, forgetting it.  They aren’t able to connect the dots between their actions and their results.  The last one is the wise.  These are the people who embrace the fear of the Lord and they live intentionally because of Him.

Chris goes on by telling us what it means to fear the Lord.  There are two realities in tension here.  The fear of the Lord can mean terror and dread.  It can also be the reverential awe and gratitude for who He is and what He has done in Christ.