Quick links to the passage: KJV NKJV NASB NIV

Our online bible study is just getting started. If you are one of the ones that have signed up for the current one, check your email for the password to the posts and get involved. If you would like to participate when the next one starts, please fill out your name and email address to the right and you will be placed in a waiting list. When the next online bible study opens up, that list will be one of the first to be notified. Now to today’s quick observation.

As you read these verses, I know what you are thinking, “There are two traits here.” And you would be correct. But there is a method in my madness. There is a reason why I am combining these into one trait and it is not because I want it to fit into a nice pattern with the rest of the sections of the six traits. Kindness (or mercy in NKJV) on its own is great. We should be kind toward others. And truth on its own is great also. Our lives should be characterized by truth.

But kindness on its own at some point will be naive or ignorant. And truth on its own at some point will be harsh. So how do we regulate the ignorance of kindness? Combine it with truth. How do we soften the hard facts of truth? Combine it with kindness. When done properly, kindness will not lose its softness and truth will not be reduced to mediocrity.

Solomon warns us not to lose kindness and truth in verse 3. So how do we do that?

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Quick links to the passage: KJV NKJV NASB NIV

Before we get started, we have closed the doors to the online bible study. If would like to participate when the next one starts, please fill out your name and email address to the right and you will be placed in a waiting list. When the next online bible study opens up, that list will be one of the first to be notified. Now to today’s quick observation.

Obedience, to some of us, seems like such an overbearing issue. A lot of people struggle with authority that has been placed over them, especially when it has been a difficult, or even possibly an abusive, issue in the past. I met someone recently that caused me to think about my issues of obedience.

My son had to go to the children’s ward of the hospital last month because of a medical condition he has. I am not going to go into all the details of that at the moment. There was another little boy there also who was missing his left leg just above the knee. When my son and I were in the common play area for the children’s ward, the boy shared with me what had happened to him. He was involved in a lawnmower accident. My heart when out to him. I thought about how much his future in now altered because of this incident. Then I remembered how much my father would warn me of the dangers of the lawnmower when he told me to cut the lawn. I must admit, I was weary of his advice over and over again. But if I did not obey what my father was telling me, that could have been me when I was younger.

Notice in the passage that Solomon asks obedience in two ways.

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Quick links to the passage: KJV NKJV NASB NIV

Just a reminder before we get started for you to sign up for our online bible study. We will be starting in the second week of June and spots are filling up so don’t miss out. It will be a great time of studying and learning to study the bible. I am really getting stoked about it because I can’t wait to see what God will do in our bible study. He never disappoints on delivering the goods when you study His Word. Now to the quick observation.

How many times have you heard people say this: When it comes to doing what God wants, I have it in my head, it just has not reached my heart yet. I must admit I have said it. We wonder if there is a special thing we need to do to get the stuff from our head to our heart. The fact of the matter is that it is an automatic process. What we digest through our eyes and ears will go directly to our inner self and influence us. Just examine when we consume media not honoring to God and how it influences us.

With that said, for some reason, it is longer to have the things of God go from our head to changing our lives than the things of the world. There is an element of the spiritual warfare going on with that. So we must keep influencing our lives with the Word of God and the things of God in order to influence our lives. We must not be passive but proactive in this endeavor.

When we actively apply wisdom to our lives and possess it for ourselves, certain results occur in our life…

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