The Devotional - A Look at the Book #633

The Devotional - A Look at the Book #633

by Jesse Abel

The Devotional – A Look at the Book #633

Papa “J” May Say

A day without Jesus in it… is a day that does not exist if you believe in Jesus. How sad it is for those whom we know and love and who do not know Jesus; since for them He does not exist. Ephesians 2:11-13

Thoughts about Life

My friends’ testimony was filled with good works; he was so good by outward expressions and appearance that I felt uncomfortable sitting next to him; sort of like a sailor in rough seas with a hatch open. I privately asked the LORD for help while he was off praying with his group. When he returned I asked him why he prayed and his explanation was that he was required to pray at certain times each day. During our flight his group prayed for a good fifteen minutes about every three hours; as I recall. “What do you pray about, safety?” “No, we have a set of prayers that are repeated daily.” And I was reminded of other religions which have similar rote systems of prayer. I said; “does God answer these ceremonial prayers?” and his reply was; “one day He will!” I said: “don’t you ever have a need or a concern about some issue that only God can help you with and don’t you pray to Him for that matter?” Again; “no, our rabbis teach that God is not concerned with our personal needs.” “Well then, how are your needs fulfilled since I believe that God meets all of our needs, personally.” He then, shocked me with this statement. “we have books written by the rabbis, if we need something important enough we write out our need on a slip of paper and place in somewhere within one of the books. We leave the note in the book for twenty four hours and then we read the note and the two pages that the note is in; whatever those two pages tell us that will be sufficient to meet our needs. “You must be joking?” was my reply and he was offended; “no I am quite serious” was his reply. Does this work? I said. Sometimes we have to move our note to another section, but eventually we get our answer.

Ecclesiastes 9

Verses 13-18   – Where is wisdom? Can you see it on the face of people, or is it a tangible object that can be held in the hand? Wisdom only shows up when the smoke clears and in every case it shows up in the oddest place. Like the wisdom of the poor man in this section who delivered the city from the great king who came against it. Solomon does not say what the man did, which is not important. What is important is that the poor man who had no offensive resources, used what he had, which was all he needed. WISDOM!

Solomon says that used wisdom seemed great to him; many have wisdom but do not use it. A little city and a great king besieged it, surrounded it and set up road blocks so that no one could leave. Have you ever felt trapped and found a way of escape? If you have then you know that at first, you did not use strength to get away or voice; but thought. You used your mind and the wisdom from your frame of reference too form a plan, then with the materials and strength available, you made your way of escape. For wisdom to work it must be used first.

The fool is just the opposite of wisdom, he vents his anger, he rants, he raves and even makes noise with his feet. All of this action avails nothing except hoarseness of voice and painful hips and joints from stomping the feet. While the words of the wise are spoken quietly and powerfully, even Solomon says that the words of wisdom are more powerful than the weapons of war. This is all good is it not, but there is one obstacle. Sin destroys much good. Just as the death of Abel destroyed the works of Cain his murderous brother in Genesis 4:1-7