What is your god?

Posted on by Dr. Linda Agnes Knowles

“For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens.” -Psalm 96:45 NKJV

What is your god?  Before you answer too quickly, think about it.  What is your god?  Sports, Cooking Shows, Cell Phone, Television, Internet, Social Media?  Is it seeking the approval of men, wealth, prestige, or popularity, or is it something else?  An idol is whatever takes God’s rightful place in our heart.  Whatever we have set all of our affections and adoration on, whatever sits upon the throne of our life is our idol.  God must come first in our lives.  God must be the one we seek to live for first (Matthew 6:33), the one we seek to please first, and it is His approval we must first gain (Galatians 1:10).

It is vital that each of us guard our heart because every decision, every action, whether or not we follow God stems from the heart. Why should we guard our heart so diligent? (1) Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  Reference Luke 6:45;  (2) Your heart will determine the course of your life. Reference Proverbs 4:23;  (3) Your beliefs about God and who He is comes from the heart.  “But what does it say?  ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with your heart you believe in and justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved,” Romans 10:8-10; (4) Wherever your treasure is (what you value and cherish most, what you cling to) that is where your heart lies.

What is your god?  Each of us as individuals must decide if we will rid our lives of idolatry and repent for putting other things as first place in our lives.  We cannot be a friend of this world and be a friend of God.  To be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God.  Nothing is worth losing your soul over.  The Lord is to be our First Love always.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and for the gospel will save it.  What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:35-36)

In His Service,

Linda A. Knowles

One Act of Revenge

Posted on by Dr. Linda Agnes Knowles

“Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife. He said, ‘I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,’ but her father wouldn’t let him in.  ‘I truly thought you must hate her,’ her father explained, ‘so I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.’  Samson said, ‘This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going to do to you Philistines.’ Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails.  Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines.  He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain.  He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.   ‘Who did this?’ the Philistines demanded.   ‘Samson,’ was the reply, ‘because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s wife to be married to his best man.’  So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death.  ‘Because you did this,’ Samson vowed, ‘I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!’  So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.  The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and spreading out near the town of Lehi.  The men of Judah asked the Philistines, ‘Why are you attacking us?’  The Philistines replied, ‘We’ve come to capture Samson. We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.'”  –Judges 15:1-11(NLT)

Don’t be like Samson.  He began with one act of revenge and one act of revenge after another occurred.  Letting any emotion control you is dangerous, but in Ephesians 4:26-27(NLT), the Scripture states, “And ‘don’t sin by letting anger control you.’  Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” 

Anger, when left unchecked, will play on every other emotion.

One act of revenge done out of anger, spite, and jealousy can cause a ripple effect.  If you get revenge, then the person may retaliate against you due to that person being angry.  Then you will want to seek revenge again if you don’t deal with issues of anger, spite, and jealousy that had the best of you when you initiated the first act of revenge.  Be careful not to sin in your anger.

First, those who have a short fuse make for bad company. Second, jealousy’s apparel doesn’t look good on anyone, and thirdly, why are you acting like you are a child on the playground misbehaving and hurting others out of spite?  

Stop the nonsense, and grow up.

Linda A. Knowles