August 8

August 8

 

Prov 1, 2/Phil 4

 

Good Friends,

 

What a privilege it is for us to join this endeavor. It was a great joy to see your church at Mountain TOP this summer at Cumberland Pines. The presence of your youth was a great gift to the families in our service area. Today we send our summer staff home to the valley below where they will continue to share stories of hope from the summer. This was Mountain TOP's 35^th year of ministry and it was an incredible success made possible by churches like yours!

 

Today we begin a journey through Proverbs. We all seek wisdom for living a healthy fulfilling life. The lessons in this book can do that for us. Proverbs was originally intended to provide the Israelites with "instructions" or wisdom for Godly living. These instructions, while very specific to a culture and a time long ago, remain very relevant to us today. It is interesting to me how many unbelievers in the secular world cite lessons from Proverbs as a guide for living not knowing they come from the very same Bible that they don't believe.

 

The beginning of Proverbs 1 provides for us the purpose and intent for all the Proverbs following. We note that the instructions are addressed to a son from his father and mother. The advice is intended to guide a young man in his transition from youth to adulthood. Those lessons are still applicable to us whether we are young or old. We are constantly going through transitions and need guidance to work our way through them.

 

The wise accept the knowledge from their elders, the foolish despise wisdom and discipline. God is challenging us to learn from those that have gone before us so as to not make the mistakes of the past. We are warned that nothing good or positive comes from rejecting wisdom. On the contrary, the result will be disaster and calamity!  

 

In Proverbs 2 we are told of the moral benefits of wisdom. When we accept the wisdom then we will understand and fear the Lord and will find the knowledge of God. The result is God becomes very personal to us. This personal relationship with God allows our heart to be filled with God. This up-close and in-depth knowledge of God keeps us from doing unpleasant things and falling away from the righteous path. Rejecting this wisdom results in us taking the other path and experiencing the unpleasant.  Today we would call this presence the Holy Spirit filling and guiding our lives.  

 

Enjoy the rest of your journey through the first several chapters of Proverbs with the Support Staff of Mountain TOP. We hope you will be as blessed as we have preparing these blog posts for you.

 

Grace & Hope,

 

Rev. Ed Simmons

Executive Director – Mountain T.O.P.