Devotion for Thursday, August 25, 2011
Amazing Night at H2O:
Last night was amazing! Thanks for inviting your friends, and being faithful to the mission that God has set us on! Some of you worked really hard on the “Grow” stage so that your friends/family could get to the “Know” stage. So cool!
Today’s Passage:
23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. 24 Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. 25 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. 26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. 27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:23-27
Application Questions:
1. What does he mean when he says “keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”? v.23
2. Do you think what we say is important? What does it mean to use froward or perverse language? How is that harmful? v.24
3. In Verse 25, the author says to think about the direction you are going? How can this help you?
4. Once you’ve decided to go on the path that God has for you, the author says don’t go “to the right hand nor to the left”. What do you think that means? What are some things that can take you off track from the path that God has for you? v.26-27.
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
Okay so today the message was about….don’t talk bad or inappropriately. Dont turn away from god! Don’t do what your friends are doing just because they are doing it,do what’s right not what others do! I think that’s what I got out of it! 🙂
Oh and follow the path that god wants you to go on! *
Great job Makenzie!
Good job Mackenzie! What i got out of this is that God has a plan for us and we need to stay on the road that God wants us to be on when we are tempted to do something it can lead us of the road God wants us to be on but we can still get on the path God made for us.
Good stuff for Blake. God has something for you man! Stay on the path!
What I got out of this is that god doesn’t want us to go off track which means making the bad discions hi wants us to stay on the path he has set up for us for a good life!! 😀
Im glad you guys (Mack, Blakeypoo, & Cowlady) all got on here today, im proud of you guys 🙂
1) i think V.23 is saying to have an open heart and mind, because we all have issues going on in our life, and we can’t do it alone. We have to think before we act. By having dilligence, we are paying close attention to the things that go on in our life. If we have dilligent hearts, we are setting ourselves to be aware of the issues we all are faced with, and to go to God with our problems!
2) i think what we say is SO important because that’s the one thing people remember about a person. You can leave a huge impact by the things you say! For example, Pastor Ben leaves a huge impact on us after a Wednesday night service, just by the words he says! Its so important to be careful and wise of the things we say. I think when it says froward or preverse language it means things that arent very pleasant to the ears. The verse says to “put away” and “put far from thee”. We need to be so careful of the things we say. I know i mess up sometimes, just saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or just not getting the point i wanted across. I know i want to leave a good impact, not a bad one!
3) This can help me because by knowing the direction i’m going, i can always be aware of what God is directing me to do. Im so undecided on a lot of things involving my future, but i know what God wants me to do right now. He wants me to continue doing school, grow in church & help others grow!
4) This verse means that when you are on the path God has directed for you, dont swerve off!! Its so easy to do that. By going to the left or to the right, that means i’ve fallen off His direction for me. Thats so dangerous and something i know i need to be aware of! I know for me some things that could take me off would be school, stress, other people, and me just being lazy. I can’t let what’s the most important to me be swerved off to the side. God’s plan is so much bigger than what i have planned for myself! 🙂
1. “keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” I think that means that if you keep your heart open to what God has to say it will help you a lot more with the problems that may come along!
2. I think what we say is very important!! Sometimes what we say determines what people think about us, and as Christians, saying the wrong thing can be VERY bad!! If we act “Godly” at church then everywhere else use bad language, what kind of example is that? A bad one!
3. Verse 25 is very helpful for me! It literally helps me to think about the direction that I’m going! It’s a good reminder to stay on the right path and to keep my eyes on Jesus 🙂
4. I think it means that we should stay on the path God has for us, and not to stray from it. Some things that could take me off track from the path God has for me would probably be other people, the internet, and (the same as Lindsey) being lazy! It’s so easy to just say “I’ll do my devotions later!” and if I say that enough, the whole day goes by and I still haven’t done them! And that just draws me farther away from God! But God needs to be #1 always!! 🙂
1. I believe, “keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”, means that we need we need to keep our heart in the decisions we make. Typically we don’t always think with our heart, we think with greed and selfishness because we want what we want! This verse is saying, that we need to make decisions based off of our heart, which should match up to the things that God has for our life. I know I want to ask God what I should do about EVERYTHING, because then that means EVERYTHING is in His hands exactly where they should be!
2. I think what we say is so crucial! The words that slip off of our tounge are going to affect someone in one or two ways. Positive or negative. I know that when I was in middle school popularity was key to me. I thought I had to curse to be liked.. That made people think that I was someone I was not and that was a HUGE mistake. I know that if i cursed today, I would shock a lot of people and not in a good way. They would look at me and think that I was just another “Chrisitian” also known as “hypocrate”. I do not want that image at all and I sure hope none of you do as well. We’re supposed to stand out so people notice us! By not cursing in front of our friends who do alll the time, we’ll make an impact on them. A positive one! 🙂
3. I think by looking in the direction we are going it can help us again in one of two ways. One, if we look in the direction we’re going in and we see a negative road up ahead, we need to make a detour in the right direction! I think by re-evaluating our lives, we can prevent ourselves from the life that wasn’t designed for us if we kept going in that direction. Secondly, I think this can help us even if we’re already going in the right direction. Today we can look ahead and see where we’d be going as of today, but when tomorrow comes we don’t want to fall on the other road again, we want to stay on the right one! I think by looking ahead we can help to see what we need to do next. What steps God wants/ needs us to make so we can keep living for Him!
4. I think I kind of answered this in question 3, but this just goes to show how important it is to stay on the right track and not get taken off. Some things that can take us off our road is, bad influences such as: types of music, certain shows, unwise friend choices, media, peer pressure, etc. I know i’ve been affected before by several of these, and believe me, it takes you off from God so quick. It put your life in your hands and not His. If our lives were intended to be in our hands then we’d make wise choices on our own, we’d know what’s best, but we don’t! We might think we do sometimes, but the bottom line is we don’t. We need to trust God in and and every situation! He knows what’s best. He always has always will!
I think God is doing some incredible things in our youth group! The comments above prove it! Last night was amazing and two kids accepted Christ as an outcome of us serving Him! Keep it up guys! I’m proud of everyone of you, and I can’t wait to see what God has for us the rest of this year and then some! Love you guys! You don’t even know! 🙂
What I got out of todays message was hat God doesn’t wont us to go down the wrong path he wonts us to be on the wright path, witch means not saying bad words,not doing what you are told and just not doing what is good. Also God has a plane for us and he has our whole life planned out and we dont wont to mess it up cause of one thing, so we need to the good things and not the bad.
Man you guys are doing incredible, keep up the great work.
1. I think v. 23 means turn to God in troubled times because ultimately and be willing to accept what He for my life.
2. I think what we say can definitely improve or destroy your testimony with other people.
3. Your direction not your intention determines your final destination, what kind of habits you form now can impact your future positive or negative. Where you what to be is going to take effort and discipleine to get where you want to end up.
4. I think the last one means don’t stray from the path you need to be on, and some of the things that cans distract you are other people and idol.