Proverbs 21:23
He who guards his mouth and his tongue,
Guards his soul from troubles.

On Wednesday night at Jefferson Baptist Church We have a service at 6:30 pm and I am preaching a series of sermons on how to be holy and righteous. It is a “nuts and bolts” series on practical things we can do to grow into people who love righteousness and live righteously. One of the principles that I talked about is identifying the sins we commit most repeatedly and focus on conquoring them. 90% of the sins that I commit in my life now are with my tongue. I say things to people that are unkind, mean, judgmental, critical, and that hurt their feelings. I also say things that are self-seeking, prideful, boastful, and designed to make me look better than I really am.

When I get to the end of the day and examine my life and confess all the sins that I can remember, I confess these sins that I have committed with my mouth and I grieve over the fact that I think this is the 10,000th time I have confessed this and asked God to forgive me. I pray, “here I am again Lord, I hope You aren’t getting tired of me coming one more time with this same sin, I hope You don’t have a quota on the number of times I can commit this and still be forgiven.

Even though I keep messing up in the area of my speech, I am pretty sure I am getting better, even though much slower than I would like. I will persevere asking God for strength and wisdom to conquer this weakness in my life.

Proverbs 20:5 A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water,
But a man of understanding draws it out.

One of the things that most adults realize at some point in their life is that we are complicated beings, and that there is a whole lot about ourselves that we don’t really understand. There is like a deep well inside of us and the things at the bottom influence us, but we don’t know what they are, how they got there, and how to fix them or get rid of them if they are bad, or how to draw them out if they are good and noble.

We all have likes and dislikes, ways of reacting to various events and circumstances that our life experiences, positive and negative, have shaped in us. When I walk into a hospital I usually faint within 15 minutes. Why? I don’t know, but I bet I wasn’t born that way. Some past events impacted my inner being in such a way so that is now what I do.

One of the things at the bottom of the well are our most core desires, wants, and dreams. Sometimes kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, and they will usually answer a firefighter or something glamorous or adventurous like that. But I do believe that beginning at a very early age; we all start formulating an image of ourselves, who we want to be, including our accomplishments. The reason they are at the bottom of the well is that at a very early age we start to experience disappointments. What we wanted for Christmas didn’t happen, and many other hopes and desires aren’t realized. We discover that disappointment is painful and the greater the desire the greater the pain if it doesn’t happen. So because we are wired for self-preservation, we bury the strongest, most heartfelt desires and dreams so we aren’t disappointed when they don’t happen. Much of what is in our deep well was put in us by God, and got shoved down to the bottom because of our fear of disappointment.

Psalms 139:13-16 For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

I, for one, want to draw out of that deep water in me what my desires, longings, and dreams are, and accomplish them. Nothing pulls out of me stuff that I didn’t know was in me like reflective writing does. I interrogate myself with written questions and I answer them in writing. Questions about why I did or said something, or opted out of doing or saying something.

What I aim for in that self-examination is a purpose statement that shapes my goals. I have been doing this long enough now that my “Life Purpose Statements” are pretty much made and complete, and that further reflective thinking and writing refines them but doesn’t change them much.

One of my “Life Purpose Statements” is to experience as much as possible in my years of living. So one of my goals that shapes my goals is “Every year I will learn a new skill, I will go someplace I have never been before, I will do something I have never done before, and I will do something that I am afraid of doing, I will take a risk.”

Writing new goals every year is a great way to grow yourself in character. 2022 is close, write some goals, not just simple “to-do list” kind of goals, but ones that challenge, motivate, scare the heck out of you, will take some work, ones that will impress your grandkids, ones that will change other people as well as yourself. Don’t forget to share them with me.

Proverbs 19:2 Also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge,
and he who hurries his footsteps errs.

My Dad had a little motto about decision making, “Don’t make a major decision until you have to, so you can research it, get counsel, and think about it as long as possible, but when you need to decide, pull the trigger, indecision is often worse than a poor decision.”

Our life at the end is a sum total of the choices and decisions we have made. Impulsiveness guarantees a bunch of bad decisions, and indecisiveness does as well because other people will then make decisions for us who aren’t necessarily operating with our values. Fools live at one end of the spectrum or the other, choosing and deciding on the basis of emotions or frozen in indecisiveness because of fear.

The more time we spend with God in prayer, the more we read His Word, the more we seek after wisdom like gold, silver, and precious treasure through counsel from others, the better our choices will be.

Another significant problem that many people have is they make a decision and then change it, which is just indecision compounded. People who think through their future and then make clear measurable goals, write those goals down, and read them often live life in a straight line, that is, they are consistent, they endure, and they are faithful.

The longer we wait to decide on something the more pressure mounts which clouds our thinking. Those who anticipate the future, plan it well, and stick to the plan accomplish much with their life for God and others, and get to the end of their life with the character of Jesus.

December is the goal writing month. Start a couple days early. Write some goals, send me a copy and I will pray for you to accomplish them.

Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.

A number of year’s ago a young pastor called me up and asked if he could take me out to lunch and pick my brain for wisdom on how to be a successful pastor. I agreed and anticipated a good lunch with a young, humble wisdom seeker. But it turned out to be a boring and frustrating hour of listening as this young guy talked non-stop about everything and anything about his own life including his first visit to the dentist.

After I said that I needed to go he thanked me for the time, and said, “we need to do this again!” I responded with a polite “sure,” but in my mind I said, “fat chance.” He didn’t last long as a Pastor, which didn’t surprise me. I wondered all the time that he was jabbering to me if anyone had ever told him to shut up, and listen for a while, probably not.

It is a mystery to me how people can grow up physically to be adults and have major blind spots, character flaws, and relational disabilities and seem totally oblivious to them.

When I get out of the shower I don’t like to look at myself in the mirror naked. I have to many rolls and saggy parts that make me look like the doughboy. I have often said that the more cloths that I have on the better I look. I don’t like to look at my real, inner person either. When I look carefully I see to many imperfections. I like to cover up and pretend that I am OK.

Though that is what I am most comfortable doing, I am committed to growing and pursuing character, righteousness, and maturity. I think reflectively about who I am and I set goals that will challenge me and motivate me to grow.

It is almost December. It is time to set your goals for 2022. When you get them done, send me a copy and I will put them in my prayer app under your name and will pray faithfully that you accomplish them.

Proverbs 17:22 A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.

Over the past decade, an entire industry has sprouted up promising the secrets to happiness. There are best-selling books like “The Happiness Project.“ There is an online course called, “The science of happiness” that teaches you how to be happy.

I was personally convinced that our level of happiness went hand-in-hand with how many fish we caught! 😀

Research is validating Proverbs 17:22 by showing that happiness and good health go hand-in-hand. Scientific studies have found that happiness can make our hearts healthier, our immune systems more robust, happy people live longer, happy people have less stress, happy people have fewer aches and pains, and happy people make other people happy.

As adults become older they usually become more frail, which is characterized by impaired strength, endurance, and balance. In a 2004 study, over 1,550 Mexican Americans ages 65 and older rated how much self-esteem, hope, happiness, and enjoyment they felt over the past week. After seven years, the participants with more positive emotion ratings were less likely to be frail. Some of the same researchers also found that happier older adults were less likely to have a stroke.

One of the things that the Bible teaches is that happiness is a choice. We can choose to grumble and complain about life or we can choose to rejoice always, our actions then influence our emotions. Most people are happy or sad as a result of the circumstances and conditions of their life. We can’t control most of the events that happen to us each day so many feel like victims. They aren’t sure who to blame for their rotten life so they often blame God.

One of the most powerful factors in the level of happiness that we generally feel is a positive expectation of of a better tomorrow. Christians who think a lot about heaven and are expecting to be there soon are usually noticeable happier than those who are anticipating more problems and trials and live life dreading the next day.

The most often given command in the Bible is to praise and worship God for all that He has done for us. Those who choose to do that regardless of the amount of sunshine in their life not only feel happier, but God blesses them by putting His joy in their heart.

God calls Christians to attract spiritually lost people to Him. The most attractive people are those who are happy. Our level of happiness in spite of life validates our faith in Jesus.

Proverbs 16:2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight,
But the Lord weighs the motives.

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.

Philippians 1:17 the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives,

James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

People can do really good things with all the wrong motives. People can look like super saints on the outside, but their motives are all messed up. We can pray with wrong motives. We can tell people about Jesus with the wrong motives. People can give away large sums of money with totally wrong motives.

I don’t know what people’s motives are when they serve in our church, when they teach Sunday School to fifth grade boys, when they give money to the special offering, when they go to Africa with our short term missions team, when they pray five hours each day during our “Five Day Prayer” event. Nobody knows what someone else’s motives are. The Bible says that are motives are hidden in the deep darkness of our heart. A very sad truth is that most people don’t even know what their own motives are. One of my personal sayings is, “I can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons and not even know it.”

But God knows what our motives are, and the Bible says that someday at the “Judgment Seat of Christ“ He will disclose the motives of men’s hearts.

2 Corinthians 5:9-10 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

My personal desire is to please the Lord with all that I do, with all that I say, and with all that I think. For that to be true I must have pure motives. I battle that constantly because I can switch from doing what I am doing for the Lord to doing it for my own ego in a second and not be aware of it.

My job is to teach people the Bible so that they can grow in character, to counsel them so that they can have good marriages, to lead them so that they are successful in life. If I do my job well people will be appreciative and praise me, and that feels really good. It is very hard to keep my motives pure, but I must because the minute they go from pleasing God to pleasing people I loose all blessing and power from God, and then everyone pays the price.

Every morning I pray and ask God to please show me when my motives go bad.

There are a number of commands in the Bible that really aren’t commands, they are principles. A command is black and white and easy to understand, but a principle is a guide line with no real absolute so you never are real sure if you have kept it or not. Many of the principles in the New Testament are hard for me to know for sure how well or not so well I am doing. It bugs the heck out of me not knowing for sure if I did what I was supposed to do or not.

One of those principles is in 2 Timothy 2:4, No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

I know what the verse is saying, “keep your life simple so you have time to serve the Lord and others.” But, how simple? I don’t know. I could function with 10% of what I presently own, should I downsize to that point? I don’t know. But what I do know is that the principle keeps an anchor out in my life so that I am careful as I think about purchasing anything new in my life.

Another principle is in 1 Corinthians 10:24, “Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.” I guess the first question I have is the same one asked of Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” “What is the extent of ‘good’ for my neighbor?” “What if I don’t like them?” “What if I don’t agree with them politically?”

Probably the intent of these principles and many others in the Bible is to create some tension or pressure that moves us steadily and maybe even slowly in the direction of the character and lifestyle of the principle. We probably never reach perfection but I think there will come a point in the life of someone striving to please the Lord where they will know that they have come close.

This weekend was very full. I taught Men’s Leadership class on Saturday night at 5:30 pm and then preached Saturday night service. Sunday morning I went to a prayer meeting in the kitchen for the service on Sunday, then taught my “Lady’s Leadership” class at 8:00 am, then preached at the 9:00 am service and agIn at the 11:30 am service, then I taught my Men’s leadership class at 1:00 pm and my Leadership 2 class at 3:00 pm.

Then I went home and took a nap, watched some football and now I am sitting in my recliner eating a big bowl of popcorn as a reward to myself for a good weekend.

Life is good!

Deuteronomy 5:16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

Ephesians 6:2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),

Mom and Dad have both died but I enjoy very much still honoring them by telling stories about their exploits, character, and influence on me. It seems that the feelings and emotions of appreciation, admiration, and love that I have toward them get stronger in me by the year.

I am thinking that the number of positive and affirming stories that I tell about Mom and Dad adds to the feelings I have for them.

The command given by God in His word to honor our Father and Mother is given in both the Old and New Testaments. It is one of the most often repeated commands in the Bible, and it is the first commandment with a reward attached as motivation.

It isn’t Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or either one of their birthdays, but the story yesterday about my Dad’s war experiences just got me in the mood for another blog about them and pictures to boot.

I wrote this about two years ago, shortly after my Mom died and we found some letters in her stuff that she got when my Dad died 30 years earlier. One of them was from a friend of my Dad’s who served with him through World War II. He wrote it to our family as a memorial of my Dad’ service for his country.

I thought I would share the letter from my Dad’s friend about my Dad again as a Vetrans Day salute to all veterans.

The Wasp was an aircraft carrier that Dad was on, and it sank in the Battle of Guadalcanal. This battle lasted over 6 months being fought on land by Marines and supported by numerous ships, including the Wasp. Dad spent several days in the water before being rescued.

The Yorktown, another aircraft carrier sank in the Battle of Midway, a very key battle in the war, and my Dad was on it when it sank.

The Hornet was in many battles and was the aircraft carrier that launched the “Doolittle Raid” when Tokyo was bombed for the first time in the war. It was sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. My Dad was on it when it sank. He was on four different aircraft carriers that were sunk in battle.

One of the stories that my Dad’s friend told; “we were sitting in a gun turret which are mounted on the side of the ship under the flight deck. We were letting our gun cool off from much rapid firing, if the gun is loaded while hot the powder will ignite before the projectile is loaded. We had loaded it successfully before we decided to let it cool. While waiting a Japanese plane came in low around the ship headed right towards us, Duke stomped on the foot firing mechanism and blew that plane into little bitty pieces 200 feet from us. It was funny when it was over, but I can tell you for sure that both Duke and I thought we had bought it that day. We served together on the Hornet, the Wasp, the Yorktown, the Enterprise, the Saratoga, the North Carolina, the O’Brian and others. We spent many hours together sometimes 2 and 3 days straight through in battle at our stations. Please allow me to say and you can tell your 4 sons and your daughter that they can take great pride in being the children of Delbert Duke.”

Almost seems at times that all that my Dad did, and many others like him, was for nothing as our freedoms slip away.