Search Our Blog Posts
Blog Article Tags
We love building relationships. Subscribe to our blog to receive weekly encouragement in your email inbox.
- Details
When the Wise Teacher was asked what was the greatest of all the commands, he answered that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:36-40).
Paul, at the end of his admonition and description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 concludes that faith, hope, and love remain, but that the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:13).
The four year old who was learning to recognize words, after learning the word "love," proceeded to tell her parents that the whole Bible is filled with love, while flipping through the pages.
Jesus, Paul, and the four year old agree. It all comes back to love.
The greatest and wisest thing: LOVE.
- Details
Written by Wendy Neill
That’s an odd title for a post about wisdom, isn’t it? Solomon was the wisest man who ever walked the earth, so why would I tell you not to be like him?
In my daily Bible reading plan, I am currently in the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, alongside 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Every time I get to these stories about Solomon, I get a knot in my stomach. His story is painful for me to read. Why? Because he had it all... and he gave it up.
Solomon’s father David had taught him about the Lord. “If you seek Him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever” (1 Chron. 28:9).
God himself blessed Solomon more than anyone on the earth and spoke to him personally: “I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for - both riches and honor - so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life” (1 Kings 3:12-14).
Solomon even preached this same message to all the people when he dedicated the temple: “May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers” (1 Kings 8:57-58).
So far so good. This is a guy I want to emulate. But then comes the phrase that breaks my heart. Six words: “and his wives led him astray” (1 Kings 11:3b). Read the rest of that chapter to see what God had to say about it. I can’t bring myself to type it here. It makes me so sad.