8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.
11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, 13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. 14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. 13 From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; 14 from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth-- 15 he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. 16 No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. 17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. 18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, 19 to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.
17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
15 The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
17 This is what the LORD says--your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. 18 If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 19 Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be cut off nor destroyed from before me.”
12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
“Christ is your guide to bring you safely home. Sin is a rejecting of His help and our happiness. God does not rule you as a tyrant to your hurt or ruin. His laws are for your good and safety. He is directing you to eternal life, and guiding you be His counsel. He is leading you to the world of light where there are rivers of pleasure and fullness of joy for evermore.” Richard Baxter
“In a command to ‘be joyful,’ self-discipline isn’t the goal. It isn’t an effective response or even a realistic one. We can’t change our hearts simply by telling them to change. We can, however, realize that our attitudes are off-kilter and ask Him to supernaturally change them. He holds hearts in His hand; He can certainly sway them with His thoughts and fill them with His Spirit. If we are going to be people who are always joyful, this is how it has to be. We can’t follow this instruction in the midst of trying circumstances unless we have a radical change of perspective and supernatural help. Biblical commands to rejoice – especially in suffering, persecution, and the intense trials of life – can only be fulfilled when we depend on Him.” Chris Tiegreen
“Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine, Nor ever murmur nor repine; Content whatever lot I see, Since ‘tis my God that leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me; His faithful follower I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me.” Joseph H. Gilmore
“Through Scripture, the prophets and apostles Biblically instruct, warn, and exhort us as they promote righteousness and condemn the practice of dead religion. They extend God’s gracious invitation for people to repent, and they tell of God’s promise to bless those who obey Him. There is a word for every situation in our lives in God’s Holy Bible. John Stott
said that when we exercise the gift of prophecy and bring a word from God, relying faithfully on Scripture, we will disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. Prophecy is a gift for the strengthening, encouraging, and comforting of the church.” Michael Youssef
“The antidote for distraction is focus, the choice to pay attention and live aware. The problem is that we live in a world that seeks to convince us that we can pay attention to multiple things — giving them fractions of our gaze — and still stay the course, keep on track, and make it to our destination. But that’s simply not true. I’m guilty of being consumed with the right now, the immediate. The problem is that once we’ve gone too far for too long without living attentively, we become less shocked by and less sensitive to the changes that we have allowed. The distraction desensitizes us. The ‘every once in a while’ becomes our norm. We no longer have an inner argument each time we move farther away living God’s best. And all drifts matter — even the small ones....In my real everyday life I’m guilty of putting my abundant life at risk - not choosing God’s best by living a life focused on His guidance, direction, and instruction. And life is too precious too waste. If you’ve been living distracted, deceived, or desensitized, the good news is, you are still alive today to choose.” Chrystal Evans Hurst
“Common, too common, is the sin of forgetting the Holy Spirit. This is folly and ingratitude. He deserves better from us, for He is good, supremely good. As God, He is good essentially. He shares in the threefold ascription of "Holy, holy, holy" that ascends to the Triune God. He is unmixed purity, truth, and grace. He is good benevolently, tenderly bearing with our waywardness, striving with our rebellious wills, quickening us from our death in sin, and then training us for heaven as a loving father trains his children. How generous, forgiving, and tender is this patient Spirit of God. He is good operatively. All His works are good in the most eminent degree: He suggests good thoughts, prompts good actions, reveals good truths, applies good promises, assists in good attainments, and leads to good results. There is no spiritual good in all the world of which He is not the author and sustainer, and heaven itself will owe the perfect character of its redeemed inhabitants to His work. He is good officially: Whether as Comforter, Instructor, Guide, Sanctifier, Quickener, or Intercessor, He fulfills His office well, and each work is filled with the highest good to the church of God. Those who yield to His influences become good; those who obey His impulses do good; those who live under His power receive good. Let us then act toward Him according to the dictates of gratitude. Let us revere His person and adore Him as God over all, blessed forever; let us own His power and our need of Him by waiting upon Him in all our holy enterprises; let us hourly seek His help and never grieve Him; and let us speak His praise whenever occasion occurs. The church will never prosper until it more reverently believes in the Holy Spirit. He is so good and kind that it is sad indeed that He should be grieved by slights and negligences.” C. H. Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
“‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.” J. I. Packer
“Frail children of dust, And feeble as frail. In Thee do we trust, Nor find Thee to fail. Thy mercies how tender! How firm to the end! Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend! Robert Grant
“It is a lazy heart that will loiter when it should follow. It is a foolish heart that will let Him go while it plays with every toy in the way. It is a cowardly heart that will draw back in danger when it should follow our heavenly General. It is a treacherous heart that will give us the slip and deceive us when we are the surest of it. It is a short-sighted heart that even when it follows Christ as guide, it is barely kept from missing the bridge and falling into the gulf of misery...Remember how obedience has been sweet afterward, and how bitter the fruit of sin was.” Richard Baxter