Today’s Verse: He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. ~Proverbs 25:28 A city that is broken down and without walls is a city that has been overthrown. It has experienced defeat and is vulnerable to further attack. This is a picture of a life that is not under control. The greatest foe to conquer is the foe of self. Our devotion this morning is centered on the person who lacks control over his emotions and mood. There is

Today’s Verse: A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. ~Proverbs 15:1 We live in a very angry and enraged society. It is a society where many people live on the edge of being very defensive against accusations, confrontation, rudeness, and presumed personal attack. When two people meet regarding an area of concern, there is a strong likelihood that one of them will blow up and go off on a verbal tirade against the other. In the end, strong and hurt

Today’s Verse: A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. ~Proverbs 15:1 We live in a very angry and enraged society. It is a society where many people tend to be very defensive against accusations, confrontation, rudeness, and presumed personal attack. When two people meet regarding an area of concern, there is a strong likelihood that one of them will blow up and go off on a verbal tirade against the other. In the end, strong and hurtful words furth

Today’s Verse: He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. ~Proverbs 14:29 I read a humorous story about an angry panda bear. “A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, ‘Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!’ The panda yells back at the man

Today’s Verse: If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. ~Genesis 4:7 Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you did not know what to choose, and someone told you to flip a coin? The idea behind flipping a coin is that when someone is at a crossroads in making a difficult decision, the flipping of a coin makes the decision for him. Using a nicke

Today’s Verse: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: ~Ephesians 4:26 I enjoy this time of the summer. The sun rises earlier and sets much later. We get to enjoy more daylight. Just last night, I went out for a walk and was watching as the sun was setting between 9:00pm and 9:15pm. Sundown represents the close of the day and the start of evening. Sundown is a marker in time for certain things. We see the affirmation. “And it came to pass, that, whe

Today’s Verse: God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb: and what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then their anger was abated toward him, when he had said that. ~Judges 8:3 How do you react when someone is unexpectedly angry with you and lets off a barrage of criticism, inflammatory language, and angry words? I think, sadly, most of us might tend to react in like kind. In those tense seconds after we have been verbally attacked, we must d

Today’s Verse: And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? ~Judges 8:2 Have you ever reacted to something that you perceived to be offensive and said something in anger that made you and the other person hostile enemies? How we react to our perceptions can make or break us. Solomon gave us a biblical principle on how to respond, and not react, to angry words against you. “A

Today’s Verse: A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. ~Proverbs 15:1 Publius once wisely said, “I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence.” I think all of us can think of one or more times when we answered or reacted too quickly to something said to us and, later, regretted that we spoke too soon. Solomon said in a later proverb that “a fool uttereth all his mind.” This morning, let us examine the virtue of a soft answer. We see a com

Today’s Verse: Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. ~Psalm 37:1 Dealing with people can be a blessing. It can also be a trying experience, as some personalities choose to be adversarial, annoying, contentious, disloyal, undermining, or difficult to work with. Some types of personalities can just get under your skin. In other words, they test your patience and lead to fretting on our part. Three times in the opening ve

Today’s Verse: So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. ~Jonah 4:5 A Western idiom that we use is the term “sitting duck.” This is a way of saying that a person is vulnerable to attack or other source of danger. The term comes from hunting, where it is much easier to hit ducks when they are sitting on the water than when they are in flight.