Are you listening to your Father’s instructions?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
    and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
(Proverbs 1:8 (NIV))

I am afraid that we have become a society were the parents look to the children for answers. Too many parents allow the children to make the decisions for themselves and sometimes even for the whole family. We, as parents, have become afraid of losing our children’s friendship. As a result, we lose our children and the roles get reversed.

Society has become too permissive with respect to allowing things to get out of hand. We no longer teach our children right from wrong. We live in a society that tells us there is no absolute truth, so consequently, there is no absolute right and wrong. Truth is relative. What is correct in one situation may not be the correct thing to do in another situation. We no longer have a moral compass by which we can steer our lives. It is permissible to do anything as long as no one gets hurt. I want to know who is responsible for this idiotic idea.

All throughout the Bible we are taught that there is a way that we should live. If we don’t live in that manner, then we sin. We miss the mark that God has set before us. Sin is not only the actions that hurt others. Sin is also the private acts that only scar the individual. Sin never leaves anything as flawless and pristine as before it occurred.

I don’t know what you think, but it seems to me that we, as a society, have stopped trying to reach that higher standard. We no longer desire to better ourselves in the eyes of God. We have not only stopped striving for God’s standard, in far too many cases, we have turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction. How can we face ourselves? How can we face God? We have allowed leniency to take the place of love. We have allowed permissiveness to take the place of instruction. We have allowed rebellion to take the place of respect.

We, as a nation, need to return to the basic principles that God has given us. Here is where we can start.

Train a child in the way he should go,
    and when he is old he will not turn from it.
(Proverbs 22:6 (NIV))

Are you listening to your Father’s instructions?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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God doesn’t have double standards!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Differing weights and differing measures–
the LORD detests them both.
(Proverbs 20:10 (NIV))

Do you hold up one standard for some things and a different one for others? Do you measure your friends differently than you measure people whom you do not know? Do you want to be held accountable to a less severe set of laws than you are willing to hold others accountable to? We are all guilty of this to some extent. We fail to give the same leniency that we long for ourselves. Perhaps we even fail to forgive others when we seek forgiveness for ourselves.

Another translation says it differently.

The Lord despises double standards of every kind.
(Proverbs 20:10 (NLT))

Just what is a double standard? It is anything that treats the person you see in the mirror differently than the person you see on the street.

We seek mercy and grace, but are we willing to give it? We seek forgiveness, but are we willing to offer it to others?

Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
(Matthew 6:12 (NIV))

We are told that we will be forgiven in the way that we forgive others. Do you weigh out forgiveness with a different set of weights and measures than you expect to be used for you? Adjust your standard to those that God uses.

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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