Chapter 1: Building Your House On The Word of God
Joan Boney ... Amazon.com ... e-book and paperback
Jesus says:
Mt. 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
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If you
take a job for money, you are on a very common worldly course of life.
I see young people at grocery stores and at businesses, like Wal-mart, who have taken job for money and hate being at that job. Their countenance shows their dislike of what they are doing.
Their entire disposition is negatively affected and they are often setting their way of life for the years to come, going from one job to another to get more money thinking that will cause their life to be better, never realizing they are dooming their lives by their pursuit.
I see young people at grocery stores and at businesses, like Wal-mart, who have taken job for money and hate being at that job. Their countenance shows their dislike of what they are doing.
Their entire disposition is negatively affected and they are often setting their way of life for the years to come, going from one job to another to get more money thinking that will cause their life to be better, never realizing they are dooming their lives by their pursuit.
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Pam Padgett, from our little
church group, told the following very interesting story of wanting contact
lenses as a young girl and going out to try to get money to buy what she
wanted, thinking the lenses would make her more attractive, not realizing what
would happen as she tried to work at a job she hated.
Pam said:
When I was in high school I wore eye glasses. At one point I decided I wanted to get contacts to use instead of glasses, thinking they would make me look more attractive. But my mom told me I couldn't get contacts because they were too expensive. So I decided to get a job to earn money to buy contacts myself.
In the small town where we lived there was a fast food place called Dairy Boy. My older sister had worked there in the past and really liked it, so I thought this would be fun for me as well.
They hired me, but I found I didn't like the job.
At first I tried to explain away that I didn't like working there, such as that I just needed to get used to it.
Finally, I realized that I just hated working there and decided to quit.
But I didn't quite have enough money saved for contacts, and this was like a hook for me.
Foolishly, I worked another couple weeks. I was miserable this whole time, and know it would have been far better for me to have just quit when I realized how much I hated this job and not keep working until I had the money for the contacts.
(And after putting myself through this, I landed up not even getting the contacts. My mom wouldn't allow me to buy them.)
Pam said:
When I was in high school I wore eye glasses. At one point I decided I wanted to get contacts to use instead of glasses, thinking they would make me look more attractive. But my mom told me I couldn't get contacts because they were too expensive. So I decided to get a job to earn money to buy contacts myself.
In the small town where we lived there was a fast food place called Dairy Boy. My older sister had worked there in the past and really liked it, so I thought this would be fun for me as well.
They hired me, but I found I didn't like the job.
At first I tried to explain away that I didn't like working there, such as that I just needed to get used to it.
Finally, I realized that I just hated working there and decided to quit.
But I didn't quite have enough money saved for contacts, and this was like a hook for me.
Foolishly, I worked another couple weeks. I was miserable this whole time, and know it would have been far better for me to have just quit when I realized how much I hated this job and not keep working until I had the money for the contacts.
(And after putting myself through this, I landed up not even getting the contacts. My mom wouldn't allow me to buy them.)
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Later, as a young adult, Pam had another experience in the work place and this time she took the path which would bring great success and that path was turning to God with the work problem when she found she was in a job where she was bored.
Pam says:
Many years ago I didn't know what kind of work I wanted to do, but had very strong secretarial skills and accepted a job at a bank as a secretary.
My manager was an attorney and CPA and I found the work interesting for the first couple years.
But then I found that I was becoming bored with the work.
So I turned to God and told HIM how bored I was and asked if there was any kind of work I could do that would be interesting to me.
About that time (approximately 1986) my manager asked if I would setup and start using two personal computers that had been given to our department but were not being used. One had never been taken out of the box. I told my manager I'd be glad to do this, but that I didn't know anything about computers. I suggested taking some computer classes, and he agreed.
I got a list of courses offered at a community college and reviewed it with my manager. We selected two courses. One course was called "Basic" and we both thought this would be a good choice since I needed a "basic" understanding of computers.
But the first night of the Basic class, I learned that the class taught the computer programming language called "Basic".
As soon as the instructor started talking about programming, I knew very strongly that programming is what I wanted to do, that it "fit" me.
As I drove home that night I kept thanking God and saying "This is it!" I knew God led me to a kind of work that would be interesting to me.
I landed up doing computer programming for more than 20 years and very much enjoyed this work.
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(Comments by Joan Boney)
Every morning of my life, I can't wait to get out of bed and go to work. (I'm almost 83 now.) I love what I do. This is truly a blessing from God to feel this way daily.
Yet this is the way each person who belongs to God should be... in "green pastures" beside those "still waters".
Psalm 23 ... The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. HE maketh me to lie down in green pastures: HE leadeth me beside the still waters.
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When we live the scriptures, we end up in a position where there is no "need" ... there is no "lack"... There is no "want".
We find we even have an abundance, more than we ever imagined, in both material things and in peace of mind.
It does not happen accidentally.
It happens by starting with one scripture and following that one scripture in your life, putting your trust in God by doing what HE says to do, going in HIS way rather than in the way of worldly wisdom.
Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Few people, even as Christians, arrive at this position.
Jesus said:
Matthew 7
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
It take a
determination to do the Word of God and to continue doing that Word.
It comes down to faith in God.
We start with one verse of scripture.
It comes down to faith in God.
We start with one verse of scripture.
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I was born again in 1975. At that time, I owned a small business in Dallas, Texas. (American Indian Arts)
I saw the following scripture, and believed it, and set about to do it.
Romans 13:8 …
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another
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The starting point: Get out of debt ...
I kept that scripture in Romans 13:8 before me "day and night" to give me strength and direction, to keep me focused on the path of choice.
I prayed, asking God to help me to do this, to get out of debt. (and once out of debt, to stay out of debt)
If you are in debt, money can become an obsession so how can you not follow "mammon"?
If you are in debt, focused on money, that money can also become "a love" in your pursuit, even if it is a small amount of money.
Money can, and usually does, cause us to make wrong choices and leads us into things we should not be in and even shipwrecks faith in God.
The apostle Paul teaches us this wisdom:
I Tim. 6 ... For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
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To get out
of debt, we keep the scripture showing to us get out of debt before our
eyes and we sincerely pray, asking God to help us to get out of debt. And we follow the Holy Spirit who leads us
into all truth and guides us continually when we are of God.
It is amazing what happens when you keep a scripture before you day and night, thinking upon the goals, instructions, set forth through that scripture.
In time, you find you have strength to do that instruction. It may take a week, a month, a year but it will come to pass when you think upon that scripture, making it your goal in life to do it. So much of the strength we have in God lies on meditating in the Word of God with a desire to do that verse of scripture.
(Continued on tomorrow's blog)
It is amazing what happens when you keep a scripture before you day and night, thinking upon the goals, instructions, set forth through that scripture.
In time, you find you have strength to do that instruction. It may take a week, a month, a year but it will come to pass when you think upon that scripture, making it your goal in life to do it. So much of the strength we have in God lies on meditating in the Word of God with a desire to do that verse of scripture.
(Continued on tomorrow's blog)
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