(Please read part one first)<\/p>\n
Gaining knowledge<\/span> fills the brain, but not the soul—“the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom<\/span>.”<\/p>\n Education<\/span> may help to prove one is smart—intelligence<\/span> does not need to prove anything, speaks for itself.\u00a0 “Do not let your education exceed your intelligence.”<\/p>\n Many assorted adjectives can describe a politician<\/span>—statesman<\/span> never has an adjective because the word stands alone just as the statesman stands alone.<\/p>\n Man makes religion<\/span>(s)—Jesus makes possible our relationship with God<\/span>.<\/p>\n The lawman’s gun gives him power<\/span>—his badge gives him authority<\/span>.<\/p>\n For the ham and egg breakfast, the chicken made a contribution<\/span>—the pig made a sacrifice<\/span>.<\/p>\n One can have boldness<\/span> and yet be foolish—courage<\/span> requires a righteous cause.<\/p>\n “Only one life will soon be past . . .” \u00a0temporal<\/span>—“Only what’s done for Christ will last” \u00a0eternal<\/span>.<\/p>\n Praise of man is temporary<\/span> glory for temporary accomplishments—praise of God is permanent<\/span> for things done for eternity.<\/p>\n “Do not fear him who can only kill the body, and that’s all . . .” \u00a0fear of man<\/span>—“Fear Him Who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell” \u00a0fear of God<\/span>.<\/p>\n Financial security<\/span> on earth is an oxymoron, and only a few can even try—eternal security<\/span> is a sure thing, available to anyone.<\/p>\n “Do not store up treasure on earth<\/span>, where moths and rust corrupt it, and thieves break in and steal it\u201d—“Store up treasure in heaven<\/span>, where moths and rust do not corrupt it, and where thieves do not break in and steal it.”\u00a0 (Bonus fact, “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”)<\/p>\n The toddler says, “Mine,” and we all want to own stuff, and ownership<\/span> is good, especially for motivation—far better to add the attitude of stewardship<\/span>, and hold loosely all the stuff that is not permanent, in order to gain and hold what lasts and cannot be lost.<\/p>\n People say you are success<\/span>ful if you have a good job or business, make a certain expected amount of money, and have a certain expected amount of stuff and prestige—God’s definition is different, with only one requirement, faithfulness<\/span>, regardless of how much you make or how much you’ve got or how people rate you.\u00a0 (And the benchmark that says you have ‘arrived’ is contentment.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jesus does not have a very high view of anyone who boasts about what he accomplishes and what he gains—if we daily acknowledge God in every single detail of our lives, and delight in Him, He is delighted to direct every single one of those details.<\/p>\n I guess we could add one more to summarize the list:<\/p>\n . . . like the difference between pride<\/span> and surrender<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Please read part one first) Gaining knowledge fills the brain, but not the soul—“the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Education may help to prove one is smart—intelligence does not need to prove anything, speaks for itself.\u00a0 “Do not let your education exceed your intelligence.” Many assorted adjectives can describe a politician—statesman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,4,7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-financial","category-inspire_lifter","category-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3935"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3940,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions\/3940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}