Daily Devotions

Proverbs 15:33 (ESV), “The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” Solomon gives two important principles in today’s proverb with their positive outcomes. First, he mentions that, “the fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom.” The “fear of the Lord” means to, “honor and respect God as the…

Proverbs 15:31, “Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise.” My Mom is Italian and my Dad is Polish. Both of their grandparents came from the mother country. My parents were the first generation to marry outside of their nationality. Up until that time, their parents married within their own culture. So…

Proverbs 15:22, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” One of the hardest failures that I faced as a pastor was moving into a large facility and having to break our lease because of the lack of finances. Words cannot describe how defeated and discouraged I felt. I had worked…

Proverbs 15:1, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Often times King Solomon teaches us God’s wisdom in generalities. He is describing what will happen in most cases. He is not writing specifically to every situation. For example, in Proverbs 6:20 he writes, “My son, keep your father’s command…

Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Solomon was the third King of Israel after his father David died. King Solomon had learned first hand the disgrace that came to Israel because of his father’s sin (2 Samuel 12:11). Sadly, this didn’t stop him from making some of…

Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Today as parents we have a choice to either obey what God said in His eternal unchanging Word or follow the ever-changing trends of our godless culture. In the past, corporal punishment (spanking) children was…

Proverbs 13:20, “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” I grew up in the suburbs of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It’s a city with about 300,000 people. My parents were from the Chicagoland area but chose to move to a smaller city for a better place to work…

Proverbs 13:10, “Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.” In today’s proverb King Solomon gives the root cause of strife, pride. Think about it, pride has been the source of all strife since the beginning of time. From Satan’s fall from heaven, to the Jewish leaders…

Proverbs 13:6, “Righteousness guards the man of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner.” King Solomon in the book of Proverbs frequently used the literary technique called, “antithetical parallelism,” which means, “the second line contrasts with the first.” For example, “The sinner goes to hell, but the righteous go to heaven.” In today’s proverb the antithetical…

Proverbs 12:16, “A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.” “I’m so mad at you right now I could scream!” “Shut up, who do you think you are to talk to me that way?” “How dare you say that to me, you better stop before I snap and lose…