Kristi Burchfiel

God hates sin. Often we think of God as only being love. God is love, but that doesn’t mean that God loves everything. There are things that God hates, and those are sins. In Proverbs 6:16-35 we see an interesting progression of verses. It starts off telling us the things that God hates, then it shares that God gave us commands to keep us on the right path, finally, it shares the result of following the sinful path instead of God’s path for us. God loves us, but He hates sin and desires that we overcome the sin in our life so that we experience His best. Sin in our…

Who is the master, you or money? In Proverbs 6:1-15, Solomon gives a lot of practical advice about money. He talks about the danger of being in debt to someone and how owing money to others can be like being in bondage to that person. Are we a slave to money or do we use money as a tool to do what God has for us to do? Reading through these verses we see the urgency of being delivered from debt and being in control of our desires around money. Are you in control of your desires regarding money, or does money control you? Are you the gazelle mentioned running…

God sees us. Sometimes I feel very alone and think that the things I am struggling with are things that I am alone for. However, in Proverbs 5:18-23 we several great truths, but one that jumps out at me today. In verse 21 it says that the ways of man are before the Lord and He watches all He does. God sees us and He knows what we are doing. God knows the frustrations that we face every day and He sees the choices that we make. We are not alone. God is right there seeing us and prompting us in the path that we are to go. Are we…

Are we wasting ourselves? As Solomon continues speaking in Proverbs 5:1-17, he is discussing an issue that has been a temptation for centuries, lust and physical pleasure. As we read these first few verses, we see that lust and physical pleasure are certainly sins to guard against. But more than that, they are sins that weaken a person. He asks why someone would want to give their strength to another. Why would they give the best of themselves to someone who don’t care about them? It’s an interesting question, because when we are lusting after something else, we are giving the best of our energy and our desire to that…

Do we watch over our heart, or do we follow our heart? In Proverbs 4:14-27 we see continued instruction on how to avoid evil. We must watch and guard our heart, not follow it. Our heart can be easily distracted if we are not guarding it. We are to discipline and direct our heart to follow and seek after the ways of God. Only by keeping our heart focused on Him will we avoid the pain of having our heart broken by the other things in this world.

What are we teaching our children?  In Proverbs 4:1-13, we see a father giving instruction to his son. He teaches him several things he needs to be doing and some things that he should be avoiding. He teaches him about wisdom and how to have and keep wisdom in his life. Are we sharing what we know with others? Whether it is our own children, or if it is other children or other people that we know, we are to be teachers sharing the things that we have learned through life. What have you experienced that you can teach others so they avoid difficulties? We have all learned so many…

Wisdom. In Proverbs 3:13-35 we see exactly why we need wisdom. God has wisdom and He used His wisdom to accomplish all that we see. Through wisdom, we can also find our path simpler and full of reward. With wisdom, we can have confidence and peace in what we do, for the verses discuss being able to lie down without all those fears and worries on our minds. We can also know that we should do good to people immediately and not withhold it, waiting on them to earn it. Wisdom gives us many practical actions that we can do throughout the day. How will we used wisdom today?

Do we trust God? Reading through Proverbs 3:1-12, we see lots of instances where trusting in God is required. We are to trust in him with the path that he has us walking down. We are to trust in him with our money. We are to trust in him with everything we are. How can we do this? Trust is a word that is difficult for many of us to truly understand. We have been let down by so many people so often that we become very skeptical and untrusting of anyone, let alone trying to trust God. Yet here through the first part of this chapter, we see over…

Discretion and understanding. Reading Proverbs 2:11-22 we see that these two things are what will help us to stay on the right path. We always have a choice in what we do, but as we’ve seen in these verses, there are evil people who are constantly trying to get us to follow them instead of Christ. We need both discretion and understanding to be able to resist and instead follow the path of righteousness. When we look at our life, would those two words characterize our decisions? If not, we need to come before God and repent and seek His wisdom so we can only move in the way that…

If…. then. These types of statements can be found throughout the Bible as God shares with us our responsibility for action and obedience. In Proverbs 2:1-10, we see a lengthy listing of an “if…. then” statement. Solomon lists several ways in which we are to show ourselves devoted to God. We are to be seeking after him, desiring to be more like him. Only as we follow through on these things will we find the results of the statement, which is that God will have an answer for us. God indicates that we will be able to discern righteousness and that wisdom will enter our hearts. For every time that…