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Today I want to talk to you about Wisdom as Family, part two out of Proverbs 15.

A lot of gold in this chapter. We want to get right into it. Verse 17 says, "'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted calf with hatred.'"

FIRST - the principle here is that you're going to want to spend the majority of your life, if possible, inside of contexts where you find love versus where you find hate. Even if you have a little bit less in the way of material things and comfort, but there's a lot of love, that is a much wiser place to spend your time. Hopefully you'll find that love in your physical family. If not, I hope that you find it in God's family. You know the Bible says, "'Where two or three are gathered, there God is, that He is in the midst of people that gather in His name.'" So you want to make sure and gravitate towards those loving contexts. Let's open this one up a bit.

SECOND - This one here, it says that, "'A wrathful person stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allays contention.'" People that are bitter, people that are angry, people that are hurt, the fruit of their life is a lot of strife. A wise principle is to steer away from angry, hurtful, resentful people, like on the day to day people you get advice from. Therefore, we're never supposed to run away from people that need the love of God. Allow God to guide you and speak to you about knowing the difference between when you're supposed to engage in a difficult context to love people, to show them God's love, and when you're supposed to remove yourself to maybe protect yourself. God will show you the difference there.

Verse 19 says that, "'The way of the lazy is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway.'"

THIRD - Talking about work ethic, if you don't work hard, you're not going to have much to show for it. There's a correlation here between a hedge of thorns and a highway. Thorns are very difficult to make progress in and through. Highways are built for speed. The quickest way to get to where you need to go is to work hard.

FOURTH - Look at verse 20, "'A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish man despises his mother.'" Wow. Do you want to make your parents glad? Then what you're going to want to do is to be filled with wisdom. For some reason, very early on, like when I was a teenager, the book of Proverbs is where I spent the majority of my time. I'd encourage you to do the same because God does a lot when we say, Lord, just give me your wisdom.

FIFTH - If you look back at Solomon, he asked for wisdom to know how to govern. God gave him all the other stuff, but it's because he had asked for wisdom. I want to make sure and ask for wisdom in our lives. Look at verse 21. This is interesting. "'Folly is a joy to him who is destitute of discernment, but a man of understanding walks up rightly.'" A lot of times, people will find themselves in foolish situations constantly because they don't have discernment. Have you ever met people that are always making foolish mistakes? Well, it's because they've never learned from their mistakes. It's not about how many mistakes you've made. It's about how many lessons you've learned from those choices. Discernment is developed. Like a muscle that you work out. You're actually able to stay away from more foolish situations the more you progress in your maturity because you develop more discernment. You learn how to stay away from situations that are going to be hurtful and harmful to your growth.

LASTLY - Then, the last one today, a man has joy by the answer of his mouth in a word spoken in due season, how good it is. Wow. The Bible says that there's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new that we can say, but there is something now that we can say. See, I believe that there are no new words, but there are now words. Those now words, what people need to hear today can come out of our mouth to be an encouragement and to be a blessing. May God fill our mouths with the things that people need to hear right now so they can be encouraged in Jesus because life's hard enough.

Wow. So many nuggets here in Proverbs. We'll pick it up next time and finish up chapter 15. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, I hope you have a beautiful day.