The fact is, we have to be taught what our greatest needs are. We think we know what these are, but our priorities can become dangerously disordered. We have to learn (sometimes the hard way) that it is by God’s word that we live, not by bread alone.

Often our words serve the purpose of saying what we WANT to be true. Yet we need to be careful. Surrounded by other religious people, it’s easy to say nice things. But talk is cheap, as the saying goes. We need to mean every promise we make to God.

Converted to Christ, we set Him apart as our Lord. But living consistently under that lordship takes time. We must yield our hearts completely to His direction. At our baptism, we’re just getting started in learning how to let Christ be our Lord.

Jesus urged us to “count the cost” of discipleship (Luke 14:25-33). If we won’t throw the doors open and give God access to EVERY room in our hearts (even the “secret” ones), it’s doubtful that our intentions are as serious as they should be.

God must be TREATED as holy, with respect for His commandments, but He will also DISPLAY His holiness in His dealings with those who come near — even by punishing those who play fast and loose with His instructions and “worship” Him presumptuously.

There is a link between the CHARACTER of God and the COMMANDS of God. When God has given any instruction to regulate our behavior, we cannot disrespect His WORD without disrespecting HIM. There is no such thing as “reverent disobedience.”

Can we recognize that which is morally excellent when we come in contact with it? Our judgment must come to coincide more closely with God’s, so the things we approve are the same things He approves. Spiritually speaking, our tastes must be refined.

There is nothing wiser we can do than observe God’s law carefully. If when others think of the lives we have lived, they think of the good things that come from seeking God’s wisdom, then it’s fairly certain that we’ve been “after” the right thing.

Those with godly sorrow are the God-centered people who, once they realize they’ve erred, will grieve the wrongfulness of their sin rather than its painfulness. The self-pitying sorrow of the world leads to death, but godly sorrow leads to God.

Reverent fear is not inconsistent with love. As one dictionary puts it, reverence is “a feeling of profound awe and respect and often love.” It is the blending of love and godly fear that transforms our seeking of God into a DILIGENT seeking of God.

If we truly had a heart that was both reverent and grateful, what a difference it would make! Our faithfulness to God be more steady, and we would have given to God the most important thing that He seeks from us: a heart willing to be redeemed.

The strength we desire doesn’t come by focusing on our own needs, however spiritual those needs may be. These things are by-products of focusing on God. If we’re obsessed with ourselves, it’s not likely that we’ll find what we’re looking for.

Nothing gained by mere personality techniques will last. God sees behind our personalities, and most other people do too. Eventually the Law of the Farm will prevail: we will reap as we have sown. There is no short cut to any harvest worth having.

The important thing right now is not perfection but progress. As we work toward perfection as a goal, we’ll make more progress if we concentrate on taking the steps that are immediately before us. Those are always steps that we’re capable of taking.

This life will always be incomplete. Recognizing that we’re not going to see anything more than God’s work “in progress” right now, we are free to dream and yearn and long for the time when His plan will reach its climax, and we can finally go home.

In the end, it’s our deeds that God will judge (2 Corinthians 5:10) — not what we said we believed, not what we wanted to believe, and not what we were planning to believe someday. It’s a fact: what we actually DO is what we really believe.

We should cherish the idea of rich relationship, both with God and those who’ve been created in His image. We ought to work on building good relationships. And the maintenance of our relationships ought to be one of our most pressing priorities.

Take time to find out what things mean. These days, most of us stay so busy with our own trivia, we rarely stop to ask the meaning of even the most important things around us. But we’re the losers when we fail to ask, “What does that mean?”