About four years ago, I started on a journey. I wanted to pray the wisdom found all through the Bible on the lives of my four adult kids. So I’ve been doing that ever since. Proverbs 2 was written by a man God intentionally placed great amounts of wisdom in his life. His name was Solomon and he was the son of King David. These few verses summarize my prayers for my kids.

Proverbs 2:

I have fond memories of the Sermon on the Mount. When I was getting my Bachelor’s I stayed with a family in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I would come home at night and walk down red dirt, country roads and memorize it. I wrote it out on spiral bound index card. I would say it over and over to get the three chapters stuck in my brain. Every word Hesus spoke in the King James Version is in red letters because that’s how His words were noted in the KJV.

I got the idea of memorizing large chunks of scripture from a Christian woman on TV mom would listen to in the early hours of each morning. Her name was name was Marilyn Hickey. She was a master of memorizing scripture.

This passage that’s coming up is great. Ask God for EVERYTHING you need and desire. As a Christian, do not break the sacred trust that Jesus gave you when you made Him the boss of your life by asking Him for something selfish and stupid such as something like an expensive Mercedes Benz or a fancy Cadillac. Instead ask Him for things you enjoy and things that will further the spread of God’s love to others.

Matthew 7:

⁷ “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹ “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? ¹⁰ Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! ¹¹ So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

I love Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gave us an example of how to pray in it. He also told us how we should go about living for God.

Before the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said God knows what we need before we ask. Why did Jesus say that right before He told us how to ask God for our needs? I don’t know but those words are comforting to me. I can’t mess up asking my Heavenly Father to help me in my imperfect humaness.

Matthew 6:

6 “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. ² When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. ³ But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. ⁴ Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

⁵ “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. ⁶ But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

⁷ “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.⁸ Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! ⁹ Pray like this:

We win today.

Paul said in the Bible that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers, against principilaties, against rulers of this present darkness and against spiritual wickedness in high places.

James said in the Bible submit to God, resist the devil and [it is promised] he is forced to flee.

In Psalms, David had enemies and cried out to God to eliminate them. So, at the start of this day, I set a  presidence. The devil and his demons are defeated before this day has begun. I’m prepped for spiritual battle because I’m aware of the spiritual warfare and have already asked God to deliver us from the enemy. I took David’s ancient words and prayed that our enemy is already fleeing.

Psalms 6:

Go away, all you who do evil,
    for the Lord has heard my weeping.
⁹ The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord will answer my prayer.
¹⁰ May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
    May they suddenly turn back in shame.

God loves us more than He hates our sin.

There are verses in the book of Psalms that tell how He forgives our sin as far as the east is from the west and that His love is for us is infinite. It would a very interesting study to find all the verses that tell of God’s hatred for our sin and also find all the verses about His love. Then compare the amounts. I’m pretty sure the number of verses of God trying to convey His love would outweigh His hatred for sin.

But really, it’s not necessary to try that hard because God made it easy. One of the most popular verses in the Bible is John 3:16. It profoundly, yet simply describes God’s love for every single person He ever made.

Sin simply separates us from God. And He doesn’t want that at all. He made humans so He could enjoy their company. Since God is holy, that is, without sin, He cannot be in the presence of sin.

It’s not necessary to dwell on our sin and wrongdoing. In a miraculous instant, God forgives us when we ask. And then, in all His great goodness, He wants to bless our lives because the amount of love for each of is unfailing, everlasting and immeasurable. He desires to continuously, daily help us to overcome the effects of sin and wrong actions in our lives.

It was prophesied in Isaiah 9:1-2 of the places where Jesus would begin His Ministry.

Matthew 4:

¹² When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he left Judea and returned to Galilee. ¹³ He went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.¹⁴ This fulfilled what God said through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁷ From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

David was in a very difficult situation. He was king and his son Absalom, waged war against his father so he could become king. Absalom had already disrupted their household when he slept with David’s wives and then he had an army looking for David. David still greatly loved his son. His heart was broken. David was on the run from Absalom, so he ran to the only one who had power to help him and that was God! In the end, David continued to reign because his son died from an accident (not in battle). In that time, David once again cried out to God saying his son’s name again to mourn his death.

So how did David express himself in such a great moment of family breakdown and civil war? His emotional plea to God was captured in Psalm 3.

Psalm 3:

Jesus spoke God’s Word when He was directly tempted by the Devil.

Matthew 4:

4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. ² For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.

³ During that time the devil^[a] came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”

⁴ But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,

⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, ⁶ and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say,

⁷ Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lordyour God.’^[d]”

⁸ Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ⁹ “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”

¹⁰ “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say,

¹¹ Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus.

My kids are young adults now. When they were young we taught them the importance of putting God first, prayer and reading the Bible. Respect is shown to God through these actions and that is where wisdom and success begins.

Proverbs 1:

God’s greatest passion is to have a close relationship with the people He made.

Time after time, God greatly desired that the Jews would a have a close relationship with Him. Time after time, they rejected Him and chose lawlessness and wrongdoing. God is holy and can’t be in the presence of sin. All through the Old Testament, He cried out to His people that He would be their God and they would be His people. They didn’t listen. Yet since He created them he also understood their frailty. So He made a way through the only Son He ever had, Jesus. Jesus lived the only sinless life on earth. He made the way for all humanity to choose to have a relationship with God. Jesus was Emmanuel which means ‘God with us.

Here is a simple timeline through the Bible of “I will be their God and they will be my people.”

When God promised Abraham many descendants~

Genesis 17:

⁷ “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

When God was instructing Moses, the leader of the Israelites, about following Old Testament laws~

Leviticus 17:

⁷ “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

When God told Joseph and Mary they would have Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, He would fulfill God’s great passion and be ‘God with us’~

Matthew 1:

¹⁸ This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

²⁰ As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

²² All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

When Jesus returns to take all God’s people to Heaven at that time God’s greatest passion that He would our God and we would be His people will be ultimately fulfilled~

Revelation 21:

³ I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.