The Word To Live By: 10-30-25
Phil Waggoner
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you. 1 Thessalonians 4:11
The Word to live by: I use this scripture to calm down what I call “ultra-spiritual people” or people who miss the practicality of the Bible. What I mean by “ultra-spiritual” are people who always walk around with their heads in the clouds and hear the voice of God telling them to do something weird, like stand up on a table in the middle of a crowded mall and start to condemn the world for its sin. (I’ve actually seen that.) The Bible is as practical of a “How To” book as has ever been written, and if you apply its principles to your life, you will succeed. Proverbs is full of practical wisdom, some of it you will find in the best self-help books. But the difference in reading it in the Bible and in a self-help book is if you take it humbly as the Word of God, it will begin to work on your behalf immediately. If you study the book of Proverbs, you will find the recurring theme is prudence (the practical application to everyday affairs), diligence (the consistent application to a task), and self-discipline (disciplining yourself to be prudent and diligent.) Proverbs 21:5 says, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to profit, but everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.” Make a plan and diligently follow that plan and it will succeed. If you enter the project without a plan or you aren’t diligent with the plan, it will fail. Notice 1 Thessalonians 4:11 says to make it your ambition to do these things. That means making a quality decision to obtain these things in your life. Once you make that quality decision, then you must get knowledge. Then, once you get knowledge, you need to apply it, no matter how you feel about it. Working with your hands doesn’t necessarily mean to literally work with your hands but work with the skill or gift that God has given you.
Read through the Bible in a year: 1 Timothy 1; Isaiah 31-33; Psalms 119:33-64;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 30, Luke 17:20-37, Hebrews 8
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160