HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 226
page A224
Mistakes continued
is your advice?” he asked them. . . . The young men replied, “This is what you should tell
those complainers who want a lighter burden: ‘. . . Yes, my father laid heavy burdens on
you, but I’m going to make them even heavier!’ ”
• PR O V E R B S 1 2 :1 5 | Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.
Rejecting the advice of wise counselors can lead to mistakes.
What does God think of my mistakes? Will he still love me if I’ve made a
big mistake?
• PSA L M 3 2 :3 , 5 | When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned
all day long. . . . Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt.
I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt
is gone.
• 1 J O H N 1 :9 | But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us.
• PSA L M 5 1 :7 | Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter
than snow.
• PR O V E R B S 1 :8 -9 | My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your
mother’s instruction. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain
of honor around your neck.
M
If your mistake is sin, confess it as such! God will forgive you completely. When you make
a mistake that isn’t a sin, learn from it so that you can grow in character and maturity.
PROMISES FROM GOD
HelpFinder
• J A ME S 3 :2 | Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we
would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.
• R O MA NS 8 :2 8 | And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of
those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Money See also Accountability; Giving
Money is neither good nor bad: It’s a neutral medium of exchange. Throughout the Bible
we read matter-of-factly about money being earned, borrowed, and spent. However,
money has come to represent wealth, power, and status. As such, it has a tendency to
wield extraordinary power and control over our lives. It seems that money will buy almost
anything—except true love and honest forgiveness. The Bible warns us about “the love
of money,” intensified as “devotion to money” or perhaps even “worship of money.” This
is not neutral but is instead sinful. Jesus goes so far as to identify money as a potential
rival to God (Matthew 6:24). The Bible consistently teaches that money—like natural
resources, material goods, or time itself—is ours to be used for the glory of God, not to
take the place of God or distract us from doing his work. The matter of money is what we
do to get it, preserve it, spend it, and share it.
There is hope for moving from financial distress to financial health. While money problems sometimes result from circumstances beyond our control, they are often created or
exacerbated by our actions. God provides guidelines for money management that provide practical help for overcoming our financial difficulties.
What is a proper perspective toward money?
• MAT T H E W 6 :2 1 | “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
The Bible mentions many wealthy people who loved God while saying nothing negative
about the amount of wealth they owned (Abraham, David, Joseph of Arimathea, Lydia).
Scripture doesn’t focus on how much money you can or cannot have, but it rather focuses
on what you do with the money you do have. Jesus made one thing clear: Wherever your
money goes, your heart will follow after it. So work hard and succeed without guilt, but
make sure to work just as hard at finding ways to please God with your money.
