{"id":7162,"date":"2020-12-20T04:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T10:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5242"},"modified":"2023-12-15T20:39:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T02:39:26","slug":"devotional-on-proverbs-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-proverbs-54\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Proverbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-kakG3r68Ffk\/X4IJ56DZjxI\/AAAAAAABG5A\/yOM5_1aWY-cVUHdGvVTTKI0w-NwEJm-0gCPcBGAsYHg\/s400\/2002new_hampshire-10.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2002 &#8211; New Hampshire<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nBeginnings and conclusions<br \/>\nProverbs 20: A bonanza at the beginning is no guarantee of blessing at the end.<br \/>\nLast year we had a new restaurant open in our community.  It seemed the whole town decided to try it out.  The place was packed out and it looked as though the owners had a real winner on their hands.  However, things didn&#8217;t work out that way.  After that first couple of weeks things really dropped off for them.  Finally, the doors closed.  The promising start didn\u2019t guarantee a continued success.  I&#8217;ve seen that happen in people&#8217;s spiritual lives too.  At the beginning I think that they\u2019re going to be a productive, consistent disciple of Christ.  But it simply doesn&#8217;t work out.  The promise of their lives gets derailed and, in the end not only are we disappointed, but so are they.  The tragedy here is that such failure never has to happen.   That restaurant might have been doomed from the start.  It might be that anyone who knows about such things could have predicted that it won&#8217;t work out.  However, when it comes to living for Jesus there\u2019s every reason for success.  Sometimes it seems that the one who simply decides for Christ and just starts living for him has a better chance of seeing it through than the one who makes a big splash at the beginning.  That&#8217;s not only the lesson in this proverb, but Jesus&#8217; parable about the sower and the seed makes the same point.<br \/>\nTake Away: When it comes to living for Jesus there\u2019s every reason for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beginnings and conclusions Proverbs 20: A bonanza at the beginning is no guarantee of blessing at the end. Last year we had a new restaurant open in our community. It seemed the whole town decided to try it out. The place was packed out and it looked as though the owners had a real winner [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1526,7],"tags":[147,336,1048],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14851,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions\/14851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}