Daily Devotional

A Ministry of the Kerwin Baptist Church

July 26, 2018

by Pastor Hawtree

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE:

TO DO THE TALKING

Ecclesiastes 5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

We are given instruction in this chapter about how to conduct ourselves in the House of God. It is applicable to every area of our life because we should conduct ourselves this way whenever we are in the presence of God. As believers, we now have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of us, so we are always in the presence of God.

We are to control ourselves in the House of God. “Keep thy foot” means to conduct ourselves appropriately and keep control of our words and our attitude. We are to be ready to hear what God has to say to us. We should be ready to sacrifice to and for our Lord. In other words, our time in God’s House should be all about Him, and not about us. But you knew that already. Solomon deals greatly, however, with our tendency to have a lot to say. He says we should be “ready to hear”, and to “not be rash with thy mouth”. He says our heart, if we are not careful, will “be hasty to utter” things before God.

You see, we sometimes are very opinionated, and are very high on our opinions. We think we have valuable things that we need to convey. We even have things to tell God sometimes, as if He needs our input to make a Him aware of things. We think because of our knowledge, or vast church experience, or our extensive education, that we need to talk more than we need to listen. I love how Solomon pretty much tells it like it is. “God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” You and I would be much better served to “let God do the talking”. We need to hear what God has to say, but no one really needs to hear what we have to say. God is above us, over us, and bigger than us. God is in heaven, and we are here on earth. He can see more than we can see, and God knows more than we will ever know. We must keep our heart, our mind, our attitudes, and our mouths under control. We must humble ourselves before God. We must resist the urge to spout off our mouths, fix everyone else’s problems, and to point out everyone else’s faults. We must be “ready to hear”, and to “let thy words be few”.

I am persuaded that He is able to do the talking!