What Rules Do You Follow?

Everyone lives by rules that govern their thoughts and behaviors. These rules may be well-defined or just hanging loose in your sub-conscious. Some rules include perfectionist tendencies for safeguarding your integrity. Always being kind and generous, while difficult to do, is practicing the Golden Rule.

A successful college career requires persistent learning and good grades, but honesty and integrity are mainstays for healthy self-esteem. These attitudes and actions build self-respect and confidence. Sampson’s rules for life were based on pride and self-centeredness. He advocated taking shortcuts to wealth and fame, but instead built a bridge to failure and disgrace.

Do the rules you follow produce joy and peace or create anxiety and worry that generate conflict anchored in destructive pride? Rules that assure faithfulness and integrity with respect for others and oneself build a bridge to healthy and secure relationships. God's wonderful imperatives demonstrate his love for you.  

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Are there any of you who are wise and understanding? You are to prove it by your good life, by your good deeds performed with humility and wisdom.

~James 3:13 Good News Bible

Point out your rules to me, Lord, and I won't disobey even one of them. Help me to understand your Law; I promise to obey it with all my heart.

~Psalm 119:33-34 Contemporary English Version

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Avoid a Fall into Failure

Failure and defeat are as much a part of life as are success and victory. As a child I had difficulties learning to read, spell and articulate. Remedial reading programs did not exist, but by the fifth grade I had taught myself to read. Today, these issues are diagnosed as a form of dyslexia.

While some failures and defeat are beyond our control, others are caused by inattention or irresponsibility. Pride is often used an excuse to compensate for a weakness that has in its composition the ingredients for failure. Pride prohibits confession of weaknesses for fear of revealing hidden feelings of inferiority.

Sampson’s pride barred him from admitting personal weaknesses. This attitude laid the foundation for his undoing and disgrace. Proverbs 11:2 warns, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." Isn't it wonderful that humility and wisdom are safeguards against pride? Make humility your priority so God can bless you with wisdom. 

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Before his downfall a person's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.

~Proverbs 18:12 Christian Standard Bible

The Lord guides us in the way we should go and protects those who please him.

If they fall, they will not stay down, because the Lord will help them up.

~Psalm 37:23-24 Good News Bible

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Faith: Rx to Prevent Failure

At some level during everyone’s lifetime, failure is immanent. Like stress, it’s only a matter of time until it occurs, but then how it’s perceived will determine if it is an unmanageable disaster or a learning opportunity. On one occasion the disciples of Jesus were unable to heal a young boy who was suffering from seizures, but Jesus immediately healed the boy.

Perhaps lack of faith can be linked to many failures. Although Sampson was ordained by God to be a judge of the Hebrew people, he failed to gain their respect and trust. God gave him unusual strength, but he failed to use it in ways that honored God.

Samson appeared to be out of step with God most of his life, ensuring failure. He permitted greed and lust to push God's purpose for him into a secondary place. The Lord God desires to increase your faith so you have confidence to do His work. Unflinching faith in Christ Jesus generates victory rather than failure and defeat. 

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Faith, you see, can only come from hearing the message, and the message is the word of Christ.

~Romans 10:17 Phillips – The New Testament in Modern English

Keep on obeying this message; do not merely listen to it, and so deceive yourselves.

~James 1:22 Williams – New Testament in the Language of the People

My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

~James 1:2-4 Good News Bible

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Don't Be Foolish ~ Be Patient

God’s plan for Samson was the deliverance of his people from the ruling Philistines. God equipped Samson for this task, but his impatience and impulsivity would sabotage God’s objectives. This clearly illustrates that we can impede God’s purpose for us, but at the cost of tremendous regret and sorrow.

God gave Samson unusual strength that became activated when the power of the Lord was present to help him escape crises that he himself tended to create. His sharp intelligence was used to manipulate others, sometimes for fun because he was mischievous and at other times for personal and political benefits.

God expects us to be accountable for using his wonderful gifts and blessings. The Apostle Paul gives us this reminder from Romans 12:3: “By the grace of God given to me I tell you not to think you are better than you are, but measure yourself with sober judgement, according to the degree of faith God has assigned to you.” Good advice. Act on it!  

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Patience is better than pride! Don’t be quick tempered – that is being a fool!

~Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 The Living Bible

Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud.

~1 Corinthians 13:4 Good News Bible

Love is so patient and so kind. Love never boils with jealousy.

It never boasts, is never puffed with pride.

~1 Corinthians 13:4 Williams – New Testament in the Language of the People