Bible Wisdom for Your Life--Men's Edition: Hundreds of Key Scriptures

By Ed Strauss

Men have questions? God has answers! Bible Wisdom for Your Life: Men’s Edition is a compilation of hundreds of Bible verses, categorized under dozens of key life topics. Drawing from varied Bible translations for ease of reading, this book features subjects such as Brothers, Competitiveness, Emotions, Exercise, Fatherhood, Leadership, Legacy, Lust, Mentoring, Service, Sports, and Temptation. Each category is accompanied by a contemporary “life application” introduction, while quotations, prayers, and brief devotional thoughts are also scattered throughout—making Bible Wisdom for Your Life: Men’s Edition your one-stop resource for encouragement, challenge, and hope.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbour Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781628363418

Ed Strauss

Ed Strauss lives in British Columbia, Canada, with his wife and three tween-aged children. Ed is a freelance writer with a passion for Biblical apologetics and fantasy fiction. Apart from writing, Ed enjoys biking and exploring nature.

Book preview

1

Addiction

An addiction is an activity repeated so frequently that it becomes very difficult to break free from it. Either that or a person has an inborn weakness for something—say, alcohol—and is hooked after even the first drink.

The Bible talks a great deal about the dangers of alcoholism, and had illegal drugs, tobacco, and pornography existed back then, it would have mentioned them as well.

Some men are also addicted to gambling or to extramarital sex because of the stimulation and the rush these things give them.

Many find the effort to resist sinful urges so difficult that they hide behind excuses such as I can’t help it. I’m genetically hardwired to give in to these things. No. We may have an inborn weakness in a certain area, or a tendency toward certain sinful activities, but we always have a choice.

It takes prayer and faithfully, repeatedly resisting temptation and fighting such urges, but God’s Spirit can help us overcome.

Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

PROVERBS 23:20–21 NIV

Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

EPHESIANS 5:18 NLT

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

ROMANS 13:13 NIV

Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

JOHN 8:34 NASB

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

ROMANS 8:12–14 NLT

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild par ties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

GALATIANS 5:19–21 NLT

Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.

ROMANS 6:12 NLT

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

GENESIS 4:7 NIV

If the Son gives you freedom, you are free!

JOHN 8:36 CEV

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

1 CORINTHIANS 10:13 KJV

When people sin, you should forgive and comfort them, so they won’t give up in despair.

2 CORINTHIANS 2:7 CEV

2

Ambition

Ambition can be a very good thing. According to the dictionary it is the determination to achieve success or distinction. To be ambitious is to be strongly determined. When you have a vision and a goal, it inspires you to work hard and achieve excellence.

You need a healthy dose of ambition if you’re studying a career in college or star ting a new business. If you have no ambition you’ll just drift through life.

But there is a dark side to ambition. We’ve all heard of men so narrowly focused on succeeding that they sacrifice everything on the altar of ambition—their marriage, their family, their health, and their soul.

That is why you must pursue God’s goals, and even then, not become so obsessed with succeeding that you get life out of balance.

The key is to submit all your plans to God for His approval, then constantly come to Him for direction and wisdom so you can make that ambition come true.

Also, make it your ambition to live quietly, to mind your own business and to earn your living by your own efforts—just as we told you.

1 THESSALONIANS 4:11 CJB

I realized that it’s good and proper for a man to eat and drink. It’s good for him to be satisfied with his hard work on this earth. That’s what he should do during the few days of life God has given him.

ECCLESIASTES 5:18 NIRV

Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.

PROVERBS 13:4 NLT

Lazy people finally die of hunger because they won’t get up and go to work.

PROVERBS 21:25 MSG

He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows frivolity will have poverty enough!

PROVERBS 28:19 NKJV

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.

PHILIPPIANS 2:3 NIV

But as for you, do you seek great things for yourself? Stop seeking!

JEREMIAH 45:5 HCSB

People who want to be rich fall into all sorts of temptations and traps. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them. The love of money causes all kinds of trouble.

1 TIMOTHY 6:9–10 CEV

We work to feed our appetites; meanwhile our souls go hungry.

ECCLESIASTES 6:7 MSG

Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow…. Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.

JAMES 4:13–15 NIV

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

JAMES 3:16 NIV

3

Anger

The Bible has a great deal to say about anger. That’s because it is very human to become impatient and frustrated with others and to express those feelings with heated words.

Likewise, when we feel that we have been slighted or treated unjustly, it’s a natural reaction to become heated under the collar.

There are certainly times when we’re justified in being angry—in fact, flagrant injustice ought to upset us. This kind of anger is referred to as righteous indignation.

Most of the time, however, there is nothing righteous at all about us letting off steam. The Bible says, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20 NKJV).

We must learn to control our temper—otherwise anger will rage out of control and cause us to say and do hurtful things. Words blurted out in anger are often long regretted.

True, we may have been born with a quick temper, but God can still help us master it.

Let go of anger, and leave rage behind. Do not be preoccupied. It only leads to evil.

PSALM 37:8 GW

Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.

PROVERBS 14:29 NIV

People with quick tempers cause trouble, but those who control their tempers stop a quarrel.

PROVERBS 15:18 NCV

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

PROVERBS 16:32 ESV

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

PROVERBS 19:11 ESV

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.

EPHESIANS 4:31 KJV

But now you must stop doing such things. You must quit being angry, hateful, and evil. You must no longer say insulting or cruel things about others.

COLOSSIANS 3:8 CEV

Like grabbing a dog by the ears, so is a bystander who gets involved in someone else’s quarrel.

PROVERBS 26:17 GW

An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgression.

PROVERBS 29:22 NKJV

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

JAMES 1:19–20 TNIV

And don’t sin by letting anger control you. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry.

EPHESIANS 4:26 NLT

Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she … said to Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?

GENESIS 30:1–2 NASB

4

Backsliding

You don’t hear the term backslider used too much in churches today—although the condition it describes is still around.

Today we’re more apt