Bait The Hook Well! Swing The Bat

BAIT THE HOOK WELL! SWING THE BAT!

By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com

TEXT:

1 Corinthians 13 : 8 LOVE NEVER FAILS!

BAIT THE HOOK WELL --- SWING THE BAT?

Galatians 5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

The Bible’s wisdom amazes me. Paul’s writing is so today.

Have you ever heard --- BAIT THE HOOK WELL, THE FISH WILL BITE.

Well, BITTERNESS AND OFFENSE BECOME SATAN’S BEST BAIT! Many will go after the bait of bitterness that would never consider stealing nor sexual sin!

I am pondering spiritual bat swinging! How fun is it to swing the bat? How fun is it to swing the bat back at the erson who swung the bat?

I know it is easy to swing the bat at the people that swung at us. I know it is easy to swing the bat at whoever is swinging the bat, for them swinging the bat, we will swing the bat.

Then we become what we are attacking?

You are wrong? I am right? My thought is valid, your thought is dumb!

I have swung the bat at he who swung the bat, and then others swung the bat, and the next thing you know,

we are all bruised and battered with blisters on our hands from swinging the bat?

Jesus had a neat lesson, I guess that is why, --- love never fails!

He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

I love to ponder and evaluate me. I might love to evaluate you better, but there is little profit in that.

I have learned a lesson, now God help me apply it!

My Dad often said, Don’t be to free with advice, smart people already know it, and fools will never learn it!

God forgive me for being a bat swinger.

God forgive me for swinging the bat, thinking I was going to stop others from swinging their bats by swinging my bat.

It is easier to swing the bat back than it is to develop a plan of deliverance.

Maybe we swing the bat because it is human nature? Maybe we swing the bat because it is easier? Maybe we

swing the bat, because we don’t know anything else to do? Maybe I will get hurt real bad if I lay my bat down

while others are still swinging? Maybe a defensive bat is permissible?

God forgive me for thinking that when I swung the bat I was different from the others that are swinging their bats?

I want everyone else to be different but me, let me stay the same? Then the whole world stays the same?

Change me --- change the world!

Have we ever bit the hand that was there to feed us? Is not revenge birthed in a mean spirit?

I have heard revenge comes from weak and petty minds? What think ye?

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty! --- Proverbs 16:31-32.

Does pride become part of bat swinging? Anger is a weed. Hate is a tree.

I am told that the old Chinese tradition is, he that raises his voice in anger loses the debate, for he shows weakness of his point.

Do we not realize the force of words? Can words hurt as much as a bat?

We cannot force others, love by submission of the heart prevails.

GREAT MEN SEE THAT THE SPIRITUAL IS STRONGER THAN FORCE AND THE MATERIAL WORLD.

GOOD PLANNING AND THINKING AND LOVE WILL ALWAYS CONQUER BRUTE FORCE.

Swinging bats is never a remedy!

It is God, love of God, love of man that makes life interesting, that makes art, writing, and the church worth while.

Love and Faith are the wonderful force that cannot be weighed in a balance or measured in a test of the crucible.

We often want to use people to build the church, this is not the answer --- we must use the church to build people.

Life has a lesson of trial and error, we must grow fruit that will remain, and learn building better bats will not build better churches.

GOD IS NOT JUST A FORCE, HE IS A PRESENCE!

Adolph Hitler said, The means that win the easiest over reason are terror and force.

Well, terror and force can never permanently win. Only LOVE.

Sandwiched between the two greatest chapters on the SPIRITUAL GIFTS comes a little chapter ---

1 Corinthians 13 has 13 verses, WE CALL 1 CORINTHIANS 13 THE LOVE CHAPTER!

THERE ARE AT LEAST 9 MAJOR COMPONENTS OF GOD’S LOVE!

1. GOD’S LOVE IS LONG-SUFFERING AND VERY PATIENT!

1 Cor. 13:4 Love suffereth long ... 7. Beareth all things, endureth all things.

Can we bear pains and trials calmly and without complaint?