When you look at the cup of life, is it half-full or is it half-empty?

When someone asks you, "How was your day?" do you tell them the good or the bad?

It is our perspective that causes men and women to give a bad report, or conversely, a good report.

We sometimes get so busy describing the size of the enemy that we forget how big our God is.

We need to have the right perspective.

Read lesson: 917A

It says arguing is a senseless pastime enjoyed only by fools who are prompted by pride.

It elevates self, wounds others, and breaks the heart of God.

The process is to trace the spirit that causes us to argue and root it out, replacing it with the cleansing power of the Word of God.

Read lesson: 916B

Is it possible to control your tongue?

Is it possible not to live on a highway paved with regrets over words you wish you had never said?

Is it possible not to have to spend the rest of your life constantly asking for forgiveness for things you uttered in anger or frustration?

Is it possible to bring the tongue totally under control?

If you are a Christian the answer is "Yes."

Read lesson: 916A

It will seek to answer these questions:

Read lesson: 915B

It involves behavior, but it involves more than behavior. It involves why we get drunk, how we get drunk, what happens physically, what happens emotionally, and finally, what happens spiritually.

Let's take a look at what the Scriptures say on the subject.

Read lesson: 915A

How do we get back to the constant control of our will over our own emotions?

If controlling our appetites frees us in the spiritual realm to receive greater feasts from God's table, then the logical end of self-control in this area of our lives is fasting.

We will also look at the purposes and promises of fasting in this lesson.

Read lesson: 914B

It has been said that the most crucial test of a man's character comes as he slides his tray through a cafeteria line. It is then that the real person emerges.

Today, we look at the principles from Proverbs on gluttony. God deplores gluttony.

The reason is simple - it wrestles control of a key area of a person's life away from the Holy Spirit, and exercises his own will in response to an appetite.

God wants to control man's appetites - all of them.

Read lesson: 914A

It has been said that the most crucial test of a man's character comes as he slides his tray through a cafeteria line. It is then that the real person emerges. Today, we look at the principles from Proverbs on gluttony. God deplores gluttony. The reason is simple - it wrestles control of a key area of a person's life away from the Holy Spirit, and exercises his own will in response to an appetite. God wants to control man's appetites - all of them.

Read lesson: 914A

The purpose of this lesson is for us to see adultery from God's perspective - adultery of the eye, mind, will, body, and spirit - and having seen it from God's perspective, never again to toy with immorality.

Can we walk through fire and not be burned? Can we toy with immorality and not be burned? We cannot.

God has erected signposts in His Word that clearly warn us: Danger: Hot Coals - Stay Away.

Read lesson: 913B

In this lesson we will take a look at both the character of God, which makes morality possible, and the portrait of His holiness, which makes our morality essential.

The power to behave is not based on our determination, but on God's nature, imputed to us by virtue of the new birth.

His Spirit placed in us gives us the capacity to behave. We must choose to behave so that the portrait of our Saviour might not be blurred.

Read lesson: 913A

Self-control has two parts: Internal attitudes, a process of transformation, and external behavior, a principle of obedience.

It is into that painful second area that we are moving in our study of Proverbs.

We will look at four public enemies of the Christian faith over which the Christian is commanded to exercise self-control—sexual immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and the tongue.

Read lesson: 912B