The peace that passes all understanding comes from yielding to God's will, asking Him for a soft, pliable heart to replace the hard heart of stubbornness.

Goats are intelligent creatures, but also loners and devious. Understanding their characteristics helps us in evaluating our own tendencies that hinder our walk.

Jannes' and Jambres' character traits include rebellion and stubbornness, acknowledging the truth, but adamantly refusing to yield to it—reaping hideous curses.

Goats are intelligent, sensitive, playful, and quick to respond to attention, but they are also capricious, impulsive, devious, and contrary.

The hallmark of Christian character is humility, which comes about only when one sees himself in comparison to God. Pride makes distorted comparisons.

Because of our carnal natures, we have many goat-like tendencies, leading us to do it our own way. Like stubborn billy goats, we are short on longsuffering.

If we become stiff-necked, like our ancestors at Sinai, we are not submitting to God's Holy Spirit, sabotaging our overcoming and our path to salvation.

Like the symphony orchestra, only as an instrumentalist submits to the leader, working with the other members of the ensemble, can unity be accomplished.

Resentment unresolved can make us physically and spiritually sick. It raises havoc with our nervous system as well as jeopardizes our salvation.

Real saving faith is a gift from God, but we are obligated to walk by this faith, developing incremental levels of faith through obedience.

Israel consistently cycles through God's deliverance, apostasy through idolatry and immorality, God's chastening, national repentance, then deliverance again.

Pride is the basis of resisting God, while humility is the key to a relationship with Him. We recognize it in others but we seldom see it in ourselves.