SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
1/4/2013 8:23 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Wisdom
Protects Your Path PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Proverbs
2:1-9
Message of the
verses: We now begin the third
chapter from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Proverbs and this chapter
he entitles “The Path of Wisdom and Life.”
We will cover chapters 2-4 in the book of Proverbs as we look more about
wisdom and also the path that we should take as we learn more about following
wisdom.
Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of his introductory
comments on this chapter, “In the book of Proverbs, the words ‘path’ and ‘way’
(and their plurals) are found nearly 100 times (KJV). Wisdom is not only a person to love, but
wisdom is also a path to walk, and the emphasis in chapters 2, 3, and 4 is on
the blessings God’s people enjoy when they walk on Wisdom’s path. The path of Wisdom leads to life, but the way
of Folly leads to death; when you walk on the path of Wisdom, you enjoy three
wonderful assurances: Wisdom protects your
path (Chapter 2), directs your path
(chapter 3), and perfects your path
(chapter 4).”
As we begin to look at the first sub-point under this
first main point that covers Proverbs chapter two we must remind ourselves of
one of the reasons that the book of Proverbs was written in the first place,
and that is the concern of a loving father had for his children. Deuteronomy 6:1-9 tells us how we are to
teach our children and the book of Proverbs instructs us what to teach our
children. There are three sub-points
found in chapter two that we will look at.
Walking with God
(vv. 1-9): “1 My son, if you will receive my words And
treasure my commandments within you, 2 Make your ear attentive
to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; 3 For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for
understanding; 4 If you seek her as
silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; 5 Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge
of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and
understanding. 7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to
those who walk in integrity, 8 Guarding the paths of justice, And He preserves the way of His godly
ones. 9 Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and
every good course.”
A few months back I began to memorize the first twelve
verses of 2 Peter chapter one and try and go over those verses in my mind each
day so that I don’t forget them. The
word knowledge is found five times in those twelve verses. In verse five of Proverbs two we see the word
knowledge too as Solomon writes, “Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And
discover the knowledge of God.” There is
a theme here that is found other places in the Scripture and that is if we are
to know the Lord, to have the knowledge of the Lord that we are to have the
fear of the Lord. John writes the
following in 1John 4:18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out
fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected
in love.” He goes on in verse nineteen
to write, “We love, because He first loved us.”
Now at first glance we might think that there is a conflict between what
we see in Proverbs 2:5 and 1John 4:18, but if we look at the type of fear that
John is describing we see that it is different than the fear that Solomon is
describing. John speaks of a fear that
involves punishment while Solomon speaks of a reverent kind of fear, the kind
of fear that a child is suppose to have for a loving parent.
Now let us move on to knowledge and how the fear of the
Lord and the knowledge of the Lord go together.
I seem to be continuing to mention the book by A. W. Tozer that I am
reading entitled “The Knowledge of the Holy,” which is all about the different
attributes of God. By knowing God’s
attributes we learn to know the Lord and Peter actually prays that his readers
would receive multiplied grace and peace through the knowledge of God and the
Lord Jesus. As I thought about that
verse early this morning because I could not fall asleep I began to understand
that Peter was writing about knowing God better and that by knowing God better
we can have multiplied grace and peace, for it comes through the knowledge of
God. Tozer says that the most important
thing a person can think about is what they think about God. This goes for both believers and unbelievers. We are at a point in our nation’s history
where many people who do not know the Lord as their personal Savior have no
fear of the Lord, and one of the reasons is because of the lie of evolution,
for evolution tells us that the world was created billions of years ago by a
cosmic accident, and this leaves God out of it all together and therefore there
is no fear of the Lord because they think that He does not exist, and even if
He does exist He doesn’t care about us any way.
Unfortunately this lie has even permeated into the Church as many
believers believe that the earth is billions of years old and so this brings
less credibility to the Word of God that teaches otherwise. We are in need of another great awakening in
our country in order to wake up a sleeping Church so that the Church would
better understand about the “Knowledge of the Holy,” and by doing this they
would once again begin to understand about the fear of the Lord. Solomon is teaching his children about this
several thousand years ago.
As we begin to read the opening verses in chapters 2-4 we
will see that they all begin with an admonition to listen to God’s words and to
also take them to heart, for that is the only way that we can learn how to walk
with the Lord and to live skillfully.
We can see from these verses that if we want wisdom that
we are going to have to dig for it like a miner digs for gold or gems, and in
this section Dr. Wiersbe points out that there are eight imperatives that
reveal our responsibilities toward God’s truth: “receive (accept) God’s words and hide them (store them up) in our minds
and hearts; incline the ear and apply the heart; cry
after knowledge and lift up the voice
for understanding; seek for
wisdom and search after it. If you want wisdom, you must listen to God
attentively (Matt. 13:9), obey Him humbly (John 7:17), ask Him sincerely (James
1:5), and seek Him diligently (Isa. 55:6-7), the way a miner searches for
silver and gold.”
In the next paragraph of his commentary Dr. Wiersbe
brings up something similar to what I was writing about earlier in this SD and
so I want to quote what he has to say about how believers today treat the Word
of God: “Obtaining spiritual wisdom
isn’t a once-a-week hobby; it is the daily discipline of a lifetime. But in this age of microwave ovens, fast
foods, digests, and numerous ‘made easy’ books, many people are out of the
habit of daily investing time and energy in digging deep into Scripture and
learning wisdom from the Lord. Thanks to
television, their attention span is brief; thanks to religious entertainment
that passes for worship, their spiritual appetite is feeble and spiritual
knowledge isn’t ‘pleasant to [their] soul’ (Pr. 2:10). It’s no wonder fewer and fewer people ‘take
time to be holy’ and more and more people fall prey to the enemies that lurk
along the way.”
Verses 7-8 say, “He stores up sound wisdom for the
upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, Guarding the paths of justice, And He preserves
the way of His godly ones.” So if we do our part in learning from God’s
Word then He will do His part as promised in these two verses. One of many believers favorite verses is
Psalm 119:11 which says “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin
against you.”
As believers we are willing to work very hard at our
place of employment in order to provide for our families, but at times that
leaves little time for reading and studying the Word of God. The things that we buy with our money that we
earn will not all be sent on ahead as treasures for heaven, but by making time
to study the Word of God and applying it to our lives, and then teaching our
families about it will be something that we could well receive a jewel for our
crown when we get to heaven.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Spend more time
in the Word of God studying and meditation on it than doing other things that
will not be useful to me in my life.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Continue to learn contentment, continue
to memorize and meditate upon the Word of God in order to have my life
transformed into being more like my Savior.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 121:1-3
1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where
shall my help come? 2 My help comes from
the Lord who made heaven and earth. 3 He
will not allow your foot to slip; He who keep you will not slumber.
1/4/2013 10:17 AM
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