God’s Word is SO GREAT! For me, it doesn’t matter who wrote it, or even why it was written or to whom it was sent; I gain by reading it. I learn of God and His ways, and how He shared His love and Wisdom to man over and over and over again. And the book of Job, wow! This chapter of Proverbs is really eye opening, if you study it and take it in, as if God is speaking directly to you.
“1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”
Break right here to ask if you’ve ever searched for something, like, your car keys? Or Easter eggs? What about an expensive earring on the floor? Did you get down on your knees with a flashlight? What about retrieving a ring from the drain under the sink or at the bottom of a pool? Well, have you searched for understanding in God’s Word like that? We should, because look what we’ll have if we would!
“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 watching over the way of his saints.”
That’s us; we’re His saints! And if we’re walking in integrity (dealing with people honestly and morally correct), God guards the paths of justice for us! Wow!
“9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
10 for wisdom will come into your heart,”
I have to break again…. Look at this! Wisdom will come into our hearts! Some people may not take this in like I do, but I believe in God’s Word, and I believe God’s Wisdom will come into our hearts just like it says it will, if we are doing our level best to live virtuously.
“and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
11 discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,
12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,
13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,
14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil,
15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.”
Verses 11 and 12 say discretion will watch over us, protecting us from men who lie to us! Hallelujah! I pray for discretion so I’ll know when someone is lying to me, and here God’s Word says He gives it to us when we seek His Wisdom and receive His Words! (verses 1 thru 5 above).
“16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words,
17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;
18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed;
19 none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
20 So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it,
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
Integrity, there’s that word again. It means honesty, possessing firm principles, completeness, wholeness, and some other words that are synonymous are truth, honor, uprightness, reliability, and honesty. So, do you have integrity?
If integrity means honesty, then a liar would not have it. And if you are a liar, now you know why you have so many problems; because God is not protecting you (even if you feel like you’ve received Jesus into your heart.) If you are a liar, you won’t be given His Wisdom into your heart and will be deceived by other liars. Read the following verses (6 & 7) again.
“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,”
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