All of these choices cause other things to happen to us.
Consequences.
The decisions we make set off a chain of events – good or bad.
It’s the ‘handwriting on the wall’.
God gave me a strategic – thinking brain which means that my brain connects everything. I can connect events and decisions backwards to understand how I got where I’m at today. And I can connect the dots forward to the future based on decisions that I’m making today. It’s very clear to me where these choices are going to take me.
I can also do this as I watch others make decisions and choices. It all connects in my brain. Sometimes it almost feels like I can predict the future because each action leads to the next action and it’s moving in an obvious (to me) direction.
I can see the ‘writing on the wall.”
I enjoy reading again the historical account in Daniel when King Belshazzar decided to hold a big party and he brought out the gold goblets that had been taken from the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. Not a smart move, Belshazzar!
A human hand appeared and wrote something on the wall while the king watched. His knees were knocking and his legs became weak as he watched the hand move across the wall.
None of the king’s wise men could interpret what the hand had written so Daniel was called into the party. Daniel had a reputation for being able to interpret dreams when no one else could.
Daniel told the king the words said that, because of the king’s actions and behavior, God had decided to end his reign and his kingdom would be split up. Belshazzar lacked the humbleness and wisdom that his father had when God put him in his position of being king. His sacrilegious use of the temple goblets while praising false gods was the last straw.
The king died that night.
It was the writing on the wall.
The king’s actions and behavior had led to this.
Just like our choices and decisions determine our direction.
It all connects.
Please give us wisdom to make decisions that help us go in the right direction, Abba Father.
We are just beginning our journey of memorizing Proverbs 3. More wisdom, more understanding, more insight – thank you, dear Father! We are counting on God to etch these words on our hearts as we review them daily. He has commanded this so it’s in his will and he will make it happen if we do our part. We started with the first verses last week:
“My child, do not forget my teachings but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.”
And we’re adding the next verses:
“Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.”
Let love and faithfulness never leave you……..
These words reverberate through my mind.
What a great life we will have when our thoughts and our actions are full of love and faithfulness! Awesome!
God is telling us how to do this – we need to bind his words onto our lives and write them on your hearts. As we do this, he is transforming our thinking which changes our behaviors. He is promising that this will bring us a life full of love and faithfulness along with approval from others and from him.
Wow! These verses are jam-packed with fabulous promises!
Thank you, Father God!
Audio file of my verses. I am working ahead so this is through verse 16:
We are witnesses to your faithfulness in our lives, dear God.
Long ago you established a covenant with David which you fulfilled by sending your own son to save a lost and broken world. Jesus now sits on your right hand in heaven.
We join with all creation in praising your wisdom and your faithfulness, Oh Lord! No one compares with you.
You are more awesome and respected than any one else!
You are in control of all creation – the surging waves, all of the heavens and all of the earth.
You created north and south.
We praise you!
All power is in your hands.
You are all righteousness, justice, love and faithfulness.
We are blessed as we praise you and walk in your light, oh Lord.
We rejoice in your truth all day long, Father God.
You are everything good in our lives. You are our strength.
‘Where does wisdom come from?’ Job asked. (28:12 )
It is hidden from our eyes.
God alone knows where wisdom is. God established the wind and measured the waters. He made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm. He looked at wisdom, tested it and confirmed it.
And he says to us today, “The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.” (vs 28 ).
How many times do we hear this exact same truth in the Bible?
Those of us who have memorized Proverbs 2 repeat this several times a day. “For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.” (Proverbs 2:6)
In Proverbs 3 we are told, ” Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and shun evil.”(vs 7).
In our Sword Fighting Classes, we are memorizing God’s word together. God commands us over and over in his Word to store his commands in our hearts, to write his words on our minds, to never forget his teachings. We are being obedient as we review our verses daily and God does the hard part of engraving them on our minds.
With God’s help, we have memorized James 1 and Proverbs 2 so far. Isn’t that amazing! God is now pointing us to Proverbs 3….more wisdom. Let’s get started with verse 1 and 2:
“My child, do not forget my teachings but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.”
How appropriate that God starts out again with his command about not forgetting his teachings. It’s really hard to forget his teaching when it’s etched on our brains. Its part of how we think, how we feel.
God tells us that his teaching will prolong our lives many years. I have been reading a lot about God’s teaching about food this last year and I believe, if we follow his guidance on this, it really will prolong our lives. Lower our blood pressure. Take us out of the danger zone for other diseases. Help our heart to be more healthy.
God promises us that his teachings will bring us prosperity. His form of prosperity is not the empty prosperity taught by the world where we never have enough…never content.
God’s prosperity comes in the form of things money can’t buy – peace, and purpose and love and completeness and more.
Much more.
You are more than enough, Abba Father.
Audio file of me sharing the verses I’ve memorized so far in Proverbs 3:
“Picture in your mind a tall ladder leaning against a wall. Now think about your life as a process of climbing that ladder. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy to ascend to the top and find you had placed the ladder against the wrong wall? One life to live, and you missed it!”
When I first read this paragraph from Experiencing God many years ago, it startled me. I’m a very goal oriented person so I was definitely climbing a ladder. The thought that I could be climbing the wrong ladder caused me a lot of concern. The fact that I could work so hard to get somewhere I didn’t want to be caused me to stop. And seriously reconsider my priorities.
“Your walk with God (Father, Son, and Spirit) is the single most important aspect of your life. If it is not as it should be, nothing else will function properly.”
“Scripture leads us to understand that God is saying, ‘ I want you to love Me above everything else. When you are in a relationship of love with Me, you have everything there is.’ To be loved by God is the highest relationship, the greatest achievement,and the noblest position in life.”
God used these words from Experiencing God to help redirect my life onto the right ladder. At that time I thought my success was going to come from my career. God helped me understand that any success I would ever have – then and now – would come through my relationship with him.
With him, everything else happens as it should, according to his will and his plan.
Without him, I was just working very hard and sacrificing too much as I climbed up the wrong ladder.
I am going through the Experiencing God study again – for the 4th time, many years later – with my small group and I am filled with gratitude to my Father God. He got my attention and brought his truth into my life at just the right time so I could switch ladders. I am 100% confident that I’m now on the right ladder, the right path.
And this path going to take me all the way home, where my heart is.
Satan told God in the beginning of the book of Job that he had come to heaven after roaming throughout the earth. (vs 7).
He is still roaming the earth today.
He is very real.
He is totally consumed with evil.
He has an enormous team of evil spirits working for him.
And they are watching us.
Figuring out our weak points and then tempting us in those areas.
They take the truth and twist it….just a little bit. Just enough so it’s not true anymore. Then they whisper it in our ears….if we’re listening….when our guard is down….when we’re angry….when we haven’t spent much time with God so we’re not grounded…we’re wandering…..down the paths of sin as we listen to their prodding.
And Satan smiles.
When a believer gives into temptation, Satan is delighted.
He won that battle.
He is very real.
His army of evil is very real.
We see evidence of this everyday.
We see Satan’s work in our churches as well when people are critical instead of encouraging, causing dissension rather than praying, more interested in their own comfort and agenda than God’s purpose and agenda. I know you’ve seen this happen because it happens all the time.
Satan is very real. He is roaming the earth today.
Please protect us and give us wisdom, Abba Father.
We are finishing our memorizing Proverbs 2 today! What a cool thing God has done! There is sooooo much wisdom in this chapter and we really get to soak this in as we memorize each word.
My child, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will know the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless. He guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
Then you will understand what is right and just and fair, every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you and understanding will guard you.
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse. Who leave straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None whogo to her return or attain the paths of life.
Thus you will walk in the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.
Great job! Yeah, God! Here are our last two verses:
‘For the upright will live in the land and the blameless will remain in it but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the unfaithful will be torn from it.’
When we live our lives in sync with God, we find peace and purpose and joy here on earth and on into eternity.
Those who don’t choose God will find themselves eternally cut off from him. The only little piece of heaven they will experience is here…..right now. Because where they are going, there is nothing of God. Nothing good.
Proverbs 2 ends with this sobering message about why we need God’s wisdom.
God walks with us every step of our lives….even through the fire.
God reminds us of this as we read the historical account of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace because of their faith in God.
As King Nebuchadnezzar watched the furnace expecting to see all 3 of them burn, he witnessed a miracle. There were actually 4 men in the furnace and they were walking around, unharmed. Nebuchadnezzar described the 4th person as a ‘son of the gods.’ An angel. And this angel was walking around inside of the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, waiting until it was God’s time for the door to open so they could come out.
God protected them. He sent an angel as a visible symbol of his care and concern for them.
God still sends angels today. In our lives, angels most often take the form of another believer whom God sends to be a visible symbol of his love and care for us. The Holy Spirit lives inside of every believer. As a result, when we do his will, our hands become his hands. Our words become messages from God.
Or sometimes God still sends angels from heaven. Maybe you’ve met one? And maybe you’ve met one but you didn’t know it.
And there are other times when we may be physically alone but God’s spirit within us makes us very aware than we are not spiritually alone.
Come with me on a Journey through the Bible 