Are situations and problems stacking up on all sides of you?
With no let-up in site?
Do we ever feel powerless against the wide array of issues that are building up, covering the light, leaving us in darkness?
In 2 Chronicles, King Asa knew what to do when he found himself in this position. He called out to his God and said, “Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you.”
You know how God replied – he struck down the vast army that had taken up battle positions against Judah.
And God will do the same thing for us when we call out in faith for his help.
He will answer.
He will rescue us.
Maybe not exactly how we think he will answer, but we can trust him. He has promised us that his plan is for us to prosper. He often defines that differently than we do but he as our best interests in mind.
We set our hearts on the Lord by loving God with all of our heart, mind and soul.
This isn’t a superficial relationship of going to church once a week. This is a passionate quest for more of God, less of me.
More obedience, less independence.
More seeking God’s wisdom, less thinking that we know what’s good for us.
More prayer, less talking.
We read in 1 Kings that Rehoboam established his position as king and became strong. Then he stopped following God. Because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord. He was not committed to God. He was not on a journey towards the truth of God.
He was like people we know who are religious because of the traditions they follow. But their heart isn’t involved.
They are missing it! A personal relationship with God. A relationship which can give us strength and peace and power and love. WHEN we set our hearts on seeking the Lord.
In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon tells us about the emptiness of human wisdom,
the emptiness of pleasure,
the emptiness of achievement,
the emptiness of labor,
the emptiness of our human condition,
the emptiness of accumulation,
the emptiness of unshared lives,
the emptiness of politics,
the emptiness of false worship,
the emptiness of wealth,
the emptiness of materialism,
the emptiness of prosperity,
the emptiness of strength.
We can easily get confused and distracted by our pursuit of the things on this list. We think they will bring us happiness.
Solomon tells us they will not. He has tried them all and none of them have given him what he was looking for.
Only one thing fills the emptiness that is inside of each one of us – a relationship with God. This will make us happy. Nothing and no one else will do that for us.
Solomon teaches us to strive for balance in our life as we find our purpose in knowing God and obeying him.
Everything else is meaningless.
Please help us always find our purpose in you, Abba Father.
We are having a great journey through Proverbs 2 as we memorize it together. The journey is slow when we’re memorizing – each word is gradually etched upon our minds and our hearts. Eventually, the first couple of verses get relatively easy because we’ve said them so many times. And then the next couple of verses get easier as we say them over and over.
And then, suddenly, we are memorizing verse 7! Yeah! And we know it’s not about how good we are at memorizing anything. If this was just us, we wouldn’t be working on verse 7 or 8 or 9. We wouldn’t have gotten this far.
God is doing this. He is rewarding our faithfulness of going through our memory cards every day several times a day or writing these verses out several times a day. As we are consistent and faithful, he is writing them on our hearts.
And we find the hidden treasure. As we memorize, we ponder the words. We meditate on the message. We absorb the truth. And God changes our hearts. He renews our minds.
If you haven’t gotten on this memorizing journey yet with us, you can still catch up. We’ve been adding one verse a week. I don’t post these Sword Fighting Class blogs on Facebook so, you can sign up for an email (on the right of my blog page) if you want to receive this weekly email..
A group of my friends are memorizing Proverbs 2 with me and its such a great encouragement to me to hear these words coming from all kinds of people around me. Several of them are ahead of where we are here – this can get kind of addicting because it feels so right and good. Who doesn’t need more wisdom?
Proverbs 2: “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 understand 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”
And we add the next verse:
“He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless.”
I love the thought of God holding a shield over my life. I’m not blameless but he sees me as blameless because I’ve accepted his gift of grace which Jesus made possible through his sacrifice on the cross for me.
And I want victory in my life.
Victory over the things that weigh me down. The things that hold me back. Any ‘smallness’ in my character. Any habits or behaviors that don’t bring honor to God.
Victory has been one of the driving factors to me in my quest to eat well and exercise this last year. After a lifetime of struggling with old habits in this area, I want victory. As I’ve been calling out for insight into living a more healthy life and I’ve been looking for wisdom about food like it was silver, God has been giving me victory in using food as a source of nutrition, not as a source of comfort or reward. God has opened my eyes to his numerous commands regarding food and how I need to treat my body like a temple of his Holy Spirit. He has opened my heart to my need to obey in this part of my life. And he is giving my victory!
God holds victory in store for the upright- to those who are doing the right things….who obey.
Thank you, Abba Father.
Audio file of what I have memorized so far of Proverbs 2:
Why does God tell us so often in his word to avoid wicked people and to keep away from those who would lead us away from him? In the last verse of James 1, God tells us that true religion is to keep from being polluted by this world.
Why?
Because it happens all of the time. It happens before we realize it. The rotten culture that surrounds us sucks us in and we end up somewhere we don’t want to go.
Far from God.
Focused on worthless things as we deal with all of the negative consequences that come with our disobedience.
We read King Solomon’s sad story in 1 Kings of turning away from the One True God in order to serve various detestable idols.
Why?
Where did all of that magnificent wisdom we read in Proverbs go? We are memorizing Proverbs 2 where God tells us through King Solomon that wisdom will save us from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse. Why didn’t King Solomon follow his own directions?
I don’t know how you feel, but it’s a little frightening to see how far he wandered. He had it all. And he gave it up. For idols made by men.
Why?
To make his wives happy. He obviously thought that would make him happy.
How could he do this? He knew the truth and yet, he turned away from it.
Why?
Because the lure of this world we live in has an extremely strong effect on us if we don’t keep our eyes focused on God. Satan and his team work night and day to distract us from God in any way possible. They know that if they can get us to wander even a little bit, they’ve got us. Because everything of the world calls out to our sinful desires. And we are enticed. And our eyes shift off of God onto ourselves. Onto what we want. Onto what we think will make us happy.
That’s what happened to King Solomon. The wisest man who ever lived.
Please hold us very close, dear Father and help us keep our eyes on you.
She was searching for wisdom. She was looking for the truth like it was silver and searching for it like it was hidden treasure.
The Queen of Sheba took a dangerous journey of 1200 miles on camels through a hot desert to check out the wisdom of King Solomon. She came prepared with some hard questions. And she was awed by the wisdom in his answers.
As we read and memorize Proverbs, we are being presented with this same wisdom.
Wisdom about:
dealing with fools,
patience,
the value of wise advice,
discipline,
love and compassion,
pride and humility,
selfishness,
jeolousy,
self-control,
patience,
wise and foolish talking,
flattery,
slander and gossip,
meddling,
wealth and poverty,
patience,
generosity
and more. (Did you notice one that I mentioned more than once? :))
We know that all of Solomon’s wisdom came from God.
And that wisdom is available to us as we cry aloud for it, as we store it up in our minds and as we apply it to our hearts.
“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 understand the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God.”
Awesome! It’s it amazing how God partners with us as memorize his word? The vast majority of us could never do this on our own so it’s a special blessing to be able to see this how obviously God is working in our minds as he helps us memorize verse after verse….after verse. I have started attaching an audio recording (below) of me as I repeat my verses – it’s not perfect. But it’s close! That’s what counts 🙂
And we hit treasure in our next verse!
‘For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.’
Do we want wisdom?
Knowledge?
Understanding?
Well, we know where to go to get it. The Lord gives it. It comes from him.
Do you feel his wisdom and understanding growing in you as you etch his words on your heart and mind?
I do. It’s subtle…..but steady.
I meditate on the words as I memorize them. And I apply them to my life right now.
I’m amazed at how often I get to use them in my conversations.
Solomon built a magnificent temple for the Lord and, as he was finishing the dedication of it, fire came down from heaven to consume the burnt offerings and sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
We are told several times in the New Testament that our body is the temple of God.
The redeeming grace of Jesus changed our relationship with God.
Now his spirit lives within us.
And God wants to fill us with his fire and with his passion – just like he filled Solomon’s temple.
God wants to fill us with his glory – so that his love and light can shine out of us.
God wants to fill us with his power, his goodness, his peace.
We just need to let him.
In Proverbs 2, God tells us to store up his truth within us. He tells us to call out for insight and to search for his truth like it was hidden treasure.
When we do this, we will understand the knowledge of God and we will know every good path that God wants us to take.
We want to be filled with your spirit, dear Father.
As we read 1 Kings, we find out that King David is now old and his health is failing. David has already announced that his son, Solomon, will be the next king. But his other son, Adonijah, has decided that he is going to be king. So he starts rounding up people who will support him in this effort. Against the wishes of his father. Why would he do this?
We read that “His father had never rebuked him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?”.
David had not disciplined Adonijah. He had not corrected him when Adonijah’s behavior was out of line.
The result is behavior like this from David’s own son. No obedience to his father’s wishes. No respect for his father’s decisions.
We get an insight into another side of David. He was a great king but it looks like he wasn’t as good of a parent. We have already read about a couple of other exploits of David’s children when they misbehaved. Adonijah doesn’t appear to be the only child that was not disciplined.
And David paid the consequences for this lack of discipline as he now deals with his grown child’s bad choices.
Parental discipline – and the lack of it – shows. It shows in our young children and it continues to show up in our grown children.
Dear Father, please help us be great parents who discipline our children well.
Come with me on a Journey through the Bible 