Walking in truth

Good morning! It looks like another beautiful California day. I do enjoy the weather here and am thankful for a beautiful place to live. Now to our chapter in Proverbs. Chapter 4 of Proverbs starts off with Solomon talking about his father and some of the things he learned from him. His father encouarged him at a very young age to "Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. Get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget my words or swerve from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you, love her and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." Vs.4-7 What quality instrucions from a father to a son! Since we are children of God, we can get our wisdom and our understanding from Him through reading the Word of God. But it takes time to do it and when we learn, we must apply what we learn to our lives. I believe that is the difference between wisdom and understanding. Wisdom is being wise about a certain subject, and understanding is applying what we know to our lives. Reading the Word is wise and applying it shows we understand what we have read. As mother's, aunts, grandma's, sisters are we helping the children in our lives to be wise? Are we teaching them the Bible all it's wonderful stories and truths? One speaker I heard made a good point that the Bible does not start with: "once upon a time.." but rather the Bible is the truth of God. It is not to be confused with Grimm's fairy tales but taught as truth so that our sons and daughters can lay hold of the words with all their heart, so they will live and be protected from what is wrong. As we teach truth to our children, they will be able to understand and apply it to their lives. "Except you become as a little child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Children are trusting and Solomon was told by his father: "Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Vs. 23. What we know as truth, let us guard it, Solomon was told to let his eyes look straight ahead, to fix his gaze directly before him. Let us do the same thing, to know the truth and walk in it, because the truth of the Word of God will set us free.

True prosperity

Good Morning, I hope you are enjoying reading through the Proverbs as much as I am! There was so much more that could be said about Chapter 2 but if we are going to read through all 31 chapters we must keep going. Chapter 3 begins with: "My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity." How would reading the Word and remembering it bring prolonged life and bring prosperity? Are the name it and claim it people really right? Or could it mean that if we keep God's Word we will be kept from things that will harm us and that the prosperity here is referring to blessing of the soul rather than a financial blessing? Any thoughts? The third and fourth verse say: "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." Would you consider yourself a loving and faithful person or is your heart full of bitterness? Are you a person who cannot be trusted? A bitter person is someone who can't let go of the past and is stuck there. We can confess our bitterness to the LORD and He will help to take it from us so we can move on. I recently read that we can't go on to read the next chapter of our lives if we keep reading the last chapter over and over. Since the LORD has so greatly forgiven us, we can forgive others and leave our hurts with Him. Verses 5-6 I memorized as a young person: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanindg; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Or as the King James says it: He will direct your paths. Trust...do I really trust in the LORD, do I believe He has good planned for my life and that He is able to bring it about? Am I willing to be patient and wait His timing and trust His Word? Chapter 3 then goes on to touch on several more subjects some of them being: honoring the LORD with our wealth, not despising the LORD's discipline in our lives, being blessed with wisdom, preserving sound judgment and discernment, our reaction to diaster, how to treat our neighbors and the LORD's response to the wicked. You won't want to miss reading the rest of this amazing chapter.