Good morning son,
Running late again, but trying not to
miss a day. Thanks for your patience. Well lets just jump into the
word today. What leaped off the pages to me:
Proverbs 2:20-22 “Therefore walk
in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just.
For the upright will abide in the land, and the
innocent will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off
from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
Psalm 33:4 “For the word of the
Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.”
Psalm 33:10 “The Lord brings the
counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans
of the peoples.
Psalm 33:16-19 “A king is not
saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by
his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for
victory, and by its great might it cannot save. Truly the
eye of the Lord is on those who fear him on those who hope
in his steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.”
Its funny to me how oftentimes the
Proverbs for the day works so well with the Psalms for the day. I
emboldened the words which leaped out to me in the passage. Let's
start with Proverbs.
Whenever you see a “therefore” you
must ask yourself what came before that is the foundation for the
“therefore” – what is the “therefore” there for. When I
read the passage above I see
“you will understand righteousness
and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into
your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; prudence
will watch over you; and understanding will guard you. It will save
you from . . . . “ verses 9-12
Save you and I from what or who?
Save us from: 1) men who do not walk in
righteousness, speak perversely, walk in the way of darkness, rejoice
in doing evil and delight in the ways of evil, whose paths are
crooked and who are devious in their ways; and 2) loose women,
adulteress with smooth (dare I say inviting words and calming) words,
women who forsake who they are called to be with, those who they are
not be in sacred covenant with (verses 12-19). The writer covers
both men and women. Our potential male friends and our potential
female companions.
You might want to take a moment and ask
yourself if any of your friends, male and female companions fit into
those descriptions.
Men who would lead you to sin against
your God, who would indeed do it with you, and encourage you in all
decisions which would further draw you away from God's path – away
from doing the right thing. Are there men in your life who know you
have a weakness to drink too much, and are always inviting you out to
drink. He knows that you have “a way with the ladies” and is
only so quick to point you to a challenge that you just feel that you
can't resist – if you are a real man. Yeah, right. No wrong.
Men who are quick to tell you that all that God stuff is, well for
the “Jesus freaks” and we, well we know who you really are
– why you trying to follow that bunch of religious freaks. Well
son, Such men you should stay away from.
As for the women, . . . a wise young
man once told me that going forward in his life he was going to
refrain from having sex with any woman until he was married, not just
because of his responsibility to obey God's word, but because as he
put it . . . “even if she is single now, she is someones future
wife, and so I am screwing one who belongs to another, not me.” To
which I respond “Amen.” See that young man recognized that just
as there is one for him there is one for her. He saw sex outside of
marriage as wrong, as adultery even now.
Okay here comes the “x” rated
portion of this study, but the simple truth about life. How do you
recognize the loose woman – excuse me for being so blunt – she
opens her legs up to you. If she is willing to wrap her tongue or
lips around your pole, to do the “horizontal pogo dance” with
you, or to lead you to the verge of “blue balls” inciting you
onward, to talk dirty to you, or do any other act designed to get
your God given sexual engines roaring; well, . . . paraphrasing a
popular pop song: “Woop, there she is!” . You have found her,
the loose woman. And just in case you missed it, recognize that you
are not only violating her and the covenant that she is to enter into
with her spouse, she is doing the same thing to you. Neither of you
are honoring those who you are called to be with. And if you doubt
where that will lead to just read verse 18 “for her way leads down
to death . . .” You can read on.
And then, after all of this, the
writer says Therefore and proceeds to give us direct
instruction with a promise. Instruction – walk in the way of the
good and keep to the paths of the just. The promise – you will be
upright and abide in the land, you will be innocent and will remain
in it.
Do you know that there is a land, a
place for you? That God has a place specifically designed for you?
That God intends that you live in that place, abide in it and walk
completely in it. It is yours. It is to be where you are planted.
But there is only one way which you can abide and live in it. You
must follow the instruction – you must walk in the way of the good,
you must live in the path of the just. In the psalm for the day we
see an expansion of this, one which further gives us understanding.
Psalm 33:4 “For the word of the
Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.”
See it is in following the word of the
Lord that we become upright. Just as the instruction is given, the
result, the work of the instruction must be done by us. And how is
this work to be done – in faithfulness. We must be faithful to Him
and His instruction. We must be obedient to His word. I took the
time to read this verse several times. The more I read it the more I
became convinced of a truth that was both exciting and scary to me.
The truth: God works in what we have been faithful to Him in.
I don't know if you see the
profoundness of this simple truth, and I am not going to try to
convince you of its profoundness by simply saying it is so profound
over and over (LOL). Instead let me try to explain.
When we are faithful in being obedient
to His word, we put into motion all the promises He has said in His
word that He will do for His people. When we are faithful to God's
word we give Him the substance of what to work with on
our behalf. All of this is a good revelation, right? Yes it is.
But now for the scary part . . .
If we do not follow His word, if we do
not obey Him, if we do not remain faithful to Him we have invoked the
Word to do all that it says it will do to His people in correction
and discipline of them (you and me . . . OUCH! . . . more like
AAAAAUUUGGGHHH! Lord have mercy!!). If we do not remain faithful He
have given Him nothing to work with in blessing us according
to His word. See the word of the Lord IS upright . . . it is solid .
. . it is trustworthy . . . it is sure . . . it is sound . . . it is
true . . . what He says in it WILL happen . . . it is the true
reality of the cosmos in which we live . . . AND . . . don't miss
it . . . AND . . . ALL his work is done in faithfulness. The
faithfulness is both His faithfulness to His word and ours to His
word too. This is how he works. Whew! Got it? Gotta move on . . .
But what if we
decide . . . nah . . . who cares . . . I am going to just do
whatever I want to do. Screw God's word. I got my plans. In
reality “F@x& you God!”
He, well He
remains faithful to His word and He will not allow any counsel of
“the nations” to succeed.
I love the word
“nations.” I can just see a multitude of persons all agreeing
that you should do a particular thing against God's word. I can just
see a whole bunch of my friends and society as a whole advising me to
“Just do it,” “Screw Him.” Advising me that I will get what
I want out of my plans and their counsel – that is success isn't
it. Success is getting what you think you will out of your plan and
counsel? Right? But God says you will not get what you want out of
it. Indeed He will frustrate your plans. So if he is going
to do that, I guess you might of just take what you want to do by
force.
“A
king is not saved by
his great army; a
warrior is not
delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a
vain hope for victory, and by its great might
it cannot save.”
Okay you my child
are in the place of the king.
In this passage we
see what we commonly rely upon for our salvation – first “the
great army” which we can control and order. We gather up our
friends and others who are in agreement to do stuff to make sure it
happens. We get them to talk to others, to try to “open doors”
for us. We pull the strings we have. But God already tells us that
this will not work. So what do we do? We pull from our strength.
We renew our resolve. By golly we are going to do what we want no
matter what! We are young. We can make this work. “I got this
under control” I tell myself and others, and for a while we
actually believe it. We push ourselves. We talk up ourselves,
encouraging ourselves to proceed forward. Telling us that this will
work out, and setting our mind to the design of escape routes for
some of the bad things we think could happen. But when we run out of
steam, when our strength fails, when the escape routes prove to be
useless against the impending consequences of our disobedience to
God, we turn to our last hope, that of the “war horse” on which
we trust if we ride will bring us victory, will insure our success in
doing what we want against God and His word. We claim to be
standing on our principles, we use all of our resources only to find
they are no match for the resources of a mighty and infinite, all
powerful and all knowing God; a God which owns everything and who can
speak to the wind and control it, who can feed 5 thousand with a few
loaves of bread and a few fish. We run out of ourselves.
Our
solution: “Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who
fear him on those who
hope in his steadfast love, to
deliver their soul from
death, and to keep
them alive in famine.”
We either curse
the Lord or we return to Him. We come to recognize that our
salvation only lies in obedience to Him, in fearing Him and hoping in
His steadfast love.
Are you tired? It
is in Him that you will find your rest. Walk in the way of the good,
and keep to the paths of the just. For the upright will abide in the
land, and the innocent will remain in it. Remain faithful to His
word for the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is
done in faithfulness. Do not follow counsel against God's way
for you for the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he
frustrates the plans of the peoples. Do not rail against the word of
God and His plan for your life. Remember you, like the king is not
saved by his great army, nor can you be delivered by your great
strength and any resources you rely on for victory in your battle
against the Lord's word is a vain and ridiculous hope, it will not
give you success nor will it save you from the consequences of your
rebellion against the Lord. Truly the eye of the Lord is and will
remain on you if you fear Him and obey Him, if you hope in His
steadfast love for you to deliver your soul from death. It is God
and God alone who can keep you alive in the midst of a famine. Trust
and obey God and God alone.
Got it? Got Word?
Then do it. And
if you got off the path. Confess to Him, repent and turn. I will be
praying for you in accordance with this Got Word today.
Love yah,
dad
PS: Sorry for any
spelling or grammar errors. No time to check.
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