The Blessing of Wisdom

(From Proverbs 3:1-4)

My son – God sees us as His child.

Don’t forget God’s teaching. Remember His law and how’s He’s taught and what He’s taught. Think about it.

Keep His commandments in your heart. Don’t let them escape. Hold on to them. Go over them in your mind and soul, your innermost being.

God’s teaching and commandments will help you to live longer happier. They will bring you prosperity – material and spiritual.

Love and faithfulness. To God. To others. To yourself. Wear then around your neck. Write them on your heart – deeper than the commandments and teachings. Love and faithfulness win favor and a good reputation with both God and man.

Proverbs 2 – The Moral Benefits of Wisdom

1) Accept God’s words – store up his command – memorize.

2) Listen intently to His wisdom. Apply your heart to understanding God’s word. Work at it. Look at it from all angles. Requires effort.

3) Call out for insight and understanding. Ask God to open your eyes, ears, mind and heart.

4) Look for God’s wisdom as you would an earthly treasure. All out effort – spare no expense.

5) The more effort you put in, the more wisdom you’ll get out. The more you invest, the greater the return on your investment.

6) The Lord gives wisdom – He doesn’t hold anything back from us.

7) Victory is stored for us in God’s warehouse of abundant blessing. If we stay close to Him, He will shield us.

8) God guards our way and protects us. The closer our walk, the more we see of God.

9) The closer our walk the easier it is to distinguish right from wrong, fair from unfair, justice from injustice.

10) God’s wisdom will be part of our heart, God’s knowledge will bring us the pleasure that we are pleasing Him.

11) The more of God in us, the greater our protection.

12-15) Wisdom keeps us from temptation.

16-19) God detests the breaking of marriage vows.

20) God’s wisdom keeps us on the right path.

21) God’s people receive His home and blessings.

22) The wicked will be cut off and have no home.

Lessons from Founder’s Week

Thursday night, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth spoke at Founder’s Week about loving the Word. I found my enthusiasm refilled and couldn’t wait for the morning. But in the morning, I was “tired” and quit reading early to grab a few extra winks on the sofa before I had to get ready for work. I let Satan snatch the seeds and drag them off.

Sometime Thursday evening, the thought popped into my head about how different my life would have been if my father had allowed be to go to college at Moody Bible Institute, which was my first choice. I would have married a true Christian and would still be married. I fought those feelings all day Friday and won. That night, Moody honored the three pilots who were killed in a plane crash last year. Had I gone to Moody, it’s possible that I too would have been the widow of a martyr. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to attend Moody.

Mark Jobe spoke Friday night. He said that if we haven’t grown in the last few years, if we’re still struggling with the same issues, it’s not the Word’s fault, or the Author’s, but the hearer’s. Before I filed away my old journal earlier this year, I looked at some of the first entries in it. I noticed the same issues. His first point was Accept the Word. It’s what I keep coming back to.

Perhaps I still struggle because my circumstances haven’t changed. I’m still single with a house and yard to care for and I still don’t have the job security my father had. More likely, my circumstances haven’t changed because I haven’t.
I must accept all the people in my life who hurt me and who were less than what I’d hoped for and wanted. I must accept the events – all the events – that have occurred in my life as part of God’s perfect plan. I must accept the fact that I am a very selfish woman and I must work to change and guard against it. I must seek God’s help to do this and accept His help. I must accept who each member of the Trinity is and the roles They want to fulfill in every area of my life. I must accept the fact that I am an excellent wall builder and work to tear down the walls. I must accept my circumstances, fully engage myself in them, fully engage the Trinity in them and live through them. I pray God makes it so and shows me what He needs me to do. I pray He helps me to be Him to myself and to every person in my life and to every person I encounter.

Saturday morning during quiet time, the cd quit playing. I turned on Majesty Radio on my phone, and it quit. I switched to Praise and Worship and faintly heard a woodpecker tap. I turned the music off, looked up and found the red-bellied woodpecker pecking at the wood of the suet holder (he’s never done that before.) Then I heard a new bird call. I got it! He wants me to be quiet more often to hear His voice.

Sunday morning, the lessons continued. I was reading God Calling and came to “It is not to quiet resignation I give My blessings, but to joyful acceptance and anticipation.” There’s that word again – acceptance. With the adjective joyful. I pray He rids me of every bit of my quiet resignation and transforms it into joyful acceptance and anticipation.

The sermon was about the sovereignty of God. I must joyfully accept God’s sovereignty and submit to His control of my life and world. Every single detail. I pray I learn these lessons well.

Proverbs 1

Proverbs 1:8-19 Warning against Enticement and Violence

Sinners promise that if you throw in your lot with them, everyone will share one purse.
God sees that all sinners sin. They actually hurt themselves and will lose their own lives.

Proverbs 1:20-33 Warning against Rejecting Wisdom

Wisdom is on the street. Out in everyday life, out among the common people. Where everyone can see and hear – if they choose to.

How long will we be satisfied with mediocrity? If we had responded to God’s discipline, we would have known all that God knows.

Since we didn’t answer when God called to us, why should He answer when we call to Him? We reap what we sow. In order to have God close to us, we must draw close to God. Then we will be safe and need fear nothing.