Getting out of the Starting Blocks

I know for myself and many other believers I’ve spoken with through the years, Proverbs is a favorite book of Scripture.  I like how the Lord has made for us enough chapters to fill each day of our month so that we can meditate on them carefully.  I’ve often taken them so for a monthly reminder and refreshment.   Chapter one  starts with an intro in verses 1-7 where Solomon lays out some goals for this great piece of wisdom literature. God wants us to: [1] know wisdom and instruction  [2] discern or perceive His parables leading to obedience to them  [3] receive instruction in living wisely [4]  be given prudence  & [5] understand His proverbs !

These are noble goals for us all since they are God’s for us.  But the key to attaining them is verse seven (often thought by many to be the key verse in Proverbs): “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”   Bottom line is if we’re going to achieve the Divine goals, we will need to start with a reverencing God.  Note how Solomon contrasts this with the fool.  Many in our world would classify as foolish for this type of person won’t be instructed and have their own agenda, so forget God’s.  This type of person isn’t even out of the “starting blocks” in life but when you come to God’s Word and are ready to hear and then heed it, you are miles ahead of the fool.

There is a more vocal platform given to the atheist today and for that type of person the Lord simply says, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God” – Ps.14:1.   But when your will gives way to His and you are submissive to what He says in the Bible, the Spirit is building in your life great wisdom which the world cannot compete against !

Briefly considered, God will give to you not just knowledge but the ability to live skillfully.  The lives of most believers are vastly more stable than those of foolish folks who reject and rail against our Lord as in the liberal Hollywood community, for example. They can’t keep marriages together, (if they even enter into them), but we can’t either apart from Christ !   And as to “discern”, God gives us the ability to not only understand His Word but to flesh it out as is also alluded to in vs.3.  Prudence is a word we don’t hear often in our world. The KJV translates this idea in vs.4 as “subtilty” which is the same idea Jesus spoke about to His disciples when He issued the order to them to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Mt.10:16) and so wise there is synonomous speaking of the ability God gives to have quick and correct perceptions. That’s important as you try to navigate through the troubled waters of this world to be able to sift truth from error and so rules out a warped compassion which sees no wrong out there but is balanced by thinking the best of others first.

And finally, God wants you to be able to get His Word !  And as in the days when Jesus walked the earth where He veiled truth from those who didn’t fear God, He unveiled it to those who did by the use of parables. It is His gracious way of helping us to understand heavenly truth though we struggle with a sinful nature.     Remember, though, it all begins with you and I reverencing Him. Next time you open that Bible to read or hear a sermon, do that and watch what He can do in you !!!