Pro 3:3-4 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write

them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good

understanding in the sight of God and man.

The things that stood out in these verses were how we were supposed to use mercy and truth. First we are to bind them around our neck, that’s something others can see. When we wear qualities like mercy and truth around our necks (like a necklace), others can see it.  Mat_5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. That should be our goal in life, to bring glory to God. The next part of this verse is to write them on the table of thine heart. This speaks to God looking on the inward man. It can sometimes be easy to fool those around you, but God who looks on the inward man can’t be fooled.  There’s a reason we are to write them on the table of our heart. Psa 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. His word keeps us from sin and God will always know what’s in the heart of man.

Pro.2:6-8 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and

understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to

them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth

the way of his saints.

When I read these verses I got so excited! These verses say that everything is His.

He said out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding, He layeth up sound wisdom, He is a buckler, He  keepeth the paths of judgment and preserveth the way of His saints. It’s all HIM!!! It’s nothing dependent on what I do (thank goodness). I just kept reading these verses over and over and thinking about how much God loves us that  He does all of these things for us, not because we deserve them but out of His great love for us. He is the all in all and is worthy to be praised!!!

Proverbs 1:23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

There is an order to the way God does things. This verse says to turn at my reproof, before God can do a work in our lives we first have to turn from the way we were going and go the God wants us to go. I’m reminded of this verse in  2Ch 7:14  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Here again God is giving us an order of how things have to be in order to be in His will. He says to turn at his reproof, He says to humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn our wicked ways  and then He will pour out His spirit and make known His words to us, then He will hear from heaven and forgive us  and will heal our land. We can’t skip any of these steps to jump ahead; God has given us clear instructions on how He wants things done. I am thankful that God is not a god of confusion!

Proverbs Chapter 17

Well all of you that actually follow this blog, thank you for your patients with me, I have finally caught up to the daily devotions as far as comments go.  My life sometimes if like a rollercoaster ride that just doesn’t stop.    

(Pro 17:6)  Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.  I know! Your thinking “you deal with this verse every father’s day, and you did a 7 week series on it, how much more can we take”  You and I have no greater human influence than our dads. He will affect you good or bad the rest of your life. You already know my testimony of childhood, and the effects it has had on me, and there is not one day that goes by in my life that that relationship doesn’t affect me.  What a powerful influence! Because of the raw deal I got, I am driven as a father to my kids, to make sure that they don’t experience any of that.  Recently I came to the conclusion; I may be affecting them in a bad way, by over compensating for my childhood. I grew up without any thing monetarily, or with stability. Therefore I was driven about working hard and achieving in life. Because of my lack of having things as a kid I have made sure my kids didn’t experience that.  But looking back my lack of things is what makes me who I am as a person. I wonder will my children have the same work ethics, or will they expect it to be handed to them.

I think when we look at Eli in the book of Samuel, we see a man that may have loved his kids to much. As a result they were destroyed by their own sin, which can be trace back to their father.  As we read proverbs the subject of disciple keeps coming up. As society we are getting further away from the precepts of God’s disciplinary plan for children, and we are seeing  the results.

Proverbs Chapter 16

(Pro 16:31)  The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.  Men and women both spend multibillions of dollars a year to dye their hair. The vast major of that I would think would come back to the female side of the story. Young and old Americans are dyeing the color of their hair.  Many are trying to avoid the dreaded GREY!  I am now starting to understand why, as I look at the grey in my beard.  Although I would never think about dyeing it, it does remind me that the days of my youth have slipped on by.

The Bible has a different view of the subject. God said it could be a glory. (Pro 20:29)  The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.  It does come with a prerequisite though; it must be developed in righteousness. There are those that have devolved their grey in the roughness of life, by living with drugs, ungodly sex, stress, and abuse.  I can’t write this without thinking of Sister Jean Williams, with that beautiful silver hair. Sister Jean was one of the most beautiful women to grace this county. She lived a life full of grace, and faith of her savior. In contrast I have seen the ladies that lived a rough life, and the grey didn’t seem to have that same beauty.

As far as the men, that grey is a sign of wisdom that will bring a beauty like no other.  My grandfather was one of those heroes of mine when I was a child. He was half Cherokee Indian and half Irish.  He had the old weathered face and the silver hair and dark skin.  He had worked hard his whole life and it showed. As a kid I would look at the weathered hair, wrinkles and dark tan in the winter, and think to myself, “ I want to look like that someday”  Men are to work hard, it is a badge of honor.  I hope my grandkids can look at me some day and think “man I want to be like him”.  I will gladly take the gray and the wisdom that comes with it, in exchange for the strength of my youth.

Proverbs Chapter 15

(Pro 15:3)  The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. As soon as I read this verse, my mind went back to Moses. He looked this way, and looked that way, and when he was convinced that no one was looking, he killed an Egyptian.  Wasn’t long after that the one that saw it confronted him.  We never know when someone is watching us. Who is watching you? Is it the neighbor next door, the coworker, the family member, or even our spouse? But let’s say that no one human is watching. GOD IS! There is never a time when you are not being watched.

There is a verse in Hebrews that people quatoe all the time as a verse of comfort.  (Heb 13:5)  Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Isn’t that sweet? He said he would never leave us! This verse is a warning to live right because he sees all things.

The flip side of the verse here in Proverbs is that he see are good also. We sometimes wonder if anyone takes notice when we do our good deeds. It reminds me of George on Seinfeld, where he goes to tip the pizza man at the store, and just when he is going to drop the dollar in the tip jar, the man looks the other way. George feeling he won’t get the recognition for the tip, reaches back in in order to re-give while the guy is watching. Just as he reaches in the man looks back and thinks he is stealing and kicks him out.

If I don’t get credit for my good deeds, it’s ok.   GOD”S EYES ARE IN EVERY PLACE!

Proverbs Chapter 14

(Pro 14:4)  Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.  Those of you that have been around CHBC, you have heard me deal with this verse. Quite simple to understand! I grew up in southwest Iowa where there are hog farms as far as you can smell.  Boy! Get down wind of that and you will know it. To me that was the worst smell I could think of as a young boy, but to the old farmers that was the smell of money. They didn’t mind putting up the smell, because they want to produce hogs. We in the church want to produce disciples, but we don’t want to have to clean up after them. We don’t like that they don’t fit in our Christian culture.  They don’t talk right, they don’t dress right, and they don’t act right.  When you have children in your home, don’t the 1^st few years create mess?  Bottles, spit up, and those nasty diapers, but the joy that they bring is beyond measure.  This is the same with spiritual birth we have in our churches. We live in a day and age where you hear women say “I don’t want kids because it will mess up my body.”  That is like some local assemblies, they don’t want their body messed up!

Proverbs chapter 13
(Pro 13:11)  Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase. Recently the Mega millions Lottery reached a whopping $640 million at the time of the drawing.  Now the purpose of this blog isn’t to debate the lottery, but who hasn’t at one time or another sat and fantasized about winning millions and what we would do with it? I personally don’t play, not because of some conviction, I just take the approach that I won’t win anyway.  But I have thought about what I WOULD DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY!  We as Christians would in brief forget about daily trusting God and trust our money for our needs.  You may be the one that says “not me, I would be able to handle it”.  What makes you think you can defy God’s word and make it work?

Jack Whittaker won a record $314.9m Powerball jackpot in 2002. But life since then has been a long list of arrests, lawsuits, broken relationships and even death. In 2007, his then wife, Jewell admitted she wished she had ‘torn up the ticket’.  William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988. He later described the experience as a ‘nightmare’ and wishes it had never happened – who can blame him after he was sued by a former girlfriend eager to get her hands on the cash and his brother hired a hitman in the hope of inheriting the winnings. He invested in ill-fated family businesses and within a year was $1m in debt. Today he gets by on social security payments.  Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993. Her generosity in giving money to a variety of political, educational and community causes was commendable – but just eight years later she filed for bankruptcy

LET GOD BE TRUE AND EVERY MAN A LIER!

Proverbs Chapter 12

We come to the 12th chapter and fined the “virtuous woman”. This is the 2^nd time out of 3times she is mentioned in the entire Bible. The 1^st is in the book of Ruth, when the title is given to Ruth herself.  We find a gentile bride that was pulled out of the gleaning fields to be married to the Kinsman redeemer. You have to stick your head in the sand not to know she is a picture of the church.  The other time she is mentioned is a whole chapter that closes this book we are studying. For those of you that know the teaching at CHBC, you already know that there is only one interpretation to the scripture, and it is God’s. However ther is 3 basic applications (historical, prophetical, and inspirational. And when we read this verse   {Pro 12:4  A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.} We can make application to the prophetical, by looking at the church (bride of Christ) bring Glory to her husband. 

I want to take notice of the inspirational side of this verse.  We live in a world with very blurred lines. There are a lot of women running around, but very few ladies. They have lost the virtue, and quality of inner elegance.  Women are seen in movies and TV shows as very loose, without any modesty. For years women have pushed for women’s liberties, at the cost of virtue and inner beauty.  And before you go crazy and think this is a witch hunt on women and that this maybe some chauvinistic slant toward women, please understand that men are worse than pigs in today’s world, in my opinion.  We have lost our virtue in both sexes.

The verse states that when you have a wife that is virtuous, she brings pride and honor to you as her husband.  What makes women beautiful is not plastic surgery, it is not a fake body, and lot of makeup, it is elegance and virtue.  What a beautiful site to look at a couple that has stayed true to God and live according to his word for 30, 40 and even 50 years.  By that time neither has the outward looks or physical shape that was around in their youth, but they have a beauty that can’t be gained at the best plastic surgeon in all of Beverly Hills.

Virtue! It’s worth more than Gold

Proverbs Chapter 11

I didn’t even get past the 1^st verse before God spoke this morning.  Some days you dig a while, whereas others tend to just show up.

(Pro 11:1)  A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. We have all seen the balance scales, where weight is place on one side and weight on the other side to see which is heavier.  This is the school yard teeter-totter effect.  In Bible days they would place a certain weight on one side of the scale. They would predetermine the weight of that idem, hypothetically let’s say 5 pounds. Then a customer would come in to sell their barley grain, by placing it on the other side of the scales. If the 5 pound weight rose up, then they had more than 5 pounds of grain. (This is deep isn’t it?) So store owner would shave weight off his 5 pound stone to weigh less than, in order to pay less for the grain. This was known as a false balance.

We weigh things in life by different degrees and standards.  If our kids get in trouble we say things like “well they are good kids, they just made a mistake”.  But if we see another kid do the same thing we have tendency to say things like “that kid is no good, I knew they were nothing but trouble.”  Have you ever made a comment like “if that was my kid, I would…” Yet when we are in the same situation we never judge on the same scale.

This is not just in our kids, but at work, friendships, our church, and politics. We grade on a curve, based on our personal interest to the situation. GOD FORBID!