At first glance this list of Old Testament proverbs may appear like a hodgepodge of random thoughts. A closer look, however, reveals a common theme we tend to overlook or ignore, and that is the theme of God’s absolute sovereignty over His creation. By sovereignty, I mean God’s right as the King of the universe to rule as He sees fit—without question, limitation, accountability, or resistance.
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Memorisation Made Real
In years past, before the printing press and the Internet made information so readily available, people memorized—precisely, word for word—anything they considered helpful. With the mass production of books, memorization steadily declined. Today, with the Internet in everyone’s pocket, the discipline of memorization has all but died.
Read MoreThe Tablet of Your Mind
Solomon recognized a tragic truth about humanity: we desperately want to do things our own way, and we hate being told what to do. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6 NIV1984). So Solomon urged his sons to avoid mistakes he had made, encouraging them to heed God’s Word and to make obedience a lifelong habit.
Read MoreBound to Memorise
Solomon offered several insights about the value of placing God’s Word at the center of our lives. Let’s begin with Proverbs 4:4, where the wise king recalled the instruction of his own father, David: Then he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; Keep my commandments and live.” Take note of the words hold fast.
Read MoreGrowing Deeper in the Scriptures
[Saturday] I stressed the value of memorizing God’s Word and talked about how doing so has benefited me in practical ways throughout the years. Memorization, however, is only one of many ways to interact with Scripture. First, we can hear Scripture. This is the simplest, least difficult method of learning the precepts and principles of the Bible.
Read MoreWhere to Hide the Bible
Few things are more obvious and alarming in our times than biblical illiteracy. Even though the human mind can absorb an enormous amount of information, mental laziness remains a scandalous and undeniable trend in popular culture and even within the church. Fewer people than ever know the most basic contents of the Bible, and that was not the case until roughly fifty years ago.
Read MoreThe Straight Way
God has established a paradigm to help us escape the trap of worry. This cause-and-effect principle is as much a part of creation as the law of gravity. He directs three commands to the child of God. They are our responsibility: “Trust . . . do not lean . . . acknowledge. . . .” The fourth verb—make straight—is part of a simple declaration of God’s promise, His part of the covenant.
Read MoreIntimacy with the Almighty
As we discovered [Monday], “trusting in the Lord with all your heart” begins with the decision to “not lean on your own understanding.” The second choice calls for us to “acknowledge Him in all our ways.” Acknowledge comes from a simple Hebrew term meaning “to know.” This kind of knowledge is personal and experiential. In fact, Hebrew writers used this term as a euphemism for sexual relations between a husband and wife.
Read MoreHow to Trust God
As we continue our study of Solomon’s advice concerning worry, note that the second two lines expand on the main idea to trust in the Lord. “Trusting with all your heart” involves two actions: one negative, the other positive. Today we examine the negative command: “Do not lean on your own understanding” (v. 5). The term understanding is so important that, in the Hebrew text
Read MoreStraight Talk about Trust
In his fatherly advice about worry, Solomon turned from the horizontal dimension to consider the vertical (vv. 5–6), our relationship with God. There are four verbs in these two verses, four action words that are of special interest to all who want to live beyond the daily grind of worry. 1) trust 2) lean 3) acknowledge 4) make straight
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