A couple of times I year I go through the Proverbs. It is a book filled with tons of wisdom and it seems to act kind of like a beacon to call us back to what righteous living and thinking looks like. It is a refiner's fire that shows you the truth about yourself and teaches you how to live well with God and others. I hope that the practical teaching of Proverbs will touch and change your life as you go through it.
1:7 - The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. If you really want to know...anything, you need to begin with developing a fear of the Lord. I think of the people I have seen struggle in life and faith and normally it is because they have not developed a proper sense of how big and holy God is. So, we run around without God, or just as bad, with God, but without a sense of who He is and we live very foolish lives. Begin with studying who God really is. It is terrifying and incredibly encouraging at the same time.
1:19 - Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the life of those who get it. The price for taking what is not yours is your life. Many of us would think we are beyond that, but when we look at someone else's situation or their stuff and we devise ways to get it (manipulation for a position at work, unethical business deals, withholding information to advance our own cause) we end up paying with our own lives. We may get what we set out to get, but we will pay dearly for it in the end.
1:23 - Wisdom says REPENT (change your mind) AND THEN she will teach you. I can;t tell you for how many years I have prayed for wisdom, but failed to see that I need to repent to receive it. Wisdom waits, wanting us to know her, but we have to take the step of clearing things up and moving in a new direction. Wisdom doe snot come just because we ask, but because we honor wisdom by heading in a new direction first.
1:29-31 - since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord. Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of sinners. We are always given the fruit our lives produce to eat. Live well and eat good fruit. Live poorly and eat what a poor life produces.
1:32 - Waywardness and complacency kill.
1:33 - Wisdom brings safety, living at ease and no fear. So, if you are not living with those things you do not have all the wisdom you need. Or better yet, you are not yielding to wisdom where you need to.
2:1-4 - Accept and store up wisdom. Turn your ear and apply your heart. Call out and cry out. Look for wisdom as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure. vs 5 - If you will do what these four verses say, you will understand the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of knowledge. Isn't it funny how often we ask God for things He is willing to give us only we don't want to do our part in receiving them? In James it says that God will give us wisdom if we ask without finding fault in us, but we have to believe and each of these things in bold prove our belief.
2:6 - The Lord gives wisdom.
2:11 - Discretion protects and understanding guards.
2:13 - When you are not on the straight path, you are walking in dark ways.
2:16 - Wisdom saves you from the adulterous woman (or man).
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