We praise God for what He has done, for what He is doing and what He will do and that praise is putting us into agreement with His word! Remember this... Jesus never loses. Never!
There is a line in one of my favorite movies that says, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."
Life may very well be like a box of chocolates but God knows what is in each piece.
The prophet Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” Jeremiah 15:16
God’s word is the source of our joy if we belong to Him. That is one of the hallmarks of true followers of Christ. The book of James tells us that even demons believe and tremble at the mention of His name and many of us don't even do that and yet we claim the name of “Christian.”
God has secrets that He wants to reveal to us and that is part of the joy of our pursuit of Him. Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
I know. I know some people are going to just freak out and scream, “GRACE!’ But hear me out. It’s true we are saved by grace not by work. We no longer must observe all of the dietary, Levitical, ritual laws but are to live the moral law. As believers we should be law abiding citizens. So add some common sense to your criticism please. And realize we are saved not by good works but for good works Ephesians 2:8-10
If we aren’t enjoying that pursuit it could be that our motivation is not based on our relationship with Him but rather to do it out of a sense of duty. That is not to say it doesn’t take discipline because it surely does but it is a discipline born out of our love for Him because He first loved us.
What a blessing it is to realize that He wants to be known! The Father is looking for those who are looking for Him. And He will reveal His secrets but not to casual readers.
In John chapter 4 Jesus has an encounter with a Samaritan woman. He didn’t do a miracle per se, He just told her everything she’d ever done. See we think we can hide and we can’t We think we can manipulate His word and many do.
When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman He told her, You worship what you do not know, We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is looking for such to worship Him. John 4:22-23
Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless,
But wickedness overthrows the sinner.
Remember the name Jehovah Tsidkeneu The Lord Our Righteouseness?
It is Jesus who guards those who belong to Him. When we belong to Him, we are safely in His great big, safe hands. John 10:27-28 "My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life and no one can snatch them out of My hand."
We have to remember that salvation is instant. It happens the moment we give Jesus our life. But sanctification is a lifelong pursuit. We will mess up along the way. That's when we need Jesus to use the believer's bar of soap: I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In a word, yes! Yes the Lord Jesus is indeed in the book of Proverbs. My husband and I took a little trip in the paths of righteousness today.
Jesus promised His sheep that He would lead us in those paths and so He did.
Notice that one of His names is Jehovah Tsidkeneu, the Lord Our Righteousness. As we were reading this morning
in Proverbs 10 we noticed how many times “righteous” or “righteousness” is mentioned.
Turns out there are 14 verses in one chapter! So we decided since we know His name to place it in those verses and
see where we landed. Here is some of what we found.
Proverbs 10:2 Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness, (Jesus) delivers from death.
(Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.)
Proverbs 10:3 The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish but He casts away the desire of the wicked.
(Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Jesus) for they shall be filled.
Proverbs 10:6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous. But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
(Try reading it this way: Blessings are on the head of Jesus but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
And think about the Seed war in Genesis 3. Jesus crushes Satan’s head but Satan only bruises Jesus’ heel.
Jesus wore a crown of thorns on His head so that I can take my thoughts captive!)
10:7 The memory of the righteous (read it this way: the memory of Jesus): is blessed but the name of the wicked
will rot. (John 1:1 Jesus is the Word. His name is above every name! Demons believe and tremble at the mention of
His name. Sin has no more power to rule our lives if we follow Him. We hide the Word in our heart and He gives us
victory!)
10:11 The mouth of the righteous, (the mouth of Jesus); is a well of life but violence covers the mouth of the wicked
. Jesus is the Bread of life, Light of the Word. Living water. The inspired Word made flesh to dwell among us.
Emmanuel. Also an interesting side note is that the word “covers” in this verse comes from a root word that means
to fill the hollow (empty) places. An empty mind is a place that is highly susceptible to demonic activity.
10:16 The labor of the righteous,( Jesus) leads to life, the wages of the wicked to sin. (John 15:5 Apart from Him
we can’t do anything for God.)
Proverbs 10:20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is worth little. (The tongue of
Jesus… silver in the Bible always represents redemption. Jesus’ name. And there is no other name by which men
can be saved Acts 4:12)
Proverbs 10:21 The lips of the righteous (Jesus) feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom. (self-explanatory the
caution is that if there is no spiritual appetite it should absolutely be a red light. We should ask Jesus why not and
also seek Him to see if in fact we are saved. A spiritual appetite is a signature of a healthy Christian. Not a perfect
one, but a healthy one. Because none of us are perfect!)
Proverbs 10:24 The fear of the wicked will come upon him and the desire of the righteous (Jesus) will be granted.
(At the name of Jesus every knee will indeed bow. (Philippians 2:10 Jesus can never be defeated. He has won! Life
conquered death! The tomb is empty! Because He lives we too can live. But as many as received Him, to them He
gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name John 1:12)
10:25 When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, but the righteous, (Jesus) has an everlasting foundation
. (Ephesians 4:14-15 we don’t have to be tossed by everything we hear, if we listen to Jesus and grow. God gives us
His word, teachers and pastors, sisters and brothers. We are a community of believers!)
10:28 The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. (We who follow
Jesus wear His armor and part of that armor is the helmet. (1 Thessalonians 5:8 But let us who are of the day be
sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. Christians should be the
most hopeful and joyful people on the planet!)
10:31 The lips of the righteous (Jesus) know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.
(Again, He is the Word, if we want to live right, we must renew our minds. Sin will keep us from our Bible and
our Bible will keep us from falling into sin. If you miss a day don’t let Satan lie to you and tell you Jesus doesn’t
love you any more because you were unfaithful. That is a lie from the pit of hell! When we mess up we should
immediately repent and confess our sin, get back on our feet and walk on. We will mess up but Jesus doesn’t beat
us up. He loves us and knows we are weak and loves us so much anyway, but too much to leave us in a lifestyle of
unrepentant sin. Brothers and sisters this is why it is so important to renew our minds every day! It is how The Lord
our Righteousness speaks to us!
Abraham is listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews. He believed in God and it was counted as righteousness. It's true we are saved by grace through faith. We don't do anything to earn God's favor or our salvation through Christ. It's a gift we can't possibly earn. Think about this. If someone wants to give a gift do we not have to respond? If we hold our arms tightly to my sides that gift will never be received.
All of these people in Hebrews 11 responded to God's voice.
Father I pray now for the one reading this. Please be very real to them and call them into a personal relationship with You.
In David Guzik's commentary on Proverbs chapter 6, he quotes Spurgeon. It touched my heart and made me smile. I hope that it will encourage you too.
"This Bible is a wonderful talking book; there is a great mass of blessed talk in this precious volume. It has told me a great many of my faults; It would tell you yours if you would let it. It has told me much to comfort me, ad it has much to tell you if you will but incline your ear to it. It is a book that is wonderfully communicative it knows all about you, all the ins and outs of where you are and where you ought to be, it can tell you everything."
GOD’S
RICHES
AT
CHRIST’S
EXPENSE
Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
As we ponder the word, "grace" may we always keep "God" in the beginning and "expense" at the end because grace starts with God in the beginning and it does in fact end with the sacrificial blood of Christ.
If we keep God first in our thinking, first in our praying and first in our doing, it may help us have the right kind of godly fear. My pastor said something about the fear of God that greatly helped my understanding of it. He said, "Part of fearing God is being unwilling to offend Him." I never want to offend Him because I love Him and He loves me.
To be honest with you I came to Christ because I was afraid of going to hell. It is a valid reason. Jesus spoke often about hell being a place of torment. I stayed in that kind of fear for a long time and now realize that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
God loves us so very much! He doesn't love us because of anything that we could ever do to earn it. His word starts with these words. "In the beginning God " May we remember God at the beginning of each day, so that we can walk in His riches throughout the day and keep in mind the great price of that grace so that we don't cheapen it in our thoughts or deeds.
May we all be saturated with the awareness of His presence today.
