Chapter 3 is a power-packed essential part of Proverbs. It contains the pin number for wisdom.
Wisdom only works when you trust God more than you trust yourself.
What I find most amazing is that God would have to convince us that trusting him is a good idea. That just goes to show you how arrogant we as humans can be. We (the finite, the creation) have the audacity to doubt God (the infinite, the creator, the sustainer).
In this Chapter offers to give us everything we could every want, from wealth to wellness. But there are conditions.
We must do 3 things.
1. Trust God with ALL our hearts. 2. Turn from evil. 3. Accept his discipline and correction.
I know you’re ready to accept his gifts, but are you ready to accept his love in the form of discipline and correction?
Below are more notes on this chapter. The bottom line is simple: TRUST GOD.
Wisdom is a gift from God. He gives it to those who seek it and HIM earnestly. You have to want it. Wisdom is never force-fed.
So this chapter starts with a question.
Will you heed my words and accept my direction?
Your answer to that question determines much you really desire wisdom.
Say yes.
Here are the notes for this weeks lesson.
32CH: LESSON 2 – THE QUESTION IS…
Last week…
Chapter one states the intent of this book and God’s larger intent for your life.
God wants to make your life and your world better. God gets you. God is for you. God loves you.
To enjoy the fruit of Gods wisdom you must have a reverence-saturated respect for God as your foundation. You grow that reverence by spending time with him reading his word, meditating on his word and by cultivating a rich, continual prayer life.
This week’s main point
God’s wisdom means nothing if you don’t trust him. If you want to grown in wisdom, if you want to see the results of wisdom in your life you have to make a decision to trust him and to heed his words and accept his direction. Unless and until you do so wisdom is worthless.
The 22 verses of chapter two are broken into 3 sections.
The proposition
The payoff
The protection
The proposition
Wisdom’s power to change every facet of your life for the better is amazing and to be desired. But wisdom’s power is either limited or activated by your faith.
The first big question is:
“Will you heed my words and accept my direction?”
The power of everything AFTER this verse depends soley on how you respond. This is a binary decision. It’s yes or no. It’s 1 or zero. It’s black or white.
The book of Proverbs is coaching you from the very beginning in the fine art of making wise choices. This is your first test. Every day this is a question you can use as a kind of wisdom filter.
If you answer yes then the next step is to pursue God’s words and direction with passion, persistence, patience and purpose. If you do so, then there is a payoff. There is a tremendous upside.
This chapter also sets up the “if”/”then” challenge.
In computer programming the if/then logic sequence is used to write code. If you press “this” key then “this” happens. If you press “that” key then “that” happens. You get the idea.
Life has laws and consequences. God’s love is unconditional. Life is not. If you trust God with the“if’s” you will be happier with your “then’s”. Given the fact that he created and sustains every law (physical & spiritual) upon which our world is based it makes since to trust his word.
The Payoff
Saying yes to God leads to a domino effect of blessings. When you say “yes” Your relationship with and reverence for God surge. You understand the fear of the Lord, righteousness, justice, fairness and every good path. That knowledge co-mingled with unflinching faith in God gives you the ability to make better life choices. Better choices, better life. Saying NO to go has a domino affect too.
The Protection
The upgrade in discernment will protect you from the people, pleasures and pitfalls that stand ready to consume and confine you at any given moment. The wrong men in your life can be devastating. The wrong women in your life can be devastating. The wrong habits in your life can be devastating. Wisdom teaches you to see the danger before it sees you.
The Conclusion
At the end of it all you’re left with a choice. And you are instructed to choose wisely.
A life based on God’s wisdom involves only one choice. Choosing to trust him. IF you choose him THEN you will know wisdom.
The Challenge
Answer the question. Every day just answer the question
That’s an essential truth that you HAVE to embrace if you are to know wisdom…if you are to know GOD. Growing in wisdom is great. Growing in God is greater.
God wants the best for you. That is why he gave the best he had. Know that. Live with certainty, knowing that your omnipotent God wants to make your life better now and in the life to come.
There are 33 verses in this the first of 9 foundational teachings.
The Introduction [verses 1-7]
The chapter begins by introducing the purpose of the book. This book is about “-er”.
If you’re lost he wants to find you and bring you back. If you are dumb he wants to make you smart. If you are smart he wants to make you smarter. If you are wise he wants to make you wise-er.
The wisdom teachings found in this book are designed, no matter where your are on your journey to offer you an upgrade. It is yet another example of how God lives to make your life better. Even in the tough experiences He longs to to give you a more abundant life on the way to eternal life. You have to believe that, TRUST that!
Two things stand in the way of experiencing the transformative power of wisdom: skepticism and ignorance. When you deny the truth of the wisdom you encounter OR when you are too lazy to embrace the DISCIPLINE it will take to activate the wisdom that is presented you will know ABOUT wisdom, but you won’t experience wisdom’s transformational power in your life. That’s why TRUST is essential to truth. Verse 7 sets the foundation.
Wisdom’s FOUNDATION is the selfless awe of GOD. (Shapiro)
Prov. 1:7
The next two sections [verses 8-19,20-33]
A contrast is presented between foolish desires and wisdom. Foolish desires lay a trap. Wisdom never ensnares you. The way of wisdom doesn’t have to hide in the shadows. This is the first of what will be many contrasts that help you to begin to or enhance your ability to use your discretion and discernment. First, you have to get more clarity about good and evil. Then you have to make informed wisdom-based decisions. The more you choose the better path (get your reps in) the more natural making quality choices becomes.
The suffix “er” means more.
“-er” also can turn verbs into what are known as “agent nouns” (bake becomes baker, etc.)
For instance, if you BAKE a cake once by following the recipe, cool. You BAKED a cake. But if you do it 1000 times and you’ve mastered the disciplines of the craft you become known as a BAKER. When you make one wise choice, cool. When it becomes your lifestyle you become a man of wisdom.
God wants more for you.
He longs the make you the personification of faith.
He doesn’t just want you to believe. He wants you to be a believ(er).
His capacity to expand you is limitless. God is so full of wisdom you can’t outgrow him. You can’t grow beyond his capacity to make you better.
All of us need to reach up to our full potential in God. As the Army’s ad campaign said we need to “Be ALL we can be.”
Foundations
If the intent of this book is to build us, then we must begin with the foundation.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…”
Shapiro says it this way, “wisdom’s foundation is the selfless awe of God.”
The Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building, for now.
The architect that designed Burj is working on an even taller one.
Burj Khalifa is 2,717 feet tall. It has 160 floors and took 6 years to complete.
You may remember it from the most recent Mission Impossible Movie.
As you might imagine, a building that tall has to have a firm foundation. The engineers that designed the Burj spent a considerable amount of time engineering the foundation that could/would support this building. But there was another engineering challenge, wind.
The design was wind tunnel tested. The designer’s assumption was that wind, harsh wind was inevitable.
Wind, harsh wind, in life is inevitable. It’s inescapable. God shapes us with wisdom to make us more aerodynamic. The wind will come, count on it. Expect it. But a the wisdom-shaped man is optimized so that the wind does it knock him down it flows around him.
CENTRAL TRUTH
If you want to go higher, you’ve got to dig deeper!
God wants to build you up “For I know the plans I have for you plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
You need a strong foundation so you can stand the wind.
You need to be affixed to the bedrock.
You need depth.
You need reinforcement.
As you get bigger you bring glory to the God who made you. People will want to know, “who built you up like that?”
“I want your architect to design my life.”
Wisdom’s foundation is the fear of the Lord.
If you don’t reverence and respect God you cannot hear him.
If you can’t hear him you won’t heed him.
If you don’t heed him, if you don’t act on the wisdom he gives you, you cannot benefit from that wisdom.
#32chapters 