#25. June 22, 2015
2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs is part of “Wisdom Literature” in Scripture. In chapter one the author gives us the theme and purpose of the book: 2 for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; 3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; 4 for giving prudence to those who are simple, [a]knowledge and discretion to the young—5 let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance—6 for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.[b 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools[c] despise wisdom and instruction. The theme is summarized in: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Knowledge”.
The context of the verse we are memorizing is what the NIV labels as: “Get Wisdom at Any Cost”. The author speaks in the first person speaking to his son and we would add daughter. God our Father is the source for his wisdom. He tells of his own father who instructed him. Again and again he speaks of the virtues and the benefit of wisdom for a happy and long life. He compares wisdom with lack of wisdom and equates the lack of it with those who cannot help themselves to stop walking in evil ways; they cannot rest until the evil deed is committed. The path of evil is dark and oppressive but the righteous attains health of body and walks in bright sunshine. The Father uses the pedagogy of repetitions, examples, comparisons, and simile but it comes down to the heart.
Moving on to verse 23 the author comes down to the heart. The heart contains and retains the virtues of wisdom. Therefore, he says: “above all else, guard your heart,” the condition of the heart is above all he has mentioned before now. Both good and evil comes from the heart (Lk. 6: 44-45). Therefore, guard your heart, we have a choice, what we talk about, what we ponder on, what we allow ourselves to see, and the places we willingly go. Garbage in garbage out! Verse 24-27 talks about how to guard your heart. So far all this is directed to the son or daughter and to us but wisdom plays a much larger role to play in our lives; it affects every person we interact with and with our permission is able to shine the light of Jesus on all we do and say.
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Heavenhigh 