Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Reading through the 31 chapters of Proverbs each month can give us an understanding of how to serve God.

Proverbs 3:5-8 ESV

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
8It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

Proverbs three has “do not” thirteen times in its instruction. We have so reached maturity - by the estimation of some - that we no longer need negatives in the preaching and teaching of the church. How can this be?

It can be nothing less than a rejection of Divine restraint. Grace is seen as a removal of restraint, and freedom is taken to be license to sin. But nowhere is God’s Word in this anything less than Paul’s “God forbid.”

Chapter 3:5-8 is the conduct of believers in a right relationship with God. Verses five and seven are a synonymous parallel - with six and eight being promises which are attached to obedience to the verse before.

Verse 5A is parallel to verse 7B and verse 5B to 7A. The believer’s spiritual life begins with faith and faith is the strength by which it continues. The faith commended in 5A is complete, “with all your heart.”

Verse 7B begins with faith, “fear the Lord,” and adds to it the thoroughgoing repentance that always accompanies faith, “and turn.” This “turn” is sincere in that it is from “evil” as a category. No evil is omitted.

Verse 5B is the first requirement of repentance. It is a hearty distrust of intellectual ability to rationalize God’s requirements. Verse 7A is the distrust of innate mental ability. James 3:15 and 17 describe the contesting wisdom. James 3:15 says “this is not the wisdom which comes from above.” The writer of Proverbs says, “Be not wise in your own eyes; or by your own mental estimation.”

Repentance in the Old Testament is a whole hearted “turn” while repentance in Greek is literally a change of mind. Repentance must begin with a turn from the understanding of self to the understanding of God, and the understanding of the Gospel. It is a turn from unbelief to faith and a turn from hating God’s Law to loving the freedom it brings, the joy that comes with obedience, and the peace with God that results in the keeping of it.

God’s elect can say with the Psalmist, “Great peace have they who love your law,” and with John “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” Psalm 119:165; I John 5:3.