16 January

Proverbs 2:1-11

I would like to encourage you to make a daily habit of reading God’s word. The writer of Proverbs urges, ‘store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding… For wisdom will enter your heart’ (vv.1–2,10).

• What do you need to do?
  You need to ‘store up’ God’s words within you (v.1). You need to ‘accept’ (v.1), listen and apply (v.2), ‘call out’ (v.3) and ‘search’ (v.4). ‘Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt’ (v.4, MSG). This takes time and commitment. Set aside a regular time to read the Bible and put it down in your schedule as a top priority.

• What does God promise if you do this?
  You will ‘find the knowledge of God’ (v.5). Because of God’s character he ‘gives wisdom’ and ‘understanding’ (v.6), ‘victory’ (v.7), protection (v.8) and ‘discretion’ (v.11). He promises that God will ‘keep his eye on’ you and ‘keep you from making wrong turns or following the bad directions’ (vv.8,12, MSG).

Every word we speak can either be a brick to build or a bulldozer to destroy’, writes Joyce Meyer. Whatever is stored up in your heart will sooner or later be expressed by your words. Be careful what you look at, read and think about. Fill your heart with good things and you will think good thoughts, speak good words and bear good fruit (v.33).

The context of Jesus’ teaching that ‘out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks’ is his teaching about the Holy Spirit (as opposed to evil spirits). You cannot change your thought patterns on your own. You need the help of the Holy Spirit – filling you with his love and good fruit.

Prayer is not always straightforward. Sometimes it seems, like Jacob, that we have to wrestle with God (32:22–32; Colossians 4:12). It can be costly in terms of time and energy. This requires determination. Jacob said to God, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me’ (Genesis 32:26), but we are also told that from then on he walked with a limp (v.31).

Probably the nearest New Testament equivalent is the apostle Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Corinthians 12:7), which he asked God to remove three times. Your weaknesses and vulnerabilities do not stop God using you. In fact, God often uses our weaknesses more than our strengths. God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Rather he said, ‘my power is made perfect in weakness’ (v.8).