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Pathways Through Proverbs
Daily Devotional
January 7, 2008
Today's Reading - Proverbs 7
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Following Scripture Verses
Proverbs
Chapter 7
- My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
- Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
- Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
- Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman:
- That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
- For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,
- And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,
- Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,
- In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night:
- And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.
- (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house:
- Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)
- So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,
- I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
- Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
- I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
- I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
- Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
- For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:
- He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
- With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
- He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks;
- Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.
- Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.
- Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
- For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
- Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
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Today's Pathway:
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In the first phrase of this verse we find a promise:
"Keep my commandments, and live".
I see three applications for this expression. First, I believe that God is telling His children that if they will keep His commandments then He will bless them with a life free from judgement. Throughout the Old Testament the Lord told Israel that He would chasten them severely if they deviated from His law (Deut. 6:15). Paul wrote that some die as a result of participating at the Lord's Table in an unworthy manner (I Cor. 11:30). John told us that there is a "sin unto death" ( I John 5:16). Thus, obedience to God's Word will being His blessings, but rebellion may bring a premature death.
Second, a person never really "lives" until he is obedient to the Lord. Jesus said that He came that we "might have life, and that (we) might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). It is only when someone has been freed from the bonds of sin and stepped into the liberty that Jesus Christ brings that he can truly live. The world may consider its lifestyle to be "living", but God says that the person who lives in pleasure is "dead while she liveth" (I Tim. 5:6). True joy and peace only come when a man has surrendered himself to God and is walking under the leadership of His Holy Spirit.
Finally, Christians need to understand that God wants them to "live" for Him. Keeping God's commandments does not require us to hide at home or in the church. We need to take our obedience out into the workforce and the community and live for the Lord. Paul begged the Romans to present themselves as "living sacrifices" (Rom. 12:1). They were to be wholly given to God, but they were to live and work and serve in public while they did it. Living for God implies action and effort, and the Lord expects us to obey Him while we function here upon earth.
Are you keeping His commandments?
Pastor Mark J Montgomery
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