July 6, 2022 -- Proverbs 3:5-7 -- Trust in the LORD with all your heart

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Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In 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.
Proverbs 3:5-7 ESV

Since I am regularly meeting and mentoring folks who are new to the Christian faith, I often encounter some form of a question that runs along this line: would God really judge my neighbour-lady? She doesn’t go to church (read here, she is not a Christian) but she is so kind and looks after the new immigrants to our community and she has nursed her ailing husband for four years already. The answer: yes, God’s judgement will be measured out against her.

The call placed on every person, near and far, through-out the whole earth is to trust in the LORD with all one’s heart. The only service in life that truly matters is service to the LORD God, the Creator, Sustainer, and King. Anything less than a whole-hearted commitment to Him, as verse 7 bluntly names it, is: evil.

This question of how God can judge good people who do not know Him or serve Him, vexes many people precisely because they are apt to lean on their own understanding. Such people think they understand how the world should function, and impose on it their twisted sense of right and wrong. That is itself a sin, taking some of God’s glory for themselves, as if in this particular area they are gods and it is up to them to decide right from wrong. There is no morally neutral stance, either one relies on his own logic, which is marred and perverted by sin or one relies on the truth of God’s word and examines the world through that lens.

To trust in the LORD is a consuming, life-long activity. To ask the Spirit of God to expose the flaws in your own understanding is part of what it is to be a Christ-follower. When you do so, immediately what follows is the recognition God’s ways are so much higher than the ways of man. Interestingly, it is the LORD’s work to make a man’s life easy or difficult—all with the express purpose of making His glory known and giving every person, every opportunity to turn and recognize Him alone as the Source of all Good.

What a high command has been placed before us at the start of this day: “fear the LORD and turn from evil”. In all things, in every scrutinizing of life, consider what God teaches by the Word. Let the Spirit light up your thoughts so that false or arrogant thinking is exposed and renounced. Be fearful of the insidious, subtle machinations of pride which would infiltrate your thinking and keep you from truly understanding a circumstance or situation—do not rely on your sense of right and wrong, which as past experience has shown you, so often lead you astray. Turn from evil. Confess the places in your life where you have been evil in your words, actions, thoughts, or have been evil by your inaction. Ask the Spirit to reveal the things you don’t want to consider. Know this: it is the delight of God to bring sons and daughters to Himself, reconciling them to Himself on the basis of Jesus’ accomplished work.

Mighty God, even as Your word is laid out for us, we are already wandering in our thoughts, looking for loopholes and different interpretations so that we do not have to scale the impossibly high requirements You set out. Forgive our waywardness and all the crookedness of our thoughts. Thank You, Faithful God, that Your divine power has granted believers all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ. Thank You, Spirit of God, for the restraining work You exercise in our lives so that believers' lives will conform more fully to the image and likeness of Christ--our Savior, Example, and King. 

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