31DPC – Day 2
This is day 2 of the 31 Day Proverbs Challenge to read a chapter a day from the book of Proverbs through the month of May.
Again, I am using Charles Swindoll’s Insight for Living Bible Study Guide Selected Studies from Proverbs to help me in the study.
Swindoll points out four tools or disciplines needed to extract King Solomon’s treasures.
The Conditions
1. Discipline of the Written word -
- First, possess the right attitude toward God’s Word.
- Second, saturate our mind with God’s Word. The right handling of God’s Word includes hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on it. Such diligent cultivation will result in a rich harvest of wisdom.
2. Discipline of inner desire -
- First, have an attentive ear. Ask God to make you attentive to wisdom’s voice.
- Second, cultivate an open heart.
3. Discipline of prevailing prayer – consistent fervent prayer
- First, proclaim the need for discernment.
- Second, request understanding.
4. Discipline of daily consistency -
- First, seek wisdom with diligence.
- Second, pursue it with patience.
The Results – awe and intimacy
- The fear of the Lord – a deep, awesome respect.
- The knowledge of God – a bosom nearness to God.
The Promises
- First, from within: our hearts will be filled with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
- Second, from without: God will provide protection.
- Third, from above: God will direct us into successful pursuits – righteousness, justice, equity, every good course – that give satisfaction.
New International Version (NIV)
Moral Benefits of Wisdom
2 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding — 3 indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, 8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. 10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, 13 who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways, 14 who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, 15 whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
16 Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, 17 who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. 18 Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. 19 None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
20 Thus you will walk in the ways of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; 22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it.
