Hello Friends,
Welcome back to the Proverbs Pathway – finding your way God’s way.
God tells us in His Word how to walk in the ways of good men and women.These faith-in-action truths jump out in Proverbs 2:9-22. You must seize them for yourself, no one else can. I have a question: What’s happening to men and women today? It seems like the very definitions of manliness and womanliness are being sabotaged. And way too many are walking advertisements, self-promoters of unwise, self-destructive and society-destructive foolish living – it’s like a fool’s paradise. Have you noticed this? Fool around, fool around, soon you won’t be around.
But God has an answer. In fact, He is the answer, the answerer of all questions. His answer? WISDOM for every man and woman everywhere. His wisdom is our GPS, enabling us to travel smart on what Solomon describes in verse 9 as “every good path”. Got a GPS Bible handy? Open it and hear God guiding you to “life on a good path”. I can only make a few re-affirmations from Solomon in my limited space.
If and when you open the door for God and His wisdom to enter your heart, discretion will guard you and guide you to every good path. (vs. 9-11)
You and I must use God’s wisdom to defeat the words and ways of wicked MEN who ply their plans daily. (9:12-15) God describes “wicked men” as those quick with tricky words, crooked paths, dark ways, mentally devious, spiritually perverse and morally bankrupt – but always quick to slam the “straight paths”. But God gives you transforming truths to defeat the toxic tricks of the guy who’s only looking out for #1. Need evidence for the world-wide “man problem”? Really see. Really listen. God empowers a godly man or woman to find every good path in every situation no matter who we meet on the way.
You and I must use God’s wisdom to defeat the seductive ways of wicked WOMEN. (Note 9:16-19) She’s described as prone to adultery, speaks the language of seduction fluently, is chronically disloyal in relationships and willfully and purposefully ignores promises made to God and man. She possesses enticing powers; her easiest prey is a wicked man. Her path is strewn with the spirits of the dead who ignored the flashing “Pathway To Life” exit ramp God offered. Need evidence for the world-wide “woman problem”? Really see. Really listen.
Wickedness knows no gender bias – both men and women without God’s wisdom go downhill fast and suck others into the inevitable crash.
Think about this: Wicked men and women go hunting every day, everywhere, all the time, in every language – with predictable results. But God is our answer. If we ask God and His wisdom to enter our hearts, then God opens the eyes of our hearts and puts us on every good path. This truism nails it, “The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.” God redeems men and women in Christ. Here’s power and hope for today and tomorrow: “Christ Jesus…has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” I Corinthians 1:30.31
Solomon concludes (Proverbs 2:20-22) that the wise, godly man and woman will walk in good paths with other good men and women and really “live” in the land and remain in it. But the wicked will be “cut off” and the unfaithful “torn” from it.
Could the choice be any more graphic? Clearer? Urgent? Jesus’ boldness comes home in His words, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Without the way there’s no going; without the truth there’s no knowing; without the life there’s no growing.”
Let’s walk together in Christ on “every good path”.
In Christ, Chuck Brannon, Pastor
P.S.: Share your story or have a question? Let me hear from you. I have a “Peace Plan” pamphlet if you’d li