Be Wise

For Friday, July 27, 2007
Proverbs 23:19-21

Hear, my son, and be wise,
and direct your heart in the way.
Be not among drunkards
or among gluttonous eaters of meat,
for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
and slumber will clothe them with rags.

Be not among - that is, do not be as one of them. Be wise and direct your heart; do not follow your heart. Do you want to be your own decision maker? Then be it now while you can. Choose to follow the way of righteousness now. For once you choose to be among the drunkards and gluttons, you will find your will to choose gone. Drunkards to not choose to remain drunkards. They do not choose to lose their willpower and destroy all their relationships. They do not choose to be fired and to end up sick on the street. The same holds true for gluttons. They do not choose to keep eating and destroy their health. They do not choose to be sated with food or other forms of "pleasure." They can not give up what they thought they would not want to give up. They find themselves slaves to what they thought was serving them.

Be wise now. Direct your heart now. Choose now while you still can.

Our Hope

For Thursday, July 26, 2007
Proverbs 23:17-18

Let not your heart envy sinners,
but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.
Surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.

It is easy to envy sinners. Consider what they have. They may sin without guilt. They may even recast sin as good and natural. They have no commands to obey. They have no responsibility for their neighbor. The only responsibility they have is what they place upon themselves, which they may remove at any time. They may give thought to their pleasure without considering anyone else, including an omniscient God who watches them. They can make life to be the way they want it to be.

Believers, on the other hand, are saddled with the two great commands to love God with all that one has and to love one's neighbor as oneself. We cannot do anything without taking these commands into account. We live in the world, but are not allowed to be of the world, which greatly complicates our lives. Furthermore, we have an omniscient God whom we know will judge us.

What do we get in return? We are given a sure future; we have a securce hope of eternal joy and even glory, living in the presence of our God. But if we are perceptive enough, we will see that our hope lies not only in the promise of God about the future, but in the present blessings of today. Blessed is the man now who walks in the path of righteousness because his life now is filled with purpose. Now he is a blessing to others. Now he is rendering profitable service to his Lord. Now he is filled with the Holy Spirit, knows God as his Father, and experiences the blessings found in his Redeemer. It is because we glimpse the present glory that we can feel in our hearts the future glory and know that our hope will not be cut off.

Parent and Child

For Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Proverbs 23:15-16

My son, if your heart is wise,
my heart too will be glad.
My inmost being will exult
when your lips speak what is right.

So speaks a father, and so concurs a mother. Parents want what they perceive is good for their children. Most want their children not to suffer and to succeed in life in the various forms that success is measured. Mostly, they want their children to be happy. They may differ with their children about what makes up happiness or how to attain it. But to see their children content and happy contributes to their own happiness.

This proverb gets under the surface of outward happiness to what really matters to most parents - to have a child who is wise. It is the goal of the parent to guide a child to maturity, to discern between right and wrong, to make wise choices regarding friends, to apply oneself in education, to be dependable, to choose a good spouse, to take a career that is fulfilling and provides for one's needs, to raise good children of one's own, and thus complete the cycle.

The parent cannot disconnect his happiness from his child. He will grieve over a child's foolishness and rejoice over the child's wisdom. That is how it should be, for that is the natural relationship God has established between parent and child. We are connected to our children and to our parents. We cannot control others, but we can care about honoring our parents through our own pursuit of wisdom and about blessing our children through teaching and modeling wisdom. And we can honor our Father through pursuing the wisdom he has revealed in his Word and living out the "foolishness" of the Gospel.

Discipline

For Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Proverbs 23:13-14

Do not withhold discipline from a child;
if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.
If you strike him with the rod,
you will save his soul from Sheol.

"Do not withhold discipline" implies that displine is a necessity for the health of the child. You do not speak of withholding something that you do not have the responsibility to give nor the other does not deserve to have. To withhold discipline is to withhold care; it is to shirk one's responsibility to provide for the welfare, in this case, of one's child. To withhold discipline signals that the parent either the parent does not truly care for the wellbeing of his child or that he is too fearful to carry through on what is right.

It is heartless not to let one's child experience repercussion for his sin. It is cowardly to avoid setting and enforcing rules of behavior. No adult has ever thanked parents for failing to discipline or for not setting boundaries.

Parents can abuse and too often even good parents mishandle discipline. Thus, parents are to continually examine themselves. But they nevertheless cannot escape their reponsibility before God. They must be the ones with an eye to the future, something their children cannot see.

And they must be willing to accept discipline themselves. Do they accept discipline from authorities - government, the workplace, the church? All who have some measure of authority have the same responsibility to exercise discipline. We are all willing, so we say, to accept the discipline of the Lord, but we rarely are willing to accept the Lord's discipline that is meted out through his human instruments. If you expect your children to accept your discipline, let them see you model how that is done.

Heart Instruction

For Monday, July 23, 2007
Proverbs 23:12

Apply your heart to instruction
and your ear to words of knowledge.

This is a good proverb to heed in a culture that teaches the one thing we can trust is our heart.

"Go with your heart."
"What does your heart tell you?"
"Follow your heart."

Movies and TVs (the real instruction institutions of our society) invariably teach that the heart is to be trusted over anyone and anything, especially in times of crisis. By listening to the heart, we will know when to go against conventional wisdom and when to defy the instructions even of the people we respect and love the most. The heart is supposedly the place of instinct, of innate knowledge.

For the Bible, the heart needs instruction just like the mind, indeed, more so. As Jesus said, "out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts," etc. Due to the fall, the heart loves sin. The heart "feels good" about the things God hates. Consider the bigoted mind that hates others of different races. Such a person acts on what his heart feels right. Even the wicked oppress the weak out of what feels right. They despise the weak and don't understand why others do not as well.

Thus the heart needs instruction as to what is right and wrong. And more. For instruction, as essential as it is, cannot change the heart. The proverb says to apply your heart to instruction. There's the rub. You must first desire instruction, and that takes a heart change. Where then is your hope? It is in God's Spirit who can change your heart. Pray for such a work, and don't fool yourself into thinking that because you have been regenerated by the Spirit, all the work needed as been done. The toughest case is the Christian who thinks by virtue of being Christian his heart is all right. Sanctification - the process of cleansing the heart from all sin - is a lifetime work. Start each morning praying for that work to continue in your heart, applying it to instruction.