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CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
Proverbs 5:21–23 NIV
For your ways are in full view of the LORD,
and he examines all your paths.
The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them;
the cords of their sins hold them fast.
For lack of discipline they will die,
led astray by their own great folly.
CONSIDER THIS . . .
I want you to write these sixteen words down in your journal:
For your ways are in full view of the LORD,
and he examines all your paths.
Contrary to popular belief, this is not a gotcha text. The God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, is not a gotcha God. What if we read this text not as an ominous warning or as bad news, but as good news?
Someone watching over us can help us, and encourage us, and pick us up when we fall, and carry us when we can’t go any further, and be there for us, and I could go on. God doesn’t watch over us in order to smite us, but so he can support us. Yes, he watches over us so he can instruct us, and warn us, and correct us, and guide us in right paths, and train us in right ways, and discipline us to make us better, and all the other things someone who really loves and cares for a person does.
In today’s text, we get this particular verse in the midst of a major warning about adultery. Is this the case because God wants to punish people who commit adultery? No. It’s there because God wants us to understand that, next to murder, adultery is the most dangerous, destructive, and devastating thing a person can do. This is a “Danger, Will Robinson!” moment. To be wise is to recognize the close presence of the Lord and to live life in a way that honors him.
For your ways are in full view of the LORD,
and he examines all your paths.
To grow wise means to increasingly live life in the awareness and attentiveness to this fact: “Our ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all of our paths.” Thank God.
PRAYER
Father, awaken me to the gracious awareness that all of my ways are in your full view. Lord Jesus, train me in the ways of your wisdom—to grasp that long before sin shows up in my actions, it seizes my heart. Holy Spirit, would you guard my heart and keep me in your overseeing care. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
What is your level of awareness that all of your ways are in full view of God? Does this make you more peaceful or more anxious?
SING
Today, we will sing “My Hope Is Built” (hymn 102) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
John David (J. D.) Walt Jr. is the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed and the pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas.
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5 Responses
I believe the misunderstanding begins in the Old Testament when God declares: I AM A JEALOUS GOD! And our elders warn of the wrath of God. Paul declares (I paraphrase) the cross is nonsense to the world.
It isn’t until I realized that God is not some cosmic auditor waiting for us to screw up so He could zap us to hell. The cross began to make sense when I understood this truth.
It helped me to see the Grace God extended to Adam and Eve as he expelled them from the Garden. (As they expelled themselves from the Garden?)
Good lesson today.
Good analysis.
Great analysis!
Encourager At Large
Encourager at large.
Sowing small seeds.
Have me Lord Jesus
Thats what I would be
Just for today
One day at a time
Seeds become sheaves
Oh glory divine
Joe Sieber
The discipline of God the Holy Spirit gives life. Jesus calls the Spirit’s discipline discipleship. (Proverbs 5:23)
Jesus said to go and make disciples. (Matthew 28:19-20) To make disciples is to train, empower, and inspire people to be aware of, attentive to, and activated by God the Holy Spirit in their daily life. (John 16:12-15) Then they can be transformed by God’s power (Acts 1:8) from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) and become effective witness to the actual presence of Christ living and working in and through them. (Colossians 1:27)
To make disciples we need to help people encounter, obey, and fully surrender all to the living resurrected Jesus Christ. Simply put, disciple making is helping someone love Jesus more. The focus of Christianity is too often on filling religious buildings with church members, but Jesus wants us to fill the world with totally committed Christ-lovers who consistently follow and obey Him.
Too many Christians are educated but not discipled. They’re taught but not trained. They’re informed but not empowered. They’re instructed but not inspired. (2 Timothy 3:16) They are lectured but not Spirit-led. (Romans 8:14)
In much of contemporary Christianity, direct revelation from God (Matthew 16:17 & 1 Corinthians 2:9-10) has been exchanged for human wisdom. (Proverbs 3:5-6) Heart-to-heart relationship with God (John 15:14-15) has been replace by routine religion. (Mark 7:13)
Jesus wants His followers to go and make disciples, not to passively sit together and make an audience. To make a disciple you must be a disciple. It’s so much easier to simply be a Sunday morning spectator. Dare to make disciples, not just to invite people to attend church! Unless Christian converts are converted into true disciples, they’ll gradually revert to their old habits and lifestyle patterns, even if they continue going to church.
Christ’s goal isn’t to make us safe and secure in our own nation. It’s to save us from self-focus and to set us free to consistently love, serve, and obey Him (John 14:15) and to love other people, even our enemies. (Matthew 5:44) Many churches and Christian leaders have begun to make political activists. Meanwhile Jesus is still waiting for us to make disciples who will deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him. (Luke 9:23)
Is the way church is being done an effective way of making disciples? Answer honestly. Does Jesus really want churches to make Christians into Sunday bench warmers on the sideline of life who are required to listen to a weekly religious lesson?
Disciples do
What Jesus
Tells them to.
How about you?