An Appointment with Christ: Proverbs 3 (Part 3)
Author
Dr. Roberto Miranda
Summary: We must not forget God’s law, but make a conscious effort to remember it and keep it in the depths of our hearts, where our thoughts, emotions, and will reside. Worries, pressures, and difficulties can tempt us to seek easy solutions that contradict its precepts. That is why we need to study, memorize, review, and continually meditate on the Bible until its principles become part of our entire being and shape our decisions.
Intimacy with the Word distinguishes those who mature spiritually, persevere in prayer, and are used by God. It is not enough to respect the Bible in a general sense: we must give it priority every morning, every night, and throughout the day, keeping it with both our reason and our emotions.
Its counsel also preserves us from dangerous paths, unwise decisions, and unnecessary suffering caused by pride, disobedience, or ignorance. The promise is not limited to a longer life but also includes quality of life: wisdom, clarity, contentment, and peace. By having peace with God through knowing and obeying his Word, we also find inner peace.
We devoted our last program to a kind of praise of the word of the Lord. We challenged our listeners to become students of the word of the Lord, to treasure the Bible, and not to underestimate its teachings. We spoke about the fact that the events of history clearly prove to us that the Bible is the word of God.
In this passage we are studying, Proverbs Chapter 3, the writer says: “My son, do not forget my law, and let your heart keep my commandments.” I want to tell you that if you want to live according to the commandments of the Lord, you have to make an effort not to forget the law of God. When the writer of Proverbs says, do not forget my law, he is saying, “Make an effort to remember my law.”
Do you know that it is so easy to forget the word of God amid the affairs, labors, and cares of the day; it is so easy to forget the teachings of the Lord. It is so easy, when the pressures of life, problems, and difficulties come, perhaps to look for a shortcut and violate the word of the Lord, to forget the Bible’s moral precepts and seek an easy solution to life’s predicaments. But the Lord tells us: Do not forget my law; that is, keep it, make sure that you always remember the law of the Lord.
When the events of life tempt you to violate and forget the law of the Lord, remember it. It says: “...let your heart keep my commandments.” How important it is for us to treasure the commandments of the Lord in our hearts, there where our will resides. When the Bible speaks of the heart, it speaks of that central place of the human personality where the emotions, thoughts, and will are found—the very core, the very substance of the human personality. It is there, in that central place of our being, that we have to bury the word of the Lord.
If we do not put the word of God at the very center of our lives, it is very possible that we will forget it. We have to make a decision to treasure the word of the Lord, to place it in the deepest part of our lives, and to give that word primacy in all things. We have to study the word of the Lord, memorize it, review it, and repeat it continually, so that this word becomes part of our personality, so that it becomes the very essence of our being.
When a man or woman has reached that level of intimacy with the word of God, then we can truly say that he or she has become a man or woman of God. For many people, the Bible is simply something they hear from afar, something they respect in a general way, but it is not what defines their lives. The people I have seen have the greatest impact in the spiritual realm—those men and women whom God uses powerfully, who win great victories for God, who know the mysteries of the Lord, who have power through prayer, and who see miracles performed in their lives—are people who have a very deep intimacy with the Bible. They get up in the morning, and the first thing they do is take their Bible, search out a passage, and seek what God has for them through that passage. And at night, before going to bed, they open their Bible again and try once more to draw out some profound teachings. During the day, they are continually meditating on the concepts, principles, and counsels of the word of the Lord. That is why the writer of Proverbs says: “My son, do not forget my law, and let your heart keep my commandments.” In other words, we have to keep the law in our minds, but we also have to keep it in our hearts; we have to keep it with our reason, but we also have to keep it with our feelings. And in that way, every part of our being will be covered and permeated by the principles and teachings of the word of the Lord.
The writer adds something very interesting: “...for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” Do you know that the Bible can help you live a long life? That means that when you keep God’s commandments and allow yourself to be guided by the word of the Lord, it is much more likely that you will live a longer life. How many people meet a premature death because they did not keep the commandments of the Lord. How many people today, for example, lament the fact that they are infected with AIDS and condemned to a premature death because perhaps they practiced a certain lifestyle, visited certain places, or committed acts that the word of God forbids. If they had made sure to follow the counsel of the Lord, they probably would not be in the sad condition in which they find themselves.
The Bible is a source of counsel; it delivers us from dark places and from situations in which we can fall into traps. How many people may have died in an accident because they violated the teachings not to get drunk, or not to drive too fast, and to obey traffic laws. When we keep the word of the Lord, that word assures us length of days and years of life. The Word says that when we allow the wisdom of God to enter our hearts, discretion will watch over you and understanding will preserve you, to deliver you from the evil way, from men who speak perverse things, who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in dark ways, who rejoice in doing evil, who delight in the perversities of vice, whose paths are crooked and whose ways are devious.
If you truly want to walk in paths of uprightness and want to have a long life, a life that reaches its full term, it is important that you learn to respect the word of the Lord. Many people, because of their pride, because of their disobedience to the word of God, and often because of their ignorance—not because they are evil at heart, but because they simply do not know the word of the Lord—end up in situations of needless suffering. I have met men in the prisons of this state of Massachusetts who are there, and when I deal with them, I discover that they are not evil at heart; they are not necessarily wicked or malicious people who want to harm others. But simply because of the ignorance of their minds and hearts, because they did not heed the commandments of the Lord, they committed acts that needlessly led them to prison or to needless suffering. If only they had paid attention to the word of the Lord.
The writer says: “...for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” If you want to live a life that not only lasts many years but is also a life of peace—in other words, we want not only quantity but also quality. We do not merely want a long life, because there are certainly many people who reach an advanced age and yet do not love life; they would rather die and regret having reached old age. For them, life has been continual suffering and pain, loneliness and utter boredom, and they do not love old age. But those who love God, those who love wisdom, those who love the word of the Lord and allow themselves to be guided by its counsel, generally have, when they grow old, a sweetness, wisdom, clarity, and contentment that a person who does not know the word of the Lord cannot have.
That is why, when we read the Bible, it says: they will add years of life to you, but also peace, because when we have God in our hearts and when we know that we have peace with God, then we also have peace within ourselves. For it is not possible to have inner peace without having peace with God, and it is not possible to have peace with God without having an adequate knowledge of the word of the Lord. So do not forget the law of the Lord; keep it in your heart, keep His commandments, and remember that by doing this you will have length of days and years of life, and not only that, but you will also have peace. May the peace of the Lord be with you. Until next time.