Knowing God - The Lord Opens Eyes

2 Kings 6:17

And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

The Lord Opens Eyes

Elisha could see something that the young man couldn’t.  How often the ‘young men’ in our lives can’t see what we may see.  Instead of trying to persuade the young man to see it, Elisha prayed.  Then, the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw.  Our God is able to open eyes to see things that they couldn’t see before.  He illuminates perspectives and spotlights things that are often hidden in the shadows of distraction and deceit.  The Lord heard Elisha’s prayer for this young man and He will hear ours as we ask Him to open the eyes of those we love.  What a faithful and personal God we serve.  May He open our eyes and those around us to all that He is and is doing in our lives! 

Proverbs - These Three Things

Proverbs 21:4

                              

An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.

We are told that these three things are sin.  What are these three things? 

I.  A high look

·        A high look is a haughty look.  This can be in our facial expressions or even in a tone of our voice.

·        We mustn’t look down on people for any reason.  We shouldn’t look down on people because of their weaknesses. 

2.  A proud heart

·        The meditations of our heart can be downright ugly.  We can have a heart that measures all others against our own standards and be deceived in that our heart is not right against God’s standards.

·        A proud heart exalts its case and is consumed with its own injuries and wounds at the expense of being concerned about others and pleasing God.

3.  The plowing of the wicked.

·        Plowing is digging up dirt to plant seed.  The wicked like to take good ground and break it up so that it becomes vulnerable to wicked suggestions.

·        We must not partner with this cause and stir up problems to make our homes or people vulnerable to demonic suggestion and ideas.

Sin results in death.  This could be death of a sweet moment, death in a relationship or if continued in without changing – eternal death.  Oh Lord, help us have a humble look, a lowly heart and a settling effect on those around us.  Let us be like You, Lord Jesus.  You were God but you humbled yourself to be a servant.  Help us walk in our day with a heart that seeks to serve and the ability to speak to winds and storms around us bringing a calm and stillness so that others can hear Your voice and rest in you. 

Knowing God - He Speaks Through the Prophets

Dan 9:10

Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

The voice of the Lord is equated with the laws He set before His people through His messengers.  Do you need to hear His voice? Read His Word aloud.  Do you need His voice to reassure you that you are going in the right direction?  Do what His written Word says.  Do you need to hear His voice calm you and comfort you?  Take His Word into your heart and value His written Word’s promises.  Do you need to have His voice give you direction?  Observe what His written Word says you should do.  The voice of the Lord is set before us and beckons us to walk in the direction from which we hear it.  We hear His voice through the voice of those He has sent.  

Proverbs- Better Than Sacrifice

Proverbs 21:3

To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

Sometimes we can overreact to a situation and not give the appropriate judgment or response.  When we come down hard on our children or husband and then find out that we actually misjudged the facts, we may be inclined to make it up to them.  Maybe we give our child more computer time, or cozy up to our husbands and try to sacrifice something to make up for our poor judgment.  They would much rather want us to react with good justice and judgment the first time than try to make up for it with sacrifice. 

This is how the Lord looks at things too.  Sacrifices were given to the Jewish people by the Lord to cover sins that they would commit.  These were given to provide a way to get things right but never to become that which should be an excuse to do things wrong.  Even the finished work of Jesus Christ which does more than cover our sins, but cleanses them, is not to be treated so lightly as to excuse a casual attitude towards judgment and justice.  The blood of Christ is made available to us and yet it is such a costly provision we don’t want to spend it recklessly upon the debt of sin incurred in careless actions. The Lord desires us to seek to do justice and judgment in all the matters we face and this is acceptable to the Lord.  

Proverbs - He Ponders Our Hearts

Proverbs 21:2

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.

To know that we generally think our decisions are good is wise to know.  Every way of our lives seems right when we evaluate them according to our own understanding.  This warns us that our judgment and evaluation is not always true to the core.  Here the Lord tells us that the Lord ponders the hearts. The word ponders here means to balance or measure out by weight or dimension. The Lord puts our hearts on a scale and measures them by His own value system.  We must not just bring our actions before Him, but keep our hearts sensitive to the Lord’s value system.  When the Lord measures our hearts He weighs the weight and measures the dimension.  He looks at what is heavy on our hearts and how much we open or close our hearts to the things that are before us. .  A great place to be is in a place where we are crying out the Lord to search our hearts and cause us have hearts that are like His.  Taking the time to sit before the Lord when we make that meal, or clean the house and ask the Lord to weigh our hearts and put in what we need and take out what shouldn't be there.  Our God is able to show us things within us that we might not know are there.  He is able to help us not be hard on ourselves when we have weights that are too much and to move upon us when our hearts are neglecting weightier matters.  Let us not trust our own eyes, let us spend the time to quiet our evaluations and listen for the Lord’s evaluations. His scales are always balanced and His judgments are righteous.

Knowing God - He is Our Dwelling Place

Ps 90:1

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

The Lord is not just a God we connect WITH, but a God we can run INTO.  He has been a dwelling place for all generations.  He has been available for everyone to go into and live and move and have their very existence IN Him.  The place in which we dwell is to be considered home, safe and the place from which we gain fortitude and positioning.  The Lord, Himself, is to be that dwelling place.  We are not to visit God as if He were a distant relative we see on certain holidays or if we happen to be in the vicinity of their dwelling place.  We must dwell in the Lord.  Move in and stay there.  Explore every room.  Enjoy every square inch and find that His love and ways are unsearchable.  We will never exhaust the discoveries of His great love, wisdom and companionship.  Oh Lord, be the dwelling place for us and our children as You have been for every generation!

Proverbs - Those Who Rule Over You

Proverbs 21:1

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

                              

Authority is directly under the influence of the Lord.  We must remember that our God is the King of kings and He is over all that are over all.  This does not mean that those in authority always make godly decisions but because the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, God will use their decisions for His purposes.  Our God is able to take any sort of decision and work it together for good. Like a river can go around obstacles and continue its course, the Lord takes His purposes around the stones of a king’s decisions and brings His will to its final end. This is why we must not resent authority but embrace the decisions that are handed down as tools in our God’s hand.  Our husbands, pastors, managers and even police officers are in the hand of the Lord.  When a certain boundary or restriction is put upon us, it would be good for us to present it to the Lord seeking how He wants to use it for our good.  This way we do not have to resist authority or feel helpless in the ramifications of authority’s decrees.  We can sense the safety and supremacy of our Lord.  We should pray for authority and then, unless they ask us to do something contrary to God’s Word, submit to their leadership trusting our Lord’s ability to use them to take us places we might never have gone without them.