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In Order. Confidence In God

June 9. Proverbs 19 – 21

 

Yesterday the devotional thought from Proverbs 16 was to plan your life in a direction towards God rather than planning how to achieve or accomplish particular goals in life. The goal is to always move in a direction with God, and His plans for your life will be revealed and your life achievements will be revealed along the way.

Now today’s devotional reading contains another three chapters of practical steps that can be taken to move in the right direction with God. Take a step today. What will that step be? What is one thing, out of the wealth of wisdom contained in these chapters, that you can do today? What jumped off the page when you read these chapters?  Well now go and do it. Follow that instruction. Replace your old way of reacting or thinking with God’s perspective on the issue. Believe that it is God’s Spirit, using His Word, to show you your next step.

But what if you have not been able to read all three chapters today? What is your next step in your life’s plan? Consider this verse, as it contains what could very well be a universal desire of every human being: the pursuit of life, happiness, and protection from harm.

 

19:23 Reverence for God gives life, happiness, and protection from harm.

 

Life, happiness, and protection from harm, what a great life to have! Individuals have exhausted their lives in pursuit of those three treasures. And many a life has expired in that pursuit without ever having attained them.

If your life plan is simplified to reverencing God, moving with Him and in His direction, rather than pursuing life, then happiness and protection from harm will be the end result.  You attain everything! Your reverence (your pursuit) will produce what you used to pursue – life, happiness, and protection from harm.

So what does it mean to reverence God? First consider the opposite of reverence in order to understand reverence; hatred, disdain, disloyalty, and contempt. Now with that as a backdrop consider this concept of reverence for God: applying your knowledge of His majesty and character to your life; thus causing your walk in life to now reflect confidence in God.

That line of thinking goes squarely against the “success for dummies” books and webinars that fill your horizon. But the return for living your life in a way that reflects your confidence in God rather than a confidence in yourself, position, title, status, possessions, portfolios or accomplishments, is what you are most likely pursuing in the first place: life, happiness, and protection from harm.

Simplify your life. Take a step today that reflects your confidence in God and Him alone, and you will have taken a step towards that life, happiness, and protection that you have always wanted.