No Mysteries Here

[Christ4Ever]

Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge, That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, That you may answer words of truth To those who send to you? Proverbs 22:20-21 NKJV

Some aspects of scripture are hard to understand. The frightful visions of the book of Revelation come quickly to mind.

But most instructions for living are quite plain. The things God wants us to do, the things that make us holly (set apart to Him), are not mysterious at all. For example, these “thirty sayings” in Proverbs 22-24. “Haven’t I told you clearly,” Solomon essentially said to his son, “how to be honest and good?”

The sayings address many issues found elsewhere in Proverbs, just in greater detail—rather than a thought-provoking two-liner, these sayings may be two or three or four times as long. All of them, like the moral teaching of the entire Bible, are designed to improve our own lives, bless others around us, and honor our Creator.

God has made His expectations plain. Having seen His rules and requirements in black and white, we now have a choice to make: to obey and be blessed, or to go our own way and reap the consequences. Human as we are, we might struggle to humbly follow God’s instructions. But we can never honestly argue that His desires are mysterious.

Prayer: Lord, help me to follow scripture’s plain instructions while entrusting the truly mysterious to You.

 

[Twistie]

Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge, That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, That you may answer words of truth To those who send to you? Proverbs 22:20-21 NKJV

Some aspects of scripture are hard to understand. The frightful visions of the book of Revelation come quickly to mind.

But most instructions for living are quite plain. The things God wants us to do, the things that make us holly (set apart to Him), are not mysterious at all. For example, these “thirty sayings” in Proverbs 22-24. “Haven’t I told you clearly,” Solomon essentially said to his son, “how to be honest and good?”

The sayings address many issues found elsewhere in Proverbs, just in greater detail—rather than a thought-provoking two-liner, these sayings may be two or three or four times as long. All of them, like the moral teaching of the entire Bible, are designed to improve our own lives, bless others around us, and honor our Creator.

God has made His expectations plain. Having seen His rules and requirements in black and white, we now have a choice to make: to obey and be blessed, or to go our own way and reap the consequences. Human as we are, we might struggle to humbly follow God’s instructions. But we can never honestly argue that His desires are mysterious.

Prayer: Lord, help me to follow scripture’s plain instructions while entrusting the truly mysterious to You.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.

9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:

11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Twistie

 

[Christ4Ever]

Dear Sister @Twistie
Thank-you for sharing additional scripture on this devotional!

With the Love of Christ Jesus.
YBIC
Nick
\o/
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