back-to-basics

Proverbs 2

By Pastor Sarah

We seem to be living in very interesting days where right and wrong are no longer absolutes, but rather they shift and change to fit the whim of the individual. What is right to me is wrong for you, and what seems wrong to me is right to you. Make sense? So, how will we know what is actually right, and fair, and just? How will we teach our children what is right, and fair, and just when society says to decide for yourself what that means and how that looks? Well the answer is in today’s passage, Proverbs 2.

The chapter begins by telling us to turn our ear to wisdom and to apply our hearts to truly understanding. We are also told to call out and cry aloud for insight and understanding and to look high and low and truly search it out as we would a very costly and important item. We’re told in verse 5 and 6 that if we do this – if we listen, work at it, call out, cry aloud, look, search that we will “find the knowledge of God for the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

Not only does God have all the knowledge and wisdom that we need, but He also has the understanding. He helps us to read His word, the Bible, and understand it and then apply it to our lives. He speaks to us in a way that is plain to us so that we understand and know how to put that into practice. The idea isn’t that we gain knowledge so that we can all be geniuses, but so that it will affect the way we live. What good is it to have all the knowledge in the world but use none of it in day-to-day living? That would be like reading every cookbook ever written, but then never stepping foot in a kitchen to cook anything! God gives us knowledge and wisdom when we ask so that we can learn and know and put it into practice.

Verse 9 says, “Then you will understand what is right and just and fair.” How will we know what is right in a world gone wrong? We’ll listen to God and to His word, apply ourselves to really understanding it, we’ll ask God for wisdom, look and search it out, we’ll dig deep into His word and then we’ll know what is right, what is just, and what is fair.

The best way to know what’s right and wrong is to read God’s word and ask Him for understanding and then apply it to our lives. Live out God’s word and He’ll help you know what is right and just and fair.