God loves us. Because He does, He provides wisdom – when we seek Him – that leads to righteousness. This devotion looks at how we navigate the ways of righteousness to strengthen our relationships with Him.
Nuggets
- We get to where God wants us to be by using wisdom to reason out what He is wanting us to understand as we seek Him.
- Only God gives us lasting wealth and righteousness.
- The results of wisdom are a closer relationship with God.
- God judges us daily because He hates sin.
The problem with Proverbs is that, for most of Proverbs, each verse is independent of the verses around them. That is great for memorizing them. It makes it really hard to teach them.
That is what I thought when I started digging into these verses. I thought I was going to have to call this devotion Proverbs Potpourri.
But digging in, I do see the connect – at least in these verses. Walk along with me.
Let's Put It into Context
Wisdom is knowledge, discernment, and good sense that leads to goodness and virtue, which can be applied to life.
So far, Solomon has told us
- It isn’t enough to just have the wisdom — head knowledge isn’t enough.
- Our wisdom has to align with God’s if we are going to flourish in the world.
- We are righteous because we are free from sin by following God’s moral laws.
- Wisdom is to be prized above religion.
To read a related devotion, click on the appropriate button below.
Love Is
“I love those who love me, and those who search for me find me” (Prob. 8: 17 CSB)
Love is an emotion. Emotions are, according to the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, “a subjective response to a person, thing, or situation.” Feelings are an emotional state.
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Wisdom employs more than just an emotional response. It has to get to the knowledge part. The mind and the heart have to work together to get where God is wanting us to be.
That sounds like it will be a struggle, doesn’t it? That seems like we are talking objective and subjective here.
We get to where God wants us to be by using wisdom to reason out what He is wanting us to understand as we seek Him. Once we understand what we are supposed to, we have to take the rest on faith. Faith is the belief that the doctrines stated in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them.
Unfortunately, the worldview tries to get us to believe we have to understand everything. Not. Going. To. Happen. God’s level of understanding is way above our pay grade.
But let’s look at this another way. God loves us.
Yes, God loves the non-believers, but He has a special place in His heart for those who love Him. Jesus said, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (Jn. 14: 21 ESV).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Glossary
How has God shown us He loves us? God designed the plan of salvation to restore us even before we were created and committed the first sin. Jesus showed He loved us by accomplishing that plan at great personal cost.
If you have not admitted that your relationship is not right with God,
have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior,
and have not confessed your sins,
please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
Isn’t that the way it works? We get love because we love. We get wisdom because we love wisdom. Taylor wrote
- “Wisdom loves such as love her.
- “Wisdom must be sought for early and diligently.
- “Such as seek for wisdom diligently shall find her.”
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We have to remember that this is wisdom talking in these verses. Those who seek wisdom will be rewarded with love.
We know that God loves us first. He loved us before the foundation of the world, because that is when He devised the plan of salvation.
Glossary
We just have to seek God until we find Him. Nah, He isn’t playing hide and seek with us. He wants us to find Him.
God knows we’ve got a lot to work out so that we can totally submit to His Will. He will give us the time we need to make a conscious decision to follow Him.
But that means we have to diligently seek Him. Diligence is a consistent, persistent effort. If we consistently seek wisdom, we will find it.
Devotions in the Consistency Needed for Spiritual Growth series
But what does it mean to seek wisdom early? Seeking wisdom must be a priority.
It goes a step further, though. We seek Him, and then we change our character. We don’t let it be a surface thing. We bring it down to our core — to our heart. Making a profession of faith while we are young is easier, as we are developing our character.
But we are not up a creek if we are no longer young and haven’t made a profession of faith. As long as God is calling us, we can choose Him.
Riches Are
“With me are riches and honor, lasting wealth and righteousness” (Prob. 8: 18 CSB)
Many like to think we get riches and honor through our jobs. Oh, yeah. There are some good-paying, prestigious jobs around these days. That makes us feel like we are in control.
Yes, we can use our wealth to support very worthy causes. We should support appropriate Save the Kids, Save the Animals, and Save the World organizations.
The problem is that jobs don’t bring us lasting wealth. When we die, the wealth does not go with us.
The organizations don’t bring us righteousness. Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments. It is more the right principles under which we live.
Unless we are supporting a faith-based organization, those Save the … organizations aren’t expanding God’s kingdom. In some cases, they may even be championing the worldview that we are in and can control of this earth.
Only God gives us lasting wealth and righteousness. Hayley wrote, “Whatever is true and substantial happiness even in this life has a necessary dependence upon morality and religion. Wealth and riches are but heavy encumbrances and unprofitable lumber if they are not made use of to reward the good, to excite the diligent, and to relieve the oppressed.”
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Yeah, I know. Hayley said religion. Religion alone can’t get you the lasting wealth and righteousness. It can’t be lip-service religion.
Our efforts have to be working to establish a genuine relationship with God. It is getting the obedience to the heart level, so we change our character to be like His.
That is what God is going to reward.
Doing that means seeking God like we talked about in the last section. (Woo hoo. There is a connect!)
Hayley said it all boiled down to piety. Piety is defined as reverence and blameless.
Ooo. I like Hayley’s definition of piety. He wrote, “Piety is the habitual practice of moral and Divine virtues, each one of which has a tendency to enrich its followers, e.g., industry, temperance, humility, brotherly love, liberality, and charity.”
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Yes, that has all the components. Habitual. Practice. Virtues. Enriching us.
Hayley reminded us of one more thing. Whatever riches we get in this life isn’t because of what we do. It is because God has gifted us with them.
Righteousness (or piety) doesn’t come because we are good people. It only comes when we are submitted to God.
Fruit Is
“My fruit is better than solid gold, and my harvest than pure silver” (Prob. 8: 19 CSB)
At first glance, we may think this is the fruit of our labors. It isn’t.
Remember, wisdom is talking here. (Talking to myself there.)
The results of wisdom are better than the riches we gain in this world. Wisdom’s harvest is better, also, because it is a harvest for God’s kingdom.
The results are a closer relationship with God. We have gained the righteousness because we have faithfully navigated the sanctification road.
Glossary
Nothing is going to be greater than or sweeter than the blessings that God has in store for us. Yes, we may get some here in this life. Eternal life is the sweetest reward. That is what we are looking for in the future.
Righteousness Is
"I walk in the ways of the righteousness, along the paths of justice, giving wealth as an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries” (Prob. 8: 20-21 CSB)
Wisdom leads to “… the ways of righteousness …” (Prov. 8: 20 CSB). When we follow God’s wisdom and follow Jesus, we, too, “… walk in the ways of righteousness …” (Prov. 8: 20 CSB).
Philpot told us how Jesus leads us in righteousness.
• He leads us to follow God’s laws and commandments.
• When we imitate Jesus’ sincerity, we are exhibiting righteousness.
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Oh yeah, we are still judged even though we are disciples. Why? Because we still sin. Sin is actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
God judges us daily because He hates sin. He does this so that we can cut out the sin which we navigate the sanctification road.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Yeah, sometimes it hurts when God is cutting the sin out of us. But He doesn’t do it maliciously.
Jesus takes the lead. Philpot wrote, “He leads by setting up a court of judicature in the heart, arraigning the soul at its bar; not with vengeance, as punishing a criminal, but as a parent, after the child has been playing truant all day.” It is all done through love.
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It is through that love that we gain our inheritance. Our inheritance is our reward for doing God’s Will: The Holy Spirit, eternal life and the kingdom.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Making the Connections
Walking in the way of righteousness through wisdom isn’t easy. We have to have evidence that we are on the sanctification road. We have to show that we are changing our character to imitate God’s.
Glossary
Having the character of God can be difficult because of our sinful physical nature. Cornwall wrote, “The duties which seem to bear hardest upon human nature are repentance, mortification, contempt of this world, loving our enemies, suffering persecution for righteousness’ sake, and the like; which do all recommend themselves to our minds by their reasonableness.”
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Repentance is expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
Mortify means to place a death penalty on our sins. But many times, we like to keep our pet sins. We think it is okay for us to submit the big sins but okay to keep the little ones.
Glossary
But God wants all of them cut out.
It is really hard to give up this world to the point we show contempt of it. That doesn’t mean we are to hate our lives and everything in this world.
Instead, we are not to be “… conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind, so that [we] may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12: 2 CSB).
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
It is really hard to love our enemies, but it is really important. Christian perfection is achieving the two greatest commandments.
“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mt. 22: 35-39 ESV).
Glossary
We just have to make sure that we love God’s way, not the world’s way. They are two different ways.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We can expect to suffer persecution on the way of righteousness. It will increase as Satan takes more and more control of this world.
How Do We Apply This?
We’ve said that faith is believing without full understanding. Cornwall wrote, “Faith is no hasty and blind credulity, but a sober and rational assent of mind, built upon sure and solid principles. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment.
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If it is rational, that means it is well thought out and considered. It is a conscious decision based in sound moral judgment.
How do we gain sound moral judgment? We gain knowledge and wisdom.
How do we gain that? We seek God.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Mannyngham hit the nail on the head. He wrote, “The first rule for the more prudent conduct of a religious life is, not to engage in things which are above our sphere.”
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We aren’t on God’s level of understanding. We have to give up the desire to be so.
Yes, I see the way of righteousness through wisdom and the sanctification road as one and the same. Luckily, we don’t walk this road by ourselves. God is always with us.
Sovereign God. You are righteous. You call us to be. We are not, but as we navigate the sanctification road, we become more like You. Give us Your wisdom so that we can make the correct decisions to draw us even closer to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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