Proverbs 3:5 Faith not knowledge

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

I now see the meaning of this whole verse. Our whole goal in reading the bible is definitely not to know all about it. If there are things we don’t understand, we just let it go because God will eventually reveal things to you. If you’re ambition is to gain answers, what ends up happening is you become consumed in finding it while you forget the true aspect of Christianity, love God. So what if you don’t know who He is at that instance. What you need to know is the Jesus Christ and His crucifixion. Anything beyond that is showing you how to obey that command, which we know is to love God and others. Today, I came to a big failure in trying to seek understanding rather than seeking applications that the word always gives us. It was a bummer to see how everything ended, but you must learn now and ask yourself everytime you read, am I doing this to learn how to obey or am I reading to know what these things mean?

As the Psalmist writes in 119:34
Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.

Judges 7 Gideon

It’s an interesting chapter, especially with what’s happening to me right now.

Gideon seems to be a man of much doubt. This is the guy who, like Moses, doesn’t think he’s the right guy for the job (Judges 6:14-15), tests the Lord constantly (6:17, 36-39), and seems to be afraid, even when the Lord tells him to do these thing (6:27, 7:10).

What I find interesting, and the thing that hits so close to home is the fact that God takes away confidence and adds to an already doubtful situation. Gideon probably has in the back of his head, “yo… I’m in the weakest clan and I’m the weakest in my family…we’re screwed,” and yet, the Lord takes his confidence away even more (the men of his army who started at 23,000 and dwindled down to 300 against a camp of Midianites).

*Now we have to see that AFTER Gideon accepts and does these commands, the Lord comes and gives reassurance/encouragement (7:10-15).*

Are we willing to let our confidence go if the Lord commands it? Are we willing to put ourselves in a position where it seems to be too much (that’s in line with God’s will)? As with Moses, the Lord seems to give confirmation after doing His word.

Leap of faith. Even if it don’t make sense.

Prov 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

1 Corinthians 10:32-33 Think before you do…

1 Cor 10:32-33
32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Going back to v23, Everything is permissible but does it build and love on others? When you think about it, your natural instinct is to be selfish, get things for you and to do things for yourself. If you don’t think about how to love other people, it’s going to end up as a selfish deed (Phil 2:3, 1 cor 10:24) and that can end up causing others to stumble. v33 confirms what I’m saying in that Paul isn’t trying to live for himself, but for the many.

An interesting conversation came up one day ending with me and a friend saying we’re people pleasers. It’s interesting to see that Paul, himself, was a people pleaser, but our ambitions were completely different. My goal was set on people to like me while his ambition is to get others to see God through him and be saved. With this comes application. Where is your heart every time you serve or do things to please people? Is it on self glory or praise from men (Gal 1:10) or will it be for them to see God through you so that they may be saved?

Every time you do something, think about it and ask yourself the basic question: will it build them up? Every time you say something, think about it: will it build them up? (Prov 15:28 says The heart of the righteous weighs (ponders NASB) its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.) Think before you do…