Proverbs 2:1-5 “My son, if you will receive my words and treasure my
commandments within you, make your ear
attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for
understanding; If you seek her as silver
and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then
you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge
of God.”
Our church started a Sunday Sermon series in preparation for
Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. In this special Worship Service with
Communion, we visited prayer stations within the Sanctuary as Praise music
played. I wanted to share one of the messages that was given at that service
with you today.
Condition #1: A Commitment to Obedience
If you will receive my words... (Prov. 2:1, NAS)
Put simply, that means you don't ignore and cast away the commands of God. With
the intention to obey Him fully, you set your heart to say yes. Deliberate
disobedience quenches the Holy Spirit. Remember, He is the only One who can
reveal Jesus to you. If He is quenched and grieved, you'll not receive His
revelation of our dear Lord Jesus. You can't offend the Holy Spirit and drive
Him away, and still expect Him to make Jesus known to your heart in a greater
way.
Most of us are immature spiritually, but that is not at all the same as being
rebellious. Nor is it the same as raising your fist toward heaven, saying
"No! I'm not obeying in this area. I want to do my will, and I don't care
if it's wrong. I'm doing it anyway!" You can ask for Spirit-revelation of
God all you want to, but if you're deliberately disobedient, prayer will get
you nowhere. Prayer is no substitute for the intention to obey. If you want to
know Jesus intimately, you must receive the sayings of the Lord in your heart
without purposefully resisting the Holy Spirit.
Are there areas of deliberate disobedience in your life? Make a consistent
resolution to confess and resist sinful areas. Realize that God looks more at
the sincerity of your motives to obey than at your actual attainment of spiritual
maturity. Remember: One deliberate sin persisted in is fatal to the spiritual
growth of the soul. Deliberate sin blocks spiritual progress and hinders your
walk with the Lord. There's no substitute for a life of obedience.
Condition #2: A Life of Meditation on the Word of God
If you will...treasure my commandments within you... (Prov. 2:1, NAS)
Notice that it's the treasuring of God's commandments, not the accumulation of
knowledge. Knowledge, even Bible knowledge, is not neutral. If you and I are not
longing to be pleasing to the Lord, if we're driven by pride and our goal is
simply to gain more knowledge of the Scriptures through a little intellectual
exercise, we run the risk of coming out calloused and hardened like the Pharisees.
Treasuring God's commandments means conversing and interacting with the Person
of Jesus who is the Author of those words. We do that through meditating on the
Scriptures. It's difficult to grow in intimacy with Jesus without a commitment
to regular meditation on the Scripture. I can't tell you how discouraged I am
sometimes as I talk with people and discover how few ever meditate even one
hour on the Scriptures in the course of a week's time. They say, "I'm just
so busy, Brother." Being too busy to meditate at length on the Scriptures
is okay during an unusual week with a crisis, but we must not let it become the
habit of our lives. We will not be adequately equipped to grow in the deep
things of God if we do not have the Word of God treasured in our hearts. The
Word and the Spirit go together.
We need to see the value of meditating on the Word so we regularly schedule
time for it. Without this aspect of God's grace, we will never grow
substantially--not in 10 weeks or 10 years. My use of time is as serious to me
as anything in my life. When others ask me to do something else during the time
I've blocked out for prayer and meditation, I usually say, "No, I have an
appointment. I'm busy." I consider time with God as being a real
appointment, and I don't want to neglect Him or keep Him waiting. I realize God
is more patient with me than others with whom I have appointments, and I know
He will forgive me for skipping our appointed time together. But I value our
times of intimate communion, and I don't want to miss them. He is more
important to me than any other person I meet with.
A gentle word of warning is in order here. Weak meditation on the Scriptures
eventually leads to both weak courage and weak obedience. Can you and I really
afford a life of weak meditation that bears the bitter fruit of weak courage
and weak obedience? No. No. No. This is an hour when God's people must be
strong in courage and equally strong in careful obedience. A life with a strong
priority on meditation in the Scriptures is absolutely vital.
Condition #3: A Teachable Spirit
Incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding... (Prov.
2:2, NKJV)
An inclined, attentive ear and an applied heart speak of a teachable spirit.
Obedience and meditation are important if we want to experience intimacy with
the Lord, but a teachable spirit is also essential. I've met a number of very
earnest people who had stubborn spirits and were not teachable before God or
man. That's deadly because the absence of a teachable spirit will hinder us in
terms of growing in the intimate knowledge of God. An unteachable,
"know-it-all" spirit will quench the Holy Spirit, and eventually our
spiritual hunger will wane and die out.
We are to be teachable, to have the patient hearts of learners. Being teachable
is actually a greater challenge for some Christians than being obedient or
scheduling time to meditate. Isaiah 66:2 says, "...To this one I will
look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My
Word" (NAS). The Lord is looking for the heart of a learner. If we have
teachable spirits, the Lord can bring us into any truth we are lacking.
Condition #4: A Revelation of the Knowledge of God
Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for
understanding... (Prov. 2:3, NKJV)
Crying out in this way means actually praying to receive more wisdom and
insight into the splendor of God's personhood. We are exhorted many times in
the Scriptures to cry out for a deeper revelation of the knowledge of God's
personality. Paul's first prayer in the great Ephesian epistle was for the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God to fill the believers
in Ephesus
(Eph. 1:17). If it is something we really desire, we will not rest or stop
crying out until we receive it. If you go without asking for it, you will end
up living without it.
Condition #5: An Abandoned Heart Searching for Divine
Treasures
If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures... (Prov.
2:4, NKJV)
What if someone guaranteed you that a million dollar check was rolled up
tightly and hidden somewhere inside an old, abandoned house, and it would be
all yours if you found it? Am I right in supposing you wouldn't leave a board
or a brick unturned until you found it, no matter how long it took? You would
be there searching before and after your regular day's work. You would
rearrange your social calendar. You would reset priorities and make all sorts
of sacrifices until you found that hidden treasure because you'd made up your
mind you were not going to live without it.
That same principle applies in your walk with God: Whatever you can live
without in God, you may often go without. Whatever truth you decide you cannot
live without, you will eventually obtain (see Matt. 7:7,8). If there is truth in
God you absolutely refuse to live without, something you are willing to apply
all your heart and mind to obtain, you will have it in due time, whether it's
in one year or 20.
Many people have attended college and graduate school for
eight or ten years or more, laboring for degrees that are the prize possessions
in their professions. Their dedication and perseverance were considered normal.
If an individual with that degree of determination in God ever becomes
insatiably hungry for Jesus, he or she will sacrifice everything to gain deeper
knowledge of the Pearl
of great price.
It's very valid to pray for spiritual passion, for consuming zeal, for a
release of insatiable hunger in your heart, for holy thoughts and godly
desires. It's valid to pray that you might see and feel what the Father sees
and feels when He beholds His dear Son. It's valid to cry out for intimacy with
the Person who feeds you from His own hand, the Person who guards your soul,
the Person who gives you wisdom and revelation, the Person from whose mouth
comes knowledge and understanding.
The Apostle Paul called Jesus Christ "the wisdom of God...in whom are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (1 Cor. 1:24; Col. 2:3)." Once
again we're brought full circle: We receive more discernment and understanding
of Jesus by pursuing and cultivating intimacy with Jesus.
Then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. (Prov. 2:5, NAS)
In Christ, Brian