Thursday, September 24, 2015

We come in our study of the fear of the Lord in Proverbs to the last amplifying point under the theme: When you fear the Lord your life will change – you’ll be blessed. I considered leaving this point out because it can introduce a wrong motive and a false expectation for living as we should. But Solomon includes it in Proverbs because he observed that it generally happens. Consider Proverbs 22:4, “Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth...” It’s not true that every Christian who reverently submits themselves to God will automatically be wealthy. But it is true that God can trust such a person with wealth, and He often does. Why He doesn’t always do this is not clear. But it could be that if everyone who is in tune with God became wealthy many would take that step of commitment with the wrong motive and end up disappointed because with God motives are important (Proverbs 16:2). God wants to bless us with Himself. Wealth often gets in the way and disappoints. Listen to Proverbs 15:16, “Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.” That turmoil is often seen when a family estate is broken up between offspring. Some of the ugliest battles are over the distribution of a family estate. Why? Paul put his finger on it in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." If God has blessed you materially, humbly thank Him and use it for His glory. If He hasn’t, thank Him anyway, for His watch-care over you.