Among the many many sayings within the ebook of Proverbs is one which pastor Charles Bridges known as the polestar of the Christian life—that’s, the fastened level within the sky by which one is ready to navigate when no different landmark is in sight. In 4 traces, it reads as follows:
Belief within the LORD with all of your coronary heart,
and don’t lean by yourself understanding.
In all of your methods acknowledge him,
and he’ll make straight your paths. (Prov. 3:5–6)
Who’s the Lord of whom this verse speaks? When you’re studying this, you doubtless already know that the Lord is the God of the universe. He’s the one to whom Scripture introduces us, the one who created the heavens and earth, the one who made his covenant with Abraham, the one who despatched Moses to steer the Israelites, and the one who got here because the God-man, Jesus Christ, to supply His physique as a sacrifice for sin.
However what does it really imply to belief in this God? Let’s think about the reply from a biblical perspective.
Believing’s Not Sufficient
The basic, clichéd illustration of belief is the belief fall: One individual dons a blindfold, folds her arms, and chooses to fall backward within the expectation that her associate will catch her. Anybody who has been via that train understands that there’s a distinction between belief and perception. It’s not arduous to imagine somebody’s there behind you (neither is it unimportant); it might be arduous to belief they’ll catch you.
So it’s with God: It’s potential to imagine in God and but to not belief Him. Many put their belief in somebody or one thing aside from God—their grade level common, materials possessions, sporting achievements, or a love curiosity. Normally, it’s solely when issues go south that we start to see that nonetheless a lot we imagine, now we have didn’t put our belief in God in any respect.
The primary query to ask ourselves, then, is that this: “Do I belief God, or do I merely imagine that He’s there? Do I hearken to His Phrase and comply with it? Is God the inspiration I’m constructing my life upon? Or when grades plummet, my associates flip in opposition to me, or an damage sends me to the bench, will I discover that the rug has been pulled from beneath me and left me flat on my again?”
A Little’s Not Sufficient
Proverbs additionally teaches us that belief in God is to be “with all of your coronary heart.” It’s to be all-encompassing—simply as you’ll hope for in a love relationship. There’s no sense of the previous humorous Valentine’s Day couplet: “My coronary heart is sort of a cabbage divided into two: The guts I give to others, and the leaves I’ll give to you.” Who receives that Valentine with a smile? If this relationship of belief is to work, it will possibly’t be something lower than every part.
Belief in God can also be to be unique—or, as Proverbs places it, “Don’t lean by yourself understanding.” In different phrases, we’re to not depend on our personal perception. That doesn’t imply we shouldn’t assume or attempt to make good selections. Reasonably, it’s to say that when our instinct factors us a method and the Phrase of God factors us one other manner, one is a extra reliable information than the opposite.
For this reason Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “Search first the dominion of God and his righteousness, and all these items shall be added to you.” God primarily says to every of us, “You concentrate on what’s everlasting, and I’ll maintain what’s short-term.” It’s so tempting to show that the wrong way up and say with the voice of our surrounding tradition, “God helps those that assist themselves!” However no—our accountability is to set out on God’s path and belief Him to maintain us. We aren’t to demand that He comply with in our steps and cater to our needs.
Meandering Is Not the Aim
Subsequent, discover that Proverbs 3:6 reads, “He’ll make straight your paths,” not “He’ll make nice your paths.” God doesn’t promise to provide us what we wish once we need it. The trail of knowledge is usually the trail of self-denial.
Strolling the straight path means strolling the trail of knowledge that God has laid out. In {golfing} phrases, we’d put it like this: Keep on the green. Once you get out of bounds, knowledge says, “Take your penalty, and get again into the place you got here from.” Don’t compound the state of affairs, mendacity about your stroke or shifting the ball. Belief in God’s forgiveness, make amends with the Lord and people offended, and resolve to stroll consistent with the Phrase. God’s manner is totally good. You’ll by no means go unsuitable should you go proper alongside the pathway that’s straight to the aim.
It’s potential to imagine in God and but to not belief Him.
Does this instruction sound like moralism? It might err in that manner, for certain—which is why we should not stroll on that pathway in our personal energy. Reasonably, we’re to take action in Christ (that’s, on the credit score of His righteous life and within the purity of His cleaning blood) and within the Spirit (that’s, via the facility that’s at work inside us). That’s the mindset we discover Paul encouraging in Philippians 2:12–13: “Work out your personal salvation with concern and trembling; for God is at work in you, each to will and to work for his good pleasure.” In different phrases, we work out that which God works in us by the Holy Spirit.
God’s promise to us is that once we set out hearts on Him totally, He’ll assist us to stroll in His knowledge and to do as He says. Whereas the world chases after riches and pleasures, God’s individuals set their toes on the trail of God’s knowledge, they usually discover the nice life there.
Graduating with Your AUG
When Jim Elliot was at Wheaton Faculty, earlier than he gave his life for the Gospel within the jungles of Ecuador, he professed that he was not learning for his BA a lot as for his AUG—that’s, to indicate himself “accepted unto God,” because the King James Model of two Timothy 2:15 so memorably places it. He believed that he may belief in God with all of his coronary heart. He believed that what God had for him was God’s greatest.
The world appears to be like on his destiny as a tragedy—a dismal finish to a silly (or, at greatest, unusual) quest. However the Christian asks, “How does God see it?” Jim Elliot walked the straight path to the tip, within the very footsteps of Christ. “Rejoice and be glad,” the Lord Jesus absolutely mentioned to him, “to your reward is nice in heaven, for therefore males persecuted the prophets who had been earlier than you” (Matt. 5:12).
Whereas the world chases after riches and pleasures, God’s individuals set their toes on the trail of God’s knowledge, they usually discover the nice life there.
You might not be known as to anyplace as far off or inhospitable because the distant Amazon. However the place you go, you’ll have to make the identical sorts of choices that Elliot did: Will you present your self “accepted unto God” or unto the world? Will you belief Him with all of your coronary heart, or will you lean by yourself understanding? Will you let Him lead you on the straight path?
This text was tailored from the sermon “A Phrase to Excessive Faculty Graduates” by Alistair Begg.
