Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, March 4th. It's natural to rely on yourself, but believers thrive most when our faith is in God alone. Here's part two of God's Guide to Life at Its Best. If you'll turn to Proverbs chapter three and the title of this message, God's Guide to Life at Its Best. Here's the passage of Scripture, two verses that all of us probably know by heart. And somehow we've never connected all the rest of those verses to these first two.
We can read all of this chapter, but I want us to begin in verse five and read through verse 12. The writer of Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.
Now most people stop right there, but listen to what he says. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce.
So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe his reproof. For whom the Lord loves he reproves, even as a father the son in whom he delights. Now listen, you can wrap up the whole Christian life in these passages. Here is a compass for your life. It doesn't make any difference who you are, what you do, where you do it, how many, how often, what your position.
It doesn't make any difference. Here is a very concise, infallible, dependable, reliable, trustworthy compass for all of life. Now remember that a compass has four primary directions, north, east, south and west. And so there are four particular points that I want to point out in this passage of scripture.
And the first one is this and I hope you'll be wise enough to write them down. The first one is this, and I'm referring to God's guide is verses five through twelve. God's guide is centered in our trusting him. God's guide is centered in our trusting him. Now listen to what he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. That is have confidence in, rely upon him, have faith in him. So what I want you to notice here is he says, first of all the object of this trust is the Lord God. The only one who is absolutely omniscient knows all things. The only one who is absolutely wise in every way.
And the only one who is omnipotent who can arrange every single circumstance of my life. He says it begins with centering your faith, your trust in him. The second point of this compass is this and that is that God's guide includes three requirements. That is I am to place my trust in him and the three things he requires of me.
Look at this passage. First of all he says in verse five, do not lean on your own understanding. And then look if you'll in verse seven, do not be wise in your own eyes.
So the three things that are required of me, first of all is required of me. Listen, to rely upon him only and not in my own wisdom and understanding. The second thing he says here that we are to do, we are to reverence him as our God.
Look at this, do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, he shall make your path straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord. Now what does he mean by fearing the Lord? The word fear as many times as it is used in the Bible, most of the time it refers to fearing God. Well that doesn't mean to be afraid of God, to be scared of him, but it means to reverence him, to stand in awe before him that we worship him and praise him and adore him and obey him. To fear God is to reverence God. If I do not respect and reverence and honor God, I cannot expect to be a wise man.
You cannot expect to be a wise woman because you see wisdom starts with reverencing Almighty God and fearing him. The beginning of wisdom the Bible says is the fear of God. Reverencing, respecting and acknowledge his rightful position as sovereign of the universe and one who has the right and the authority to dictate to me and to govern every single area of my life. But there's a third thing I want you to notice here and that is to reject evil. Listen to what he says, fear the Lord and turn away, listen, turn away from evil. Now all of us are going to face sins and evil in our life along the pathway of life.
We're going to be tempted with all kinds of things. He says, he doesn't say well if you'll just trust me there'll be no temptation, no trials, no heartaches, no burdens and no defeats. He just says we are to rely upon him, not our own wisdom. We're to reverence, respect and honor him as God and his rightful position and authority in our life. And thirdly, we're to reject the way of the flesh and the way of evil. If I want the wisdom of God then I must go to the compass and in this passage it's all right here together. The third thing I want you to notice here which is really a wonderful expression of God's love for us and that's this. That listen, God's guide, speaking of this passage, promises every believer the desires of your heart and there are three of them. And what he mentions here, every single one of us would say, yeah, right.
That is what I want in my life, absolutely correct. He says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Do not lean to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and what's the first promise? He will make your path straight or he will guide you. Can you tell me is there any area of your life in which you don't need clear guidance and clear direction?
Not a one. We need to know exactly what to do. So the first promise is very clear guidance. What is the second promise? Listen to what he says. Now some of you may have a little difficulty with this but listen now, first of all, look at this. Go back to verse seven. Do not be wise in your own eyes.
Fear the Lord, reverence him, turn away from evil and he says it will be healing to your body. You know what he says? He says, watch this, you cannot separate following and trusting God from good health. Now let me clarify something. I didn't say that everybody who is sick is living in sin.
I didn't say that. I didn't say that every disease is a result of sin. Now ultimately you can take it all the way back to the Garden of Eden than it is but I'm not saying that's true in someone's personal life. I do believe this that more than most of us would like to recognize and admit that the mistreatment of our body, disobeying God in wise uses of our body oftentimes result in sickness which ultimately is sin and disobedience. We know better when somebody knows not to eat certain things in their life because of what's going on in their physical body.
They do it anyway they get sick. You can't say, well, God, why did you do that to me? God would say, I didn't do it to you.
You did it to yourself. And so we can misuse the body and suffer the consequences and then there are probably things that happen in people's personal physical body that you can't say it's disobedience here, there, whatever. So I'm not saying that. I want to make that very clear. But I also want to make clear that God has linked up obedience to him and following him with good health.
You can't deny it. Listen to this. He says, when you and I trust in the Lord with all of our heart, leaning, knocked around, won't understand him in all of our ways, acknowledging him, he'll direct our path. When you and I are not wise in our own eyes but are fearing the Lord and turning away from evil, it, what will? All the things we just talked about will be healing to the body. So if there is sickness, the first step toward healing is obedience to God. And what he's saying here is that when you and I walk obediently before him, it is an asset to our health. He didn't say you'd never get sick, he says it is an asset to your health to walk obediently and follow his principle of full trust in him, not relying upon our own wisdom, referencing him, refusing evil and doing what? He says here's what you can expect.
You can expect clear guidance and you can expect good health. The third thing he says you can expect. Now watch this because here's what he said. You either believe the Bible or you don't.
And if you, and if you believe it, then my friend, you need to get a hold of this. Listen to what he says. Verse 9, honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. He says, now watch this. He says this is what you can expect when you put your full trust in me in every area of your life and you rely not upon your wisdom but upon my wisdom.
When you reverence me as God and allow me to dictate to your life what you should do and you turn away from evil. Now look at what he says. He says this is the way you do it. Now watch this because you see if you're not a tither and you don't give to God and to his work wherever you may go to church and whatever you may do, I want you to listen to what he says. He says honor the Lord, honor the Lord from your wealth. To honor him means that I am going to acknowledge what his will is and I'm going to be obedient. He says honor the Lord from your wealth and notice what he says. He says and from the first of all your produce, he says I don't want leftovers. Now watch this. I don't want leftovers.
Why? Because he isn't to be second, third, fourth or fifth in my life. Preeminent above everything else is God. He says honor me with your wealth from the first of your fruits.
That is don't give me what's left over after taxes and after groceries and after utilities and after payments and after mortgage. He says from the first fruits, why? Friend, he's God. Does he not rightfully deserve the best?
Off the top up front? This passage of scripture is a guide, a compass for every single solitary area of life and it is interesting to me that he zeroes in on the one area which is a pretty good indication of where we are because he says where your treasure is, that's where your hearts going to be. Where your hearts is, is that's where your treasure is going to be. He says you want life at its best, here's what you do. You put your full trust in him. Acknowledging him, trusting him in every area with all of your heart.
You don't rely upon human wisdom and understanding and listening to the world's counterfeit stuff. But you reverence him as God and you resist the ways of the world. Here's the heart of what living life at its best is all about. Placing my full trust in him in every area of my life. Relying upon him, reverencing him, resisting the devil and doing what? Expecting and anticipating what? Anticipating God's direction.
Believing that though I can't figure it out with a calculator and though I don't see my way clear and I don't know how in the world I'm going to be able to do this, that's not the issue. He didn't say see your way clear, he says trust me. And so many times I've had to get on my knees when I didn't know what to do next. And you know what, this is what I hear from God over and over and over again. This is the way he speaks to me. Just trust me. And I've learned over all these years that's enough. You still don't know what to do. I don't have to know what to do. He tells me what to do.
Just trust me. Now, you think, well, that should end that passage. No, it shouldn't because we're talking about four points of a compass, north, east, south, west. You got to have all four of them if you're going to have an accurate compass. What's the fourth point? Look at this.
He didn't miss a thing. God never does. God's guide involves the proper response to needed discipline.
Because it's going to come. So look at this passage now. Verse 11, my son, do not, listen, right after these blessings he says, now my son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe his reproof. For whom the Lord loves, he reproves even as the father of the son in whom he delights. Now, there are three things I want you to get down here. First of all, you can expect divine discipline.
You say, well, now wait a minute. What about all these blessings? Well, that's true, but you can expect divine discipline. Why should I expect it? Because we're not perfect. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to get in the flesh. We're going to be selfish. We're going to sin against God. He says expect divine discipline. The second thing I want you to jot down is embrace. We are to embrace it. You say, well, listen, when it's painful and it hurts and it stings or it imprisons and it's horrible, what do you mean embrace it? Well, you can only embrace it if you understand the purpose of discipline.
And what is the purpose? Remember this. God never disciplines his children to punish us or to get back at us or to take out some kind of vengeance on us. When God disciplines us, he disciplines us, first of all, motivated by love. But listen, watch this. Secondly, God's ultimate motivation for discipline us is correction for our good.
And I think most of the time he has the future in mind more than he does the present. And you see, this compass will not be complete without the correction because we're going to all make mistakes and fail. So first of all, I'm to expect to face discipline for my failures. Secondly, I am to embrace it. I am to remember that a loving father loves me enough to correct me when he sees me going in the wrong direction. The third thing I notice here is to be encouraged.
Listen to what he says. He says in verse 11, my son, don't reject the discipline of the Lord. Don't turn away from it. Don't loathe it. Don't hate it and despise his reproof. Why? For whom the Lord loves.
Look at that. For whom the Lord loves, he reproves, even as a father of the son in whom he delights. So what happens? We're moving along in life's journey, in his pathway, and we decide we're going to take ourselves a little detour because it looks better over here than over there.
What happens? The discipline of the Lord comes. And what's his goal? Verse 12 points not to verse 13 but back to verse 5 because look, what is his ultimate reason for reproving me and discipline me? To bring me back to do what? To trust in the Lord with all my heart, lead not to my own understanding and in all my ways acknowledge him. So he can direct my path. You see, north, east, south, west, the four points of the compass, they make up the whole. That passage of Scripture is a brief composite of how you and I are to live in order to experience life at its very, very best. And how is that?
Capsule, this is it. I'm to trust in the Lord with all my heart in every single area of my life. I'm not to lean to my own understanding and to my own wisdom, but I am to reverence him as my Lord and turn away from evil.
What I can expect is clear guidance in every decision, good health and prosperity. And when I fail, when I fall into selfishness, I can expect to be corrected out of love as a father that loves his son in order to bring me back to trusting in the Lord with all my heart, leaning not to my own understanding and my own wisdom and acknowledging him in everything so he can give me clear direction, give me good health and give me financial blessing. I don't know how you can make it any simpler than that.
And also where we are is that you and I are absolutely inexcusable. Here's where you start. You start in acknowledging that God is God and he has a right to govern your life. Secondly, you confess your sins to him and acknowledge that this God sent his only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the cross at Calvary.
And in so doing, he paid the sin debt for all of our mistakes and all of our sins. And therefore, when I receive the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior by faith and say, Lord Jesus, I do receive you as my personal savior, in that moment, sin is forgiven, you become a child of God and now you can begin life's journey with the real guide, always ahead, giving direction. You trust in the Lord with all your heart, not leaning to your own understanding and all your ways acknowledging him and so he can direct your path. Departing from evil. Listen, departing from evil because you fear the Lord and allowing him to bless you with clear guidance, good health, prosperity and accepting his reproof when it comes because, you know, his reproof is to get you back to full trust in him. That is God's guide for life at its very, very best.
And it's yours for the asking. Thank you for listening to part two of God's guide to life at its best. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
