This past Sunday we covered quite a few chapters as we had no class on July 4th. I hope everyone had a great holiday! Thank you Lord for the freedoms in our country and for having your hand on it's inception!
Since we had a break, here are a few "class reminders": 1) Remember to be in touch with your accountability group every week by email, phone or snail mail. 2) Remember to journal...this will be wonderful for getting your thoughts down on paper NOW as you are reading. Jot down any verses that speak to you (many will!) and also jot down your thoughts, prayers, petitions to God about those passages in your journal. When you go back and read them later, it will be interesting to see what you said then and what you think presently when you re-read Proverbs, which I hope you will do time and time again! 3) Remember to pick out a verse or passage that is particularly special to you and MEMORIZE IT. We will recite these to each other in accountability groups each week, so the verse(s) you memorize will change weekly and should come from the current reading for the week. This way you can have 9 passages memorized over the course of our class. 4) Remember to designate a section of your journal or create a new book to serve as your Scripture Resource. Determine the titles that are accurate to the various passages you're reading, then jot down passages that relate to that title on that page in your journal. For example, this week I highlighted that Prv. 6:1-5 speaks to NOT becoming a co-signer for anyone on a loan. This clearly speaks to "financial wisdom", so on your journal page titled "Financial Wisdom", list this passage and a brief synopsis or description: "don't co-sign on a loan". Continue to do this with as many passages as you can, especially with those passages that speak to you, and you will develop a great reference of Scripture when issues arise. For more detail see paragraph 5 of the blog "Class 1 Recap" posting.
Sunday night we reviewed Proverbs 5-9 and discussed "Wisdom in Sexual Integrity" and "Wisdom in Relational Integrity." Chapters 5-7 have Solomon discussing the dangers of adultery and the lure of the harlot. He pleads to the reader to "drink water from your own cistern...let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth" in 5:15a, 18. In other words keep sex within your marriage and do not stray from it. Stay sexually pure before and during marriage so as to bring glory to God with how He designed marriage to be. We can all succumb to wandering eyes and impure thoughts. That's part of our sin-nature from birth. Work on keeping those eyes straight ahead (4:25) and guard your thoughts, what you see, what you say, what you do. Remember the little kids song "Be careful little eyes what you see"? Each verse of that song speaks about those body parts we mentioned last week that can bring sin into our hearts, minds, and lives. Yes we're all grown up now, but do not forsake the teachings of your youth. Those childhood lessons, songs, etc. still have application today for us as adults. We want to be sure to have integrity with our sexuality, whether married or single, and not end up like the harlot described in Chapter 7. Once we start sliding on the slippery slope of sex before marriage or entertain thoughts of another other than our own husband...we are in trouble! Pray, pray, then PRAY some more, seek counseling and accountability, and most importantly get into God's Word so as to flee from the temptation before you. If you have fallen into this sin of adultery or pre-martial sex, you can be redeemed! Amen, thank you Jesus! Repent, seek reconciliation, and move forward. A great book I highly recommended on Sunday, especially for married couples but also great for singles, is "His Needs, Her Needs" by Williard F. Harley. Check it out! (FYI--Details on the sexual needs of men and women are given.)
Chapter 6:16-19 speaks of the 7 things the Lord hates and finds an abomination. These are strong words and should be taken as such! This key passage shows us what to avoid in order to have relational integrity. Use the armor of God and the fruit of the Spirit (see Week 2 Recap) to prevent yourself from having 1) a proud/haughty look, 2) a lying tongue, 3) hands that shed innocent blood, 4) a heart that devises wicked plans, 5) feet swift in running to evil, 6) a false witness who speaks lies, and 7) a person who sow discord among brethren (i.e. fellow Christians male and female). Avoid these abominations by praying on the armor of God DAILY so as to protect yourself. In addition, remember the fruit of the Spirit? We all have each of the 9 descriptors of the "fruit" in us, if we are Christians, thanks to the Holy Spirit. We must practice the "fruit" in our lives and in the areas we are weak, we must work on them in order to have the self-control (#9) to remain pure and to maintain our integrity. We also should practice Godly holiness by watching our speech, attire, even our body language. Seek to be above reproach in your daily walk and life. In doing so, you won't be perfect every day but you will become more and more like Jesus and THAT is the goal of our Christian journey!
Chapters 8-9 focus again on wisdom with a comparison of wisdom vs. folly in Chapter 9. In 9:10 we see a correlation to our key verse in the book of Proverbs (1:7): "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." I don't know about you but this consistency is really driving home for me the importance of a personal relationship with Christ and how that is the bull's eye on the "wisdom target" sort of speak. Wisdom is critical in enabling us as Christian women to gain sexual and relational integrity.
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