the proverbs study group

#32Chapters
Chapter 3 - Trust Issues Hallerin Hilton Hill

Last week...
Chapter 2 left us with a big question. IF you hold a reverential awe for God, IF you reverence and respect God, IF you deeply desire Gods wisdom THEN are you willing to HEED his word and ACCEPT his direction? The only thing God asks you to bring is a reverence-rested willingness. Gods wisdom means nothing if you dont trust him. God is worthy of your reverence. He lives to make your life here better plus he offers you eternal life. Heed his word. Accept his direction. This is the foundation and fuel of wisdom in your life. By simply saying yes the journey begins. And with every yes to God along the way youll grow in wisdom.

This weeks main point.

Trust God will ALL (100%) of your heart. Chapter Outline The 35 verses of chapter three are broken into 2 sections. - The call to TRUST! - The blessings of TRUST

The Call To Trust

This chapter calls us to trust God with ALL of our hearts. You can hear echoes of the rst commandment: thou shall have no other Gods before me. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. (NIV) Do not make a crutch of ego; lean on God alone. Adhere to the good and your path will be smooth. (Shapiro) Proverbs 3:5,6 God wants/deserves heart-based trust. You can know it in your head but do you feel it in your heart? He wants us to joyfully trust him. So what is trust? Trust: firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of something or someone.

God is reliable, true, able and strong. You can count on that. Trust that. Look closer. Reliable: consistently good in quality or performance, able to be trusted. True: accurate, exact Able: having the power, skill, means or opportunity to do something. Strong: having, showing, or able to exert great power Is He? In your experience is your God reliable, true, able and strong? If he is then trust him. He made you. Hes best equipped to re-make you. You dont know you as well he does. He was there before you knew who you were. He has declared himself to be both the author and nisher of your faith. Ask him to teach you how to trust him. Ask him to nish his work in you. Ask. So what is "ALL"? Here's the denition of all. ALL = the whole of. Synonyms for ALL are: totally, utterly, fully I nd it ironic that you have to say "all" and "trust" in the same sentence. Shouldn't trust imply "ALL"? The truth is, in a world lled with fractured trust people don't commit "ALL" to anything. We hedge. We plan contingencies for when (not if) the other shoe drops. But God wants ALL. He doesn't need it,mind you. You need it. We need it. We need Him, not the other way around. In order for the true power of wisdom to be unleashed in your life, you have to trust. It has to be childlike and complete. It has to be "the whole of" - totally, utterly, fully! Are you ready? Are you willing?

Do you trust God with ALL your heart?

The NY Giants are the defending NFL champions. The other Manning, Eli, has helped his team win 2 Lombardi trophies. He's an excellent QB.

There are a number of teams in the league that would love to have a QB of his caliber. NFL teams play on Sunday afternoon AND Thursday night. What if Eli decided that he'd be a 98% NY Giant and held back 2% of his loyalty, ability and playing time for other teams that he liked in the league. So say he played Sunday for the Giants and then did a Thursday night game for the Buffalo Bills. Never happen! Being a Giant means being ALL Giant. There's one playbook. God wants you to be on his team. It can get confusing trying to work from more than one playbook. The secret to active wisdom is undiluted trust. 100% trust is in itself an act of reverence. The writer Brennan Manning in an interview with Christianity Today said that when we trust God we reverence God. Trust = Reverence. When we trust God without fear or hesitation we delight God. The splendor of a human heart that trusts and is loved unconditionally gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Van Gogh's Sunowers, the sight of 10,000 butteries in ight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom. Trust is our gift back to God, and he nds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it. -Brennan Manning from Ruthless Trust In my truck I have an oil light. When its low the light comes on. Under the hood theres also a dip stick. When you pull it out you can check the level. Whats the dip stick, what the oil light when it comes to how much you trust God? How do you really know if you TRUST God? One word: Gratitude. The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that ows from trustnot only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God. -Brennan Manning

So yet another way to grow in reverence for God is making the commitment to trust Him with ALL your heart. You will be amazed at how high youll go, how much youll grow if you release yourself into the will, way and wisdom of God. To do so with a deep sense of gratitude is true wisdom. When you trust God with ALL your heart, youre not giving up anything. To the contrary, you are actually being optimized for blessings.

The Blessing Of Trust

Chapter 3 lays out the benefits of wisdom. Invest in the pursuit of wisdom and your ROI (return on investment) will be off the charts. On key benefit is straight smooth paths. Its easy to get caught up in all you stand to gain in the wake of wisdom. Wealth. Honor. Peace. Long life. Safety. But, wisdom is about so much more than that. The best part of wisdom is knowing and trusting God. Look at all he offers you in this chapter. The greatest offer on the table is the chance to be deeply connected to a God who loved you so much that he was willing to offer up ALL he had to give you ALL he has. Dont use Gods wisdom as a means to an end. If you have wisdom without a connection to the God who is all wisdom, you dont have anything. The Conclusion Trust God will ALL (100%) of your heart. The Challenge Whats keeping you from giving him ALL your heart? Is that worth keeping if its keep you from Him? Grow. Help others grow. Be Encouraged. Wisdom House Publishing
(c) 2012 Hallerin Hilton Hill