Join us on a spiritual journey through the insightful verses of Proverbs 3. This episode outlines practical steps to root your life in trust, reverence, and a commitment to reject evil. Encounter God’s promises of a straight path and abundant life, realizing that living under His guidance leads to the best life imaginable.
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, March 3rd. Does the hectic pace of life cause you to lose your spiritual bearings? Let’s learn how to stay focused on the right things as we hear about God’s guide to life at its best.
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The passage of Scripture I want to deal with today has been like a compass. Whenever I have stepped away from it, it has brought me disappointment and failure every single time. And each time I’ve resorted to it for direction and guidance, I’ve always succeeded every single time. Whether you’ve ever listened to a message from me before or not, I want you to listen carefully because I want to give you in the passage of Scripture a compass for your life. that can make a difference now and for all the rest of eternity. And it is found in Proverbs chapter 3. If you’ll turn to Proverbs chapter 3 in the title of this message, God’s Guide to Life at its Best. Here’s a 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 5 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 paths 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. God’s, listen, God’s guide… And I’m referring to God’s guide as verses 5 through 12. 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. And so the writer of Proverbs says, here’s the key. Center of the compass is this. Trust in the Lord your God. It is trusting. It is having faith. It is relying upon the Lord God in every area of our life. Listen, he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Now, You say, well, I do trust God. I do place my trust in Him. And yet, I wonder how often we place our trust in other things and do not even realize it. For example, oftentimes people will trust in their own intellect, their own reasoning powers. Sometimes they trust in material things. That is, that’s where they have their trust. That’s what they rely upon. Their confidence is based on that. Sometimes it’s in the advice of other people that they give. Sometimes they place their trust in their feelings and they operate on the basis of that. You and I know that money can evaporate. The Bible says that money is like a bird with wings, it can leave us quickly. Feelings change. Other people’s advice oftentimes is erroneous. A person’s authority or position is certainly no point, no place upon which you can rely and place your trust in because you can lose it today or tomorrow. There is only one thing that is absolutely, completely, unchangeably, infallibly reliable, and that is God. And the very bottom line of the Christian life and the key to all wisdom is placing our trust in God. And in this life compass, that will guide us to life at its very best. The very center of it is placing our trust in God. Now, He’s the object of that trust, not other people, though we are to place some degree of trust in them. But people do not trust God. We allow ourselves to drift into trusting other things. For example, the better you are in your job, more than likely, the less you talk to God about it. The better you are in working with your finances, more than likely, the less you trust God for them. We are prone to trust less when we improve or become skilled in an area. But he says we’re to trust in the Lord God in every area of our life. Now, there are two reasons I think primarily people don’t. One of them is ignorance. Many people do not realize that God is personally and specifically interested and desires to be involved in every single area of our life. If you don’t know that, then you don’t talk to Him about those areas. And the second one is pride. We think, well, I can handle that. Because you and I may have had successes in some areas, and we think, well, I can take care of this and I can take care of that. Listen, we’re talking about a guide for life at its best. Not just a guide for life, but a guide for life at its best. The guide for life at its best says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart, in all your ways acknowledge 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. Now, he says, if you’ll notice… The degree of that trust, how much am I to trust God? Now, you know, the truth is you can’t trust many people today. You absolutely cannot. You cannot trust very many people to keep confidences, for example. You can’t trust very many people to do what they say they’re going to do. But he says, we’re to place our trust in him. To what degree? Listen to what he says. Trust in the Lord with what? With all your heart. That is, make a full commitment to him. Don’t be wishy-washy, well, I’m going to trust him today, but I’m not sure about tomorrow. I can trust him in this, but not sure about that. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. That is, he is a trustworthy, reliable, dependable, unfailing, never failing God. And so he says, we’re to trust in him with all of our heart. When you and I trust in him with all of our heart, We’ll know it. You see, to trust him with all my heart means I take my hands off and just say, okay, God, I’m going to let you do it. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. Listen, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. In all thy ways, which means there cannot be a single solitary aspect of my life which I keep for myself that I do not trust him in. He says, in all thy ways acknowledge him. In all thy ways, that means every single area of my life must be under the canopy of trusting him. You see, if I don’t trust him in my finances, I’m not trusting him with all my heart, in all my ways. If I don’t trust him in the job or in the occupation or decisions, you see, he says, in all thy ways, that is in every single area of your life, acknowledge him. God is trustworthy. God is all-wise. God will give clear, concise, perfect direction in every area of life, no matter what it is. And you see, sometimes we think we handle certain sections of our life, and then we let God take care of the parts we can’t take care of. Only He is all-wise in every situation, and only He is all-powerful in making things work out right. So I want you to see this as a compass. He says, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct our path. The total scope. Turn, if you will, to Psalm 138. Back just a few pages in your Bible. Psalm 138. And look, if you will, at… this eighth verse. And this is a simple verse here, but I want you to see that He wants every area of our life under His scrutiny and under His control, and He’s interested in every one of them. Verse eight says, The Lord will accomplish what concerns me. That is, listen, He will bring to a fruitful ending anything and everything that concerns me because He’s interested. So therefore, when He says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge Him. In all thy ways, whether it is in your courtship, whether it is in your finances, whether it is in your vocation, it doesn’t make any difference what it is. God wants us to place our full trust in Him about every single thing. That’s one point. The first point, the basic point of the compass, and that is that God’s guide centers, He centers everything in our trusting Him. The second point of this compass is this, and that is trust. 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 5, do not lean on your own understanding. And then look if you’ll in verse 7, do not be wise in your own eyes. So, there are three things that are required of me. First of all, it is required of me, listen, to rely upon Him only and not in my own wisdom and understanding. You see, there’s some things I will not be able to understand with my limited knowledge. There’s some things my intellect will never be able to fathom. And therefore, I am, first of all, requirement. My first requirement is I’m to rely upon him. I’m to look to him. I’m to trust him. and not rely upon my own wisdom. This is what gets us in trouble. And that is our human reasoning, which is always impaired to some degree because we’re limited by finite knowledge. This is why God says, you want life at its best? Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. That is, you trust me to know better than you, and you trust me to give you wisdom and direction and divine guidance. So first of all, I’m to rely upon him, this infinite, all-wise God, and not upon myself. 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. Now, what’s happened in this nation of ours is we have little or no fear or respect for God whatsoever. And so we go about doing our own thing, And we watch our nation go down and down and down and down morally. We are bankrupt. And the reason we are is because we have no longer any fear of God. But you see, a wise man or woman is going to rely upon the wisdom of God, not upon their own wisdom. And secondly, they are going to have a reverence, a respect, and a reliance upon God, looking to Him and acknowledging. Reverence in God says, I acknowledge His rightful position as the sovereign of this universe. I acknowledge His right and authority to control and dictate and guide my life. He is God, and I am His servant. And you are His servant. We’re all His servants, created in His image for His purposes, His good, created to glorify and honor Him. 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. Now, I want you to think about something. This will not be a reality in your life if you’re one of those persons who sits and watches television five to seven hours a day, as many people do in this country, and many of whom are Christians, or whether you watch it nightly and you let, listen, you think about this. How in the world can you operate on the basis of wisdom? Wisdom and relying upon God, reverencing Him, and turning away from the flesh when you allow the world to bombard your mind and brainwash you with all these commercials and all this advertisement and all the negative stuff that comes across the air, both on radio and television, week after week, month after month, year after year. pouring it into your brain, pouring it into your mind. There is no way that you can allow that to go on and on and on and on and then turn right around and act wisely, relying upon God, reverence in Him, and turning away from the flesh. It’s just not going to happen. And this is why so many Christians are financially in trouble listening to the unwise counsel of the ungodly. Buy this, get that, have this, must have this. And we talk about having financial problems in our nation, and yet, what do we do? We support all the propaganda that does what? That lures people into indebtedness in your life. Get it today. Don’t even pay for it. Don’t even start paying for it six months from now. I don’t know how godly men and women in business can tolerate that kind of advertisement if they’re looking out for the people who are buying the products. Now, what I want you to see is this. This is God’s compass. It isn’t mine. It’s His. And it’s as straight as it can be, and it’s absolutely infallible. And He says it is centered in placing our trust in Him. And secondly, there are three requirements. I must rely upon His wisdom and not the wisdom of the world. If I’m going to get His wisdom, you know where I’m going to get it? Right here. This book is the wisdom of God printed on the page. I’m to rely upon his wisdom and not my own. I am to reverence him as God. He is the rightful position, authority in my life. Yes, yes, dictate to me exactly what I’m to do. Only God can always, without a single solitary exception, always unselfishly want the very best for you and me. We can’t even be that absolutely unselfish about husbands and wives or children or parents. We can’t be that unselfish, but God is. Relying upon Him instead of ourselves. Reverencing Him and turning away from the world’s offer. 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. Well, here it is wrapped up in a passage of Scripture, all of it together. Four points to encompass, north, east, south, west. We’ve had two of them. That it is centered in our trusting Him. And secondly, that it includes these three requirements. And now, God’s guide promises what every believer’s desires are. And what is that? Well, let’s look at this passage. 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 paths straight,’ or, “‘He will guide you.'” What does He mean by making your paths straight? What he means by that here is not one without obstacles, but one which God will remove or enable you to overcome every single obstacle along the way. God is not about to provide any kind of lifestyle for any of us in which there are no obstacles. But he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. He will direct your path. What’s the first promise? Clear guidance for your life. In what areas of your life? Every single one of them because he says, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he’ll direct your path. What will he direct my path in? He will direct my path in every single solitary area of my life. Every one of them. No matter how skilled you become in what you’re doing, we must continually acknowledge him. In all thy ways acknowledge him, this infinite, all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving God who wants the best for me will govern and will guide me every step of the way.
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Thank you for listening to 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 InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
