5–6 The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true;
he protects everyone who runs to him for help.
So don’t second-guess him;
he might take you to task and show up your lies.”
Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Pr 30:5–6). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.
One of my favorite memories of my dad preaching was from a sermon out of Proverbs 23 verse 23. It simply states to “Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” The memory from that sermon is simply my father urging the people to never let go of truth. That point in the sermon has never left me. I wondered, how does one go about purchasing the truth? Isn’t it free? We are also told that there is a price for what Jesus did for us that is far above anything that we could ever repay. So how does one go about buying the truth?
The definition of the word buy can mean to get by sacrifice or great effort or to accept the truth of. So often we think of the most commonly used definition when we think of a word. You cannot buy this Truth, because it isn’t for sale. There are many things in Gods word, and about God, that you are going to have to attain by putting some effort into it. We live in a world that confines communication to an emoji, 140 characters or a meme. We take this as gospel ��! Yet, we do not believe this as Gospel: “First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see.” (Genesis 1:1) The one is easy to believe, the other takes faith and the exercise of it. We trust the person that sent us the emoji, because we are in a relationship with them. We communicate regularly, so we know what makes them smile and we know what makes them angry. How? Because we know them, and know them well. In order for the doubt and the second guessing to disappear between you and God, you are going to have to develop that same kind of relationship. It takes effort and sacrifice to develop a strong, mutually beneficial relationship in the natural. It would then stand to reason that it takes the same things to develop a spiritual relationship!
It is now the cool thing to doubt God. It is also the popular thing to decry that there is no God. How can you believe that there is a God they ask? Well, I decided to dig deep, put some effort into it, believed and then took God at His word. It is not a feeling, as some would think; it was a conscious decision. It is no different then when Melissa tells me she loves me. I could say prove it, but how does one prove that they love? I chose to trust, believe and take her at her word. Over the last seventeen years, that blind trust, that step into uncertainty to trust her with my heart, my love and my future, hasn’t been a wrong decision. It’s been proven over and over again that when she gave me her word, that was truth. Much longer than seventeen years ago, I made a similar decision. It was October 30th, 1985. It was then I read a letter that came in the form of a verbal sermon. When I heard what was written, and I then read it for myself, I chose to believe it and I took God at His word. Over the last thirty two years, that decision to take God at His word, to trust and to accept the truth of what was written, hasn’t been a wrong decision! In the same way that my decision to marry Melissa was a great decision, the decision to give my life to Christ thirty two years ago, has been an even better one!
It began as a simple choice, to believe and accept. Now that I have bought in, accepted and put some effort into knowing God, I can say, just like the believer in Proverbs 30:5… “Every promise of God proves true;….He protects everyone who runs to Him for help.” It is hard my friend to argue with a man that has had an experience. I believed and accepted, but now there is experience in this relationship that I have with God. Therefore, I will never doubt God, second guess God; nor will I ever sell out what I have with God. Just because others cannot make the first choice to believe and accept, that doesn’t negate my experience!
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