Righteous Lord, have your way in me! A plea only answered by a love of the Word and the One who gave it.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established. – Proverbs 16:2-3 ESV
Proverbs 16:2 makes clear that: left to our own, our ways seem pure to us. Our ways, including our sin, seem pure to us if we are left to our own ways. That should be an eye-opening statement from God’s Word that attests to the dire need for God’s Word in the life of His people. In Isaiah 55:8-9, the Lord declares to the people of Israel (and to us) that indeed our ways are not His ways.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV
Knowing this, how are we to respond? I see no other way for the people of God to respond to this truth than to deny our own ways and seek after God’s ways and there is no other way to do this than to become lovers of the Word of God. For in the Word of God we find all that is necessary to turn from our own ways to God’s ways in order that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV
Heavenly Father! We cry out to you in repentance and recognition that our ways are not your ways LORD. Help us to seek a better understanding of your ways through a love for you WORD. That we wouldn’t simply read it and know, but that we would grasp tightly to it, that we would love it that you would work in us a renewed and transformed spirit, aligned with your will, and equipped for the purpose you have called us to: to bring you glory and to make disciples wherever you may lead us to go.
AMEN
