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Sunday 09/15/24
Title: Storing up what you Treasure Pt. 1
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Storing up what you Treasure Pt. 1
Today we are continuing in our teachings about pursuing the inward work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We have so far studied loving the Lord our God with all we are, Fearing the Lord, Acknowledging Him and this week we are focused upon valuing and treasuring.
Now really we are looking at treasuring, but valuing is included in this concept. The English translations of the scriptures use the word treasure for several concepts, but in the scriptures we will be looking at today, the word treasure means to “store up”.
It is a little known but interesting fact that while all squirrels store up food, only black and gray squirrels bury the food they wish to store up.
Not everything that people store up are they able to use or even find in a time of need. Which introduces another little fact about our black and gray little friends. It is another little known fact that out of all the nuts they bury, they only find about 25% of them.
To me this illustrates the difference between memorizing and meditating on scripture. Just because you stored it in your mind, doesn’t mean you understand it well enough to apply it and live in its wisdom when you need it.
Storing something up just because it possesses value isn’t enough. Storing it up because it has immediate value to YOU is another matter entirely!
So let’s take another look at one of our passages from last week. Turn with me to Proverbs 2.
Proverbs 2:1-12,
“(1) My child, if you receive My words, and store up My commands inside yourself, (2) BY making your ear attentive to wisdom, and BY turning your heart to understanding, (3) indeed, IF YOU CALL out for discernment – SHOUT LOUDLY for understanding – (4) IF YOU SEEK it like silver, and SEARCH for it like hidden treasure, (5) THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND HOW TO FEAR THE LORD, AND YOU WILL DISCOVER KNOWLEDGE ABOUT GOD.”
If THAT is when we will understand true respect for God and come to know Him, why then and only then?
Because it is only then that God will honor your search with finding!
What does the next verse say?
“(6) FOR THE LORD GIVES wisdom, and from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.”
“(7) HE STORES UP effective counsel for the upright, and is like a shield for those who live with integrity, (8) to guard the paths of the righteous and to protect the way of his pious ones.
(9) THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND righteousness and justice and equity – every good way.
(10) For wisdom will enter your heart, and moral knowledge will be attractive to you. (11) Discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you, (12) to deliver you from the way of the wicked, from those speaking perversity,”
Proverbs 7 teaches this same truth but to illustrate makes use of a young man falling prey to the wiles of a prostitute.
What I want you to make the connection with here is not just our need for God’s word. Nor just for keeping His commands, but treasuring them in your heart. Storing them up due to the immediate value they have because the One you love and admire spoke them to you. Also out of respect for the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us to remind us of all He has spoken.
Proverbs 7:1,
“(1) My child, devote yourself to My words and store up My commands inside yourself.
(2) Keep My commands so that you may live, and obey My instruction as your most prized possession.
(3) Bind them on your forearm; write them on the tablet of your heart.
(4) Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding a close relative, (5) so that they may keep you from the adulterous woman, from the loose woman who has flattered you with her words.”
In this proverbial illustration, the Holy Spirit would be the One Who fits the description and plays the role of wisdom and understanding. Our relationship to Him should be one which is both familiar and endearing. He is PRECIOUS to us in every way!
Listen to His instruction…
“(6) For at the window of my house through my window lattice I looked out (7) and I saw among the naive – I discerned among the youths – a young man who lacked sense.
(8) He was passing by the street near her corner, making his way along the road to her house (9) in the twilight, the evening, in the dark of the night.”
So one of the many possible traits of the foolish or the one who does not love, respect and acknowledge God storing up His words in his heart is one who is naive. They are simpletons and place themselves in danger by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have no common sense and no discernment.
“(10) Suddenly a woman came out to meet him! She was dressed like a prostitute and with secret intent.”
Both wisdom and sin have this in common. Their desire is towards the sons of men.
“(11) (She is loud and rebellious, she does not remain at home – (12) at one time outside, at another in the wide plazas, and by every corner she lies in wait.)
(13) So she grabbed him and kissed him, and with a bold expression she said to him, (14) “I have meat from my peace offerings at home; today I have fulfilled my vows! (15) That is why I came out to meet you, to look for you, and I found you!”
Notice this lady makes open mention of her “spirituality” by bringing up her empty religious practices. She has already offered peace offerings and honored her vows – but all of this is mere pretense. There is no real heart for God in her. No fidelity to him or her neighbor, who in this instance is her husband. She is loving neither one with all she is!
“(16) I have spread my bed with elegant coverings, with richly colored fabric from Egypt.
(17) I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
(18) Come, let’s drink deeply of lovemaking until morning, let’s delight ourselves with love’s pleasures.
(19) For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a journey of some distance. (20) He has taken a bag of money with him; he will not return until the end of the month.”
“(21) She turned him aside with her persuasions; with her smooth talk she was enticing him along.”
Notice that this young man was not looking for these advances, he simply was not deliberate in avoiding them! If he had been looking for this affair she would not have to work so hard for him to succumb. But in his foolish ignorance, he placed himself in temptation’s way without a heart of understanding to overcome such temptations.
I have long held that there is a massive difference between the man who happens upon a loosely dressed woman and one who goes discerningly to where they always appear in abundance. There is nothing wrong with a man being attracted to the figure and body of any woman. It is how he was designed. The problem is not his tendency it is the way society has exploited that vulnerability. If I am walking in love with God, respecting both He and my wife and acknowledge them in all my thoughts and actions – I can still happen upon a woman and be attracted – even sexually aroused. I remember a statement from Anthony Campolo about that once when he mentioned the appropriateness of dancing. He said, if you can dance with a seductively dressed woman vibrating her body like that for an hour and not be turned on you’re not spiritual – somebody needs to check for your pulse because you’re dead! Being attracted is no sin. Allowing that attraction to grow into a desire in your heart to possess and make that person your own IS sin!
In the same way, happening upon something which tempts you is not sin. Unwisely going to where it is both stupid and wrong!
If you have a drinking problem there are some parties you should never attend. There are some stores you should not shop in. There are some events you should not go to. This is nothing more than common sense. It is one thing to unexpectedly run into it, its quite another to court it.
This young man was not looking for sin. Sin was looking for him. But if he had thought through his route. If he had been wiser about the hour in which he was walking the city – this encounter could not have happened! But like James tells us, “every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. And when desire has spawned in the heart it gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully developed kills!”
“(22) Suddenly he was going after her like an ox that goes to the slaughter, like a stag prancing into a trapper’s snare (23) till an arrow pierces his liver – like a bird hurrying into a trap, and he does not know that it will cost him his life.”
Neither your ignorance nor your naivety will spare you the consequences of your actions!
“(24) So now, sons, listen to Me, and pay attention to the words I speak.
(25) Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways – do not wander into her pathways; (26) for she has brought down many fatally wounded, and all those she has slain are many.
(27) Her house is the way to the grave, going down to the chambers of death.”
So we know we are to treasure His commands and instructions and we are to steer away from compromise.
But how do we take a proactive stance in regard to storing up what truly has value?
Blessings!
