Proverb 3: 3 – 4
Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, so you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man.
If we were to have a Word of the Day on every verse in Proverbs which is highlighted in my Bible we would be here for a while. Today’s verse is one of the more well known proverbs. It is typical of the Proverbs. It shows a cause and effect, a result and the means by which to attain that result. The result we gain today is favor and a good reputation with God and man.
The thing I particularly like about today’s verse is the translation of truth into “Jesus”. In John 14: 6 Jesus calls himself the truth. So then I read this verse as, “Do not let kindness and Jesus leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” I think when people read proverbs like the one for today, there is an immediate acceptance of the ideas contained within. This verse sounds like a good idea but how do you apply it? How do you bind kindness and truth around your neck?
One of our responses may be, “be people of kindness and truth” and that seems to make sense. Thinking about Jesus as the truth creates a more dynamic model. Because we also know that Jesus is the Word, we can actually write this truth on our hearts. That makes today’s proverb less of an esoteric idea and more of an applied model. That is good for us.
What a pleasant idea it is thinking about binding Jesus around our necks and writing him on the tablet of our hearts. He is our Bible partner. As we seek him through the Word, meditating on Biblical precepts as we do, Jesus becomes more and more ingrained into every part of us. He is his word and he is truth and when we make kindness and truth a part of us then God’s favor becomes part of as well. In addition the favor of man and a good reputation with God and man become ours. All of that makes life here on this earth better and easier.
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