Reading your Bible for Today November 6

November 6: Proverbs 16:1-3

Key Verse: Proverbs 16:3
Commit your works to the Lord, And your thoughts will be established.

Devotion:
No matter how hard we try to get things right in our lives, we always seem to be able to stumble at some stage, often wrecking everything in our path! We may always try to make sense of a situation before leaping forward into it, but we do not always make the right decisions before leaping – that is where our fault lies. Even the wording in these verses from the King James Bible seems to suggest a different meaning to what was actually written in Hebrew.

Are our thoughts deliberate (suggested by preparation in verse 1) or do they just roll out like our actions? Whatever we think we do need to give our actions to Christ, commit them into His hands in the hopes He will guide and protect us. We do indeed propose our wishes because we think they are right, even righteous. However, God is the one who will answer as He sees fit because He is the only one who does have the answers. So, when we think God is letting us down by not answering our prayer requests, just maybe we are asking for things in the wrong way. We need to make sure what we do ask for will promote God to His proper place as our King and Saviour!

We may do things right and manage to please the most people we can, but the only one who can judge as to whether we have the right motives in our hearts is The Lord. Christ alone paid for our sins on that cross and He alone has the sole discretion to judge our intentions. The only way we are going to be able to make sure we do things the way which Christ wants us to is to make sure we commit each thing to God before we start it. Allowing God to guide us through our works will make sure we are doing things the way He would have us do them. What better way than to do it right first time rather than to do what we think is right. How many times have you handed in work you thought was good, only to get a whole bunch of red markings on it where the teacher or your boss picked holes in everything?

Having our Teacher guide us through our work will inevitably make sure we do get the work done in the right way the first time round and we will not have to go back and correct it time and time again!

Points to Ponder:
Does everyone follow your directions properly?

How well do you listen to God's directions?