Proverbs 3:5-6
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Law and Love have no quarrel
In Matthew 6:25, Jesus gently rebuked his disciples for worrying about the future. They were worrying about where the next meal would come from, and how they would be able to clothe themselves. Jesus’ antidote, to their only too human concerns, was to remind them of the caring, loving heavenly Father who knew perfectly and intimately all their needs: ‘your heavenly Father knows’. He called them to have a renewed trust in the sovereign goodness and gracious omniscience of their Father in heaven. Having directed them to the perfect Father, Jesus then spoke these words to his ‘little faith’ (v. 30) disciples: ‘But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well’.
Jesus was calling his disciples to re-prioritise their lives. The disciples needed food and clothing, but they needed to understand that a new priority had claimed their lives, God’s kingdom and righteousness. God has given us the essential guidance we need for living lives to his praise in this world. He has told us how we are to live and what we are to do: we are to live to please him and we are to keep his commandments (cf. John 14:15). Guidance is simply ‘doing the next thing’ – unless it pleases the Lord to redirect our steps in some way or another.
The well-known verses in Proverbs best explain the point I am trying to make: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight’ (Prov. 3:5-7). Guidance is pre-eminently the responsibility of the Lord. In our earthly families, the father will gently grasp the hand of his young child and lead him in the way he is to go. It is the father, not the child, who is responsible for the guidance. There will, perhaps, be times when the child does not want to go the way her father is leading her in – it looks too demanding, it appears to take her away from the pleasant scenes that beckon in another direction.
The key to guidance lies in the child of God believing that his Father is perfectly good and desires and pursues only his best. Indeed this is exactly what the cross of our Lord Jesus shouts out to us: ‘he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’ God has pledged in precious blood that he will give us all that is good and wise and needful for us to live fulfilled and useful lives for his glory in this world.
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