March 11 – The Priority to Pursue (Proverbs 3:1-12)

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.”
(Proverbs 3:3)

IN WORD:
Solomon’s words would have had familiar connotations for a faithful Jew. In Deuteronomy 6, a landmark chapter in Old Testament theology, God told the Israelites first to love Him with all their heart, soul, and strength. Then He told them to take the words of the Law, divinely inscribed on tablets of stone, and inscribe them into the fabric of their souls. Let them be always on your hearts, He commanded. Work them into your children’s hearts. Talk about them always. Tie them as symbols on your hands and foreheads. Never be away from them (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
The interesting connection between Deuteronomy and Proverbs is that the Law is defined as “love and faithfulness.” It is also interesting that Deuteronomy is specific in where our love and faithfulness are first to be directed: toward God. The foremost element of a believer’s life is not obedience, not service, and not doctrine. These are important — indispensable, in fact. But they are not the priority. Love is. A passionate, vital, all-encompassing love that reaches to the depths of our being. When that is there, the rest is easy.

IN DEED:
Do you consider your heart to be a tablet? What is written on it? Do you realize that some things can be erased by the power of God, and others inscribed by that same power? It requires your full cooperation, but the junk that we’ve inscribed there — through all of the media & entertainment we absorb, the relationships we’ve had, the information we consume — can be rewritten. It can be replaced with love and faithfulness. In fact, it MUST be replaced with love and faithfulness if we are to learn the mind of God at all. This is who He is, and He insists that we become like Him. Love and faithfulness define Him. Do they define you? Let them saturate your heart.

“Put everything you have into the care of your heart, for it determines what your life amounts to.” -Dallas Willard-