3:5-6 In All Your Ways - Audio

Bakersfield First Assembly

3:5-6 Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV) – [5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; [6] in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. In All Your Ways Acknowledge Him Ways (derek) means path, road, highway, distance, journey; manner, conduct, condition, destiny. (Vine’s Expository Dictionary) “The word may refer to a physical path or road or to a journey along a road. However, this word is most often used metaphorically to refer to the pathways of one’s life, suggesting the pattern of life.” (Complete Word Study Dictionary) Deuteronomy 8:6-7 (NIV) – [6] Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his WAYS and revering him. [7] For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land… 1. To find our way in life, we must walk in God’s ways. Proverbs 14:12 (NIV) – [12] There is a WAY that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. 2. Our ways are not God’s ways. Isaiah 55:8 (NIV) – [8] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your WAYS my WAYS,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 30:20-21 (NIV) – [20] Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. [21] Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the WAY; walk in it.” 3. The LORD’s discipline helps us walk in His ways. “God keeps His promises when we obey His precepts, because our obedience prepares us to receive and enjoy what He has planned for us… ‘He shall direct your paths’ is the promise, but the fulfillment of that promise is predicated on our obedience to the Lord. We must trust Him with all our heart and obey Him in all our ways.” (Wiersbe Bible Commentary) 4. Obedience to God keeps us on the right path. Acknowledge (yada’) means to know, to learn, to perceive, to discern, to experience, to confess, to consider, to know people relationally, to know how, to be skillful, to be made known, to make oneself known, to make to know. (Complete Word Study Dictionary) “The simple meaning, to know, is its most common translation out of the eight hundred or more uses. One of the primary uses means to know relationally and experientially.” (Complete Word Study Dictionary) 5. It is not enough to know about God; we must know God personally. “Essentially, yada’ means to know by observing and reflecting (thinking), and to know by experiencing.” (Vine's Expository Dictionary) 6. In all our ways of life, there is an opportunity to know God. Jeremiah 24:5-7 (NIV) – [5] “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. [6] My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. [7] I will give them a heart to KNOW me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.’” 7. God will give us a new heart to know Him. Jeremiah 31:33-34 (NIV) – [33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. [34] No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘KNOW the Lord,’ because they will all KNOW me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” 8. We can know Jesus in the good and the bad. Philippians 3:10-11 (NIV) – [10] I want to KNOW Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.