The Word To Live By: 10-27-25
Phil Waggoner
Do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off. Proverbs 23:17, 18
The Word to live by: I like how The Message Bible paraphrases this scripture, “Don’t for a minute envy careless rebels; soak yourself in the Fear-of-God— That’s where your future lies. Then you won’t be left with an armload of nothing.” I think one of the signs of immaturity is to expect and wait on someone else to do for you what you want done. By that I mean sometimes we wait on God to change the circumstances when all along God is waiting on and expecting us to change the circumstances. Notice this scripture starts out with don’t you let your heart envy sinners. That tells me I can do something about what I believe in my heart and what I don’t want in my heart. How? By living in the fear of the Lord … always. Then The Message says to soak in it. Remember when you used to dye Easter eggs and would dip the hard-boiled egg in vinegar and dye? The longer you left it in there, the deeper the dye soaked into the eggshell, and it became darker, even to the point that eventually (if you left it overnight), it would get into the egg. That’s the picture of soaking in or always being in the fear of the Lord, which of course is not being afraid of God, but respecting and honor and obeying His Word. That is what will produce a great future in your life. Soaking in the fear of the Lord sounds to me like meditating on the Word and we know what the Bible says about meditating on the Word - Joshua 1:8, “Don’t for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night (that sounds a lot like soak in it always), making sure you practice everything written in it (that sounds a lot like “Fear God always”). Then you’ll get where you’re going; then you’ll succeed (and that sounds like a successful future).
Read through the Bible in a year: 2 Thessalonians 1; Isaiah 25-26; Psalms 117;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 27, Luke 16:1-16, Hebrews 5
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160