Love and Faithfulness

Proverbs 3:3-4

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  

Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.

Do you think that Solomon could sell this to 21st century America?  Do you think an image-centric, status driven culture like ours could ever buy into this?

I think it could.  Everybody inherently knows this.  It's what we all expect from others.  We don't necessarily live it ourselves, but we definitely expect love and faithfulness from others.

For me this is the challenge:  I don't wear love around my neck.  It isn't always legible on the tablet of my heart.  Too often, my default mode is judgment.  Instead of love, I judge.  Instead of faithfulness I complain about others.  It's amazing that I have won favor in the sight of anyone.  

The opening to verse 3 explains the whole problem.  "Let love and faithfulness never leave you".  This is my problem when I find myself caught in the trap that I just confessed above.  Sinful behavior comes when we allow love and faithfulness to leave us.  Notice this isn't just love and faithfulness for other people.  It is first, and foremost, love and faithfulness for the Lord.  All sin is first against Him.  After we have rebelled against God, then others get to feel the effects of our sin. 

Did you ever notice how all sin is born out of selfishness?  Look at the 10 Commandments.  What causes us to break each of them?  

Selfish arrogance is what causes me to judge instead of love, to complain about others instead of edifying them.  It was selfishness that closed Satan's snare around Eve's neck in the Garden of Eden.  It was selfishness that caused David to sleep with Bathsheba, and then scheme to have her husband killed.  It was selfishness that led to Samson constantly breaking his vows as a Nazarite.  

This is Satan's leverage:  In our fallen, sin-cursed state we are all selfish beings.  This is why Solomon gives this wise advice.  If you were to literally bind love and faithfulness around your neck you wouldn't be able to take a single breath without thinking about them.  If you write them on the tablet of your heart they can never be erased, at least not in your lifetime.  Tablets then were made of stone not paper.

What are some ways that we can do this?

• Memorize Scripture.  Have verses memorized that you can quickly recall when you are in danger of suffering from a lack of love and faithfulness.
• Listen to and memorize hymns.  Music makes it way easier to remember.  Get a hymn from Koine stuck in your head instead of "99 Red Balloons" or "Margaritaville".
• Study Scripture every day.
• Hang around with positive people.
• Unplug from mainstream media and social media.
• Share Jesus at every opportunity that presents itself!  If you're thinking about Jesus you aren't thinking about yourself.  This is the ultimate act of love and faithfulness!

Through all of this there is hope.  St. Paul fought this same battle.

Romans 7:14-8:17 (EHV)

My Constant Struggle With My Sinful Nature

14 Certainly we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. 19 So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.

21 So I find this law[c] at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, 23 but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. 24 What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 I thank God[d] through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my sinful flesh I serve the law of sin.

God Placed Our Judgment on Christ

8 So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[e] 2 For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me[f] free from the law of sin and death. 3 Indeed, what the law was unable to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin.[g] God condemned sin in his flesh, 4 so that the righteous decree of the law would be fully satisfied in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.[h]

Living in Harmony With the Spiritual Nature

5 To be sure, those who are in harmony with the sinful flesh think about things the way the sinful flesh does, and those in harmony with the spirit think about things the way the spirit does. 6 Now, the way the sinful flesh thinks results in death, but the way the spirit thinks results in life and peace. 7 For the mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the sinful flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the sinful flesh but in the spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit lives in you. And if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you.

12 So then, brothers, we do not owe it to the sinful flesh to live in harmony with it. 13 For if you live in harmony with the sinful flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live.

The Spirit Assures Us We Are Children of God

14 Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom[i] we call out, “Abba,Father!” 16 The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.

17 Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

God bless

Jason Fredrick