Proverbs Chapters 9 – 11

Proverbs 10:15-32 ~ The Purpose for the Christian Life

Do I approach life looking for God’s already determined design and plan?  Or do I approach life and say, "Well, let me see.  How can I practice certain principles to make things work out for me?"

When people look at Christianity as religion they have totally missed the whole point of what it means to be a Christian. Jesus Christ has come to live inside of me to take over. Because with everything that I say and everything that I do, I am influencing everybody around me.

This can be approached legalistically, religiously, with great human effort to try to get myself to function as a human being the way I am supposed to. But the message of scripture is not the practice of certain principles. It is the realization that it is not my religious belief in Christ that saves me. I have literally received His Spirit into my spirit so that His can produce. I want people to receive from God’s Spirit speaking to them rather than me. Sometimes He lets us dangle in the flesh just to see how destructive it is to not be surrendered to Christ.

I can get upset, I can get frustrated, and I can take it out on people. It is very destructive. But God means me to be a conduit, an expression of His Spirit to give grace to the hearers.

Proverbs 11:1-6 ~ Understanding God’s Humbling Process

When arrogance has come, then comes shame: but with the humble people comes wisdom. And in the Hebrew the word wisdom is accompanying the word humble. With the humble comes wisdom.

The word humble literally means to be brought down low. So we have an arrogant person and we have a person who has gone through circumstances and situations where he or she is brought down low. God has dealt with them and brought them lowly.

And the end result of being brought down low is wisdom. Wisdom does not come with arrogance. Wisdom comes with being brough low because it is an experience that every person must have and every person must experience. You do not have wisdom unless you have been dealt with.

Proverbs 11:16-23 ~ Integrity in Character

To do things in grace. Not gracefully, but in the grace of God, in consideration of others with a motivation of grace in order to add grace to the hearers. Just minister God’s grace to people. Even in difficult times, even if you have to go out and grind it out, because the end result is honor. In other words, the emphasis here is, "What are you attaining to?  What is the goal?" Is it honor? Do you want to be known for being an honorable person? You do whatever it takes to do what is right. Or how about brute force to become wealthy? The proverb of truth here is that strength of character is better than strength of arms.