Prioritize Love and Faithfulness

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Proverbs 3:3-4 states “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.”

Examine this verse. God is telling us that there are two characteristics that we should never reject: love and faithfulness. The original word in Hebrew for love is the deep form of love-passion for God that results in obedience. Faithfulness implies reliability. This verse further implores us to bind God’s principles around your neck and to engrave them on the tablet of your heart. This portrait is a beautiful picture of whole hearted devotion and lifetime commitment. The promise is also clear. Besides enjoying a long and abundant life, the faithful God-follower wins favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. David, Solomon’s father gives a beautiful description of a godly man or woman who follows God’s Word faithfully:

“...his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” NIV

• What are your passions? Have you devoted your life to the God who loves you and made you? What brings you joy? What hindrances do you face in seeking to put God first in your life?

• Think deeply about what you have learned about Jesus. Did he exemplify this proverb in how he lived his life on earth? What did His love and faithfulness look like?

• Do you practice the art of meditation-spending concentrated time visualizing and memorizing the Word of God? How could you delight in God’s law day and night? Would it change how you spend your time? Can you quiet your mind enough to really focus on God? Set aside some time on your calendar this week to turn off your devices to listen for God’s voice.

• I kept wondering how others perceived my character. Then I remembered that the largest part of my life I had lived to project an image of a good man. For the most part, I believe people perceived me as a good, loving and reliable man. However, the part that made me uncomfortable was the binding of God’s truth upon my neck (placing outside my body, visible to the entire world), and writing upon the tablet of my heart. I hadn’t written or bound, I had projected an image. Now, as I have spent the past eight years healing and opening my closed heart that was concerned only with image, I can say that I am binding and writing. I am not doing the Lord’s work for the world to see. I serve God because I love Him and He has called me. Anybody can project an image, but someone will always spot hypocrisy. I think of Adam, trying to hide from God. I want to live for God vulnerably and faithfully.

• For Additional Study: Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalms 15:4; 24:4; Proverbs 3