Welcome to Today's Living Word for February 23rd, 2024. I'm T.J. Gentry. We begin with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Today, it's Friday, and we're gonna take a break for one day from our study in the book of Acts. We will pick that up, Lord willing, next Monday. Today I want us to look at a passage that is a bedrock passage for every believer. One of those passages that, if we have not yet, we should very soon commit to memory. It's out of the book of Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. The passage says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. I've talked about this passage before, but it's heavy on my heart today. And so I want to share it with you. I suspect that there is someone that really needs this reminder. I know I do. Begin looking at this passage from the end of the passage. There's a promise there. He shall direct your paths. The he there, of course, is the Lord. The Lord who reveals himself in this passage with the word Yahweh, his covenant name. The God who makes and keeps promises. The God who made an unconditional covenant with Abraham, with David, and who has given us the blessings of the new covenant. That is the God, He, who the promise is, shall direct your paths. Our life is a path, winding at times, uphill, downhill, sometimes pretty flat, but it's a path. And our lives are in need every moment of direction. It doesn't matter if you're a brand new believer, or you've walked with the Lord for many decades, or you're hearing this and you don't know the first thing about a relationship with Jesus. We all have a life that needs directing. path that can go crazy and sideways so quickly. Well this passage is a beautiful promise that God will direct our paths. But before that promise, There are three commands given. This is an if-then promise. If we do these three things, these three commands, then the promise is God will direct our paths. If your life is out of control and you know that it's anything but a life directed by God, Maybe it's because you're not enjoying the promised fulfillment due to disobedience. What is it that the passage calls us to do? Well, the first thing is to trust in the Lord with all our hearts. Trust. Confident faith. That's what trust is. And that trust isn't in a person. It's not in an institution. It's not even in a book. The Christians in your life, the leaders in your life, they're important. The church is important. The Bible is very important. But all of those things in their right place will point us beyond themselves to the person that we are to trust in, the Lord. Can you trust God? Yes. Will you trust God? And how are we to trust in Him with all our heart? That's our whole person, our mind, our will, our emotions. Everything is to be placed in confident reliance upon the Lord. So that's the first command, trust in the Lord with all your heart. The second command is this, lean not on your own understanding. That doesn't mean you should be mindless. As Christians, we certainly don't put our minds on the shelf. in order to believe. We're called to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Christianity is a strong intellectual faith, but it's so much more than that. And there are times when we can trust more in our own thoughts and our own understanding, our own perception, than in anything else. And after all, our own thoughts are always with us. We understand what we understand. We see what we see. What this passage calls us to is because we're trusting in the Lord, not ourselves, in the Lord with all our heart, then it makes sense that we would be told, don't lean on your own understanding. It doesn't say don't use your mind. Just remember that you have limits and your understanding is limited. And this isn't just talking about intellectual capacity, IQ. It's talking about how you perceive all things. We rarely see the whole picture. I'm confident in saying we never do, but God always does. And that's why we can trust in Him with all our heart. That's command number one. Lean not on our own understanding. That's command number two. And then the third command, the key to bringing all this together so that we can enjoy that promise that God will direct our paths. It's having trusted in the Lord with all our heart, not leaning on our own understanding, then we make the choice to acknowledge Him in all our ways. This is about doing the will of God. Your goal in life, my goal in life should always be to do no more than and to do no less than the will of God for us. That's it. Acknowledging God in all our ways is another way of saying do God's will in every circumstance. and God will make that will plain. He'll give us the power to do it. Now, if you're paying attention to this point, you realize, oh boy, that promise sounds wonderful. I want God to direct my paths. And then you hear these commands, trust in the Lord, and you think, sometimes I struggle with trust, especially when it comes to trusting with my whole heart. And then you think, I really wrestle in leaning not on my own understanding, I can't get out of my own head sometimes. And then you think, oh my goodness, I can point so many ways that I don't acknowledge Him in all my ways. Here's the good news. Jesus is the Savior of those who struggle to trust in the Lord with all their heart, who really have a difficult time leaning not on their own understanding, who mess it up a lot when it comes to acknowledging God in all their ways. And he graciously offers himself in our place. And when we trust in Jesus, we are trusting in the Lord with all our heart. We are leaning not on our own understanding. We are acknowledging God in all our ways. And that will work itself out into our lives. And we'll come to that place of confident assurance where we live in the blessing of the promise that he shall direct your paths. So I challenge you on this Friday, No, the scripture challenges you and me. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. Amen.