A Lamp Unto My Feet ~ Proverbs 3:1

The reason I don’t get lost on my way home from town is that I know where I live. I know the way so well that even on dark and stormy days, even when others stop me and point me down another road, I carry on my merry way, whistling a hymn as I go.

You can also tell without too much investigation those who share my home. They keep turning up at the same location and their manner of life tends to reflect the same house rules and values.

This was Solomon’s hope for his son. This was how you would know whose sons they were. And this is how we know who Jesus is. He kept His Father’s commandments and remembered His Father’s teaching.

Deception thrives in a forgetful heart. You can tell a forgetful heart on Monday that the sky is blue, and on Tuesday that the sky is brown and they will likely believe it. This is why we are taught again and again to remember the Lord, to bring to mind His commandments, His promises, and His faithfulness.

The forgetful heart is easily led and easily lied to. But the heart that stores up God’s commandments and keeps them knows to whom he belongs and where he is going.

The reason this was so important to Solomon was that Madam Folly could be found in nearly every marketplace, uttering her smooth words (Proverbs 2:16) and drawing others down to their destruction.

Smooth words and plausible words of wisdom are part of life in this world. False teaching, man-made religion and commandments are all things that threaten the life of the believer. But the danger, as Bill McCully put it recently, is not the false teaching, but our forgetting who we are, what we have been taught, and to whom we belong.

Remember what you have heard. Remember what Jesus Christ has done. This was Paul’s remedy for the false teachers in Colosse. The problem there was man-made rules and regulations designed to bolster your spiritual journey. Good intentions grounded in the weakness of human wisdom.

In response to this threat, Paul said,

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

Understanding the falsity of false religion, applying logic and a good argument to false teaching is useful, but your best protection against it, says Paul, is to remember who you belong to and which house you now live in.

In other words, your best defence is to remember what you have already been taught.

You, along with the old postcode you lived under (Colossians 3:5-9) have died and you have been raised with Christ in newness of life. When this happened, your home address changed.

Since then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above… (Colossians 3:1-2)

Seek the things above. This is not an invitation to some Pentecostal LSD party but an invitation to keep at the forefront of your mind the Word of God which has come down from heaven.

You belong to Christ now. Your life is hidden and kept safe in Him. He is home and His word is the lamp beneath your feet.

The more we learn, remember and keep His word, the less likely we are to forget. The less likely we are to lose our way.

So store up His word in your heart. Remember what He has already said and already done. Be reminded daily. Know the sound of His voice and you will not so easily follow another down the wrong lane.