Proverbs 7: 1-4 (NLT) Follow my advice, my son; always treasure my commands. Obey them and live! Guard my teachings as your most precious possession. [as the apple of your eye.] Tie them on your fingers as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.
- * Luke 10:27 (NIV) 27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[a] ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b]" [a. Deut. 6:5 b. Lev. 19:18]
- John 14: 15, 21, 23 (NIV) 15 - If you love me, you will obey what I command; 21 -Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him 23- Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
- Rom 6:16 (MSG) You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do.
Obey me; the father admonishes the son (the metaphor used in this book). And what follows in this Chapter 7 rings the clarion call to live a life of sexual purity for the hormone-driven young son. Important? Yes. Vital? Yes. Is there more to it than just some esoteric guideline from God? Is this only some rigid rule to run your live? Yes.
The guidelines are not to be diminished but I'm seeing them in a greater context. There are other things that seduce any human, but especially the businessperson. In fact, anything that turns us from worshiping God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind falls into this category.
The list that is equivalent to a seductive woman is long. Troubling. The seduction of the small adjustment in Quarterly bookings. The seduction of the labels given to goods when Inventory Tax time arrives. The seduction of the "mutual back-scratch" that skirts the intent of accounting rules. The drug of power. The lure of prestige. There are many things each of us clings to that become the "seduction of the other." I know how I think and my prayer is: Search me Lord - expose those hidden areas that seduce me that I don't even consciously think about.
I am convicted of not living my life so that I have guarded God's Word as my "most precious possession." What this chapter is really pointing out is that "[t]hose that blame strict and careful walking as needless and too precise," fail to "consider...that the law is to be kept as the apple of the eye; indeed the law in the heart is the eye of the soul." Matthew Henry
The "seduction of the other" is always painted by the Evil One as a path to freedom- the freedom to think, to be, to run our own lives. Very much the opposite of freedom - very certainly slavery.
Lord, I want a heart that is soft toward You and Your Word: a heart that makes friendship with you a priority for living - a friendship that reflects communication that is deep, meaningful and is reflected in how I think and behave.
Copyright (c) 2005 by P. Griffith Lindell
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