My Friend at the Sword and Spirit Writer has offered an interesting and informative read.
I hope you will use the link I am about to provide and pop over there and read her article entitled:
Just a quick and simple word this morning.
18 “Come now,” says Adonai, “let’s talk this over together. Even if your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow;
even if they are red as crimson, they will be like wool. source
9 If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose]. source
Allow me, please, today to encourage you to read Proverbs 4 and 5.
Read them carefully and thoughtfully with a listening heart.
The Word of our Father is for our good always; even when it smarts.
I am reading from the Complete Jewish Bible but if you prefer another translation by all means pick your favorite. I am offering you a LINK to Proverbs 4 and 5 for three translations: the CJB, NKJV, and NLT.
If you prefer to read from here, please find the CJB following.
4 Listen, children, to a father’s instruction; pay attention, in order to gain insight;
2 for I am giving you good advice; so don’t abandon my teaching.
3 For I too was once a child to my father; and my mother, too, thought of me as her special darling.
4 He too taught me; he said to me, “Let your heart treasure my words; keep my commands, and live;
5 gain wisdom, gain insight; don’t forget or turn from the words I am saying.
6 Don’t abandon [wisdom]; then she will preserve you; love her, and she will protect you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom! And along with all your getting, get insight!
8 Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will bring you honor;
9 she will give your head a garland of grace, bestow on you a crown of glory.”
10 Listen, my son, receive what I say, and the years of your life will be many.
11 I’m directing you on the way of wisdom, guiding you in paths of uprightness;
12 when you walk, your step won’t be hindered; and if you run, you won’t stumble.
13 Hold fast to discipline, don’t let it go; guard it, for it is your life.
14 Don’t follow the path of the wicked or walk on the way of evildoers.
15 Avoid it, don’t go on it, turn away from it, and pass on.
16 For they can’t sleep if they haven’t done evil, they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone fall.
17 For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining ever brighter until full daylight.
19 The way of the wicked is like darkness; they don’t even know what makes them stumble.
20 My son, pay attention to what I am saying; incline your ear to my words.
21 Don’t let them out of your sight, keep them deep in your heart;
22 for they are life to those who find them and health to their whole being.
23 Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life’s consequences.
24 Keep crooked speech out of your mouth, banish deceit from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze on what lies in front of you.
26 Level the path for your feet, let all your ways be properly prepared;
27 then deviate neither right nor left; and keep your foot far from evil.
5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding;
2 so that you will preserve discretion and your lips keep watch over knowledge.
3 For the lips of a woman who is a stranger drop honey, her mouth is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to Sh’ol;
6 she doesn’t walk the level path of life —her course wanders all over, but she doesn’t know it.
7 So now, children, listen to me; don’t turn away from what I am saying:
8 distance your way from her, stay far from the door of her house;
9 so that you won’t give your vigor to others and your years to someone who is cruel,
10 so strangers won’t be filled with your strength and what you worked for go to a foreign house.
11 Then, when your flesh and bones have shrunk, at the end of your life, you would moan,
12 “How I hated discipline! My whole being despised reproof,
13 I ignored what my teachers said, I didn’t listen to my instructors.
14 I took part in almost every kind of evil, and the whole community knew it.”
15 Drink the water from your own cistern, fresh water from your own well.
16 Let what your springs produce be dispersed outside, streams of water flowing in the streets;
17 but let them be for you alone and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain, the wife of your youth, be blessed; find joy in her —
19 a lovely deer, a graceful fawn; let her breasts satisfy you at all times,
always be infatuated with her love.
20 My son, why be infatuated with an unknown woman? Why embrace the body of a loose woman?
21 For Adonai is watching a man’s ways; he surveys all his paths.
22 A wicked person’s own crimes will trap him, he will be held fast by the ropes of his sin.
23 He will die from lack of discipline; the magnitude of his folly will make him totter and fall.
Genesis 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “It is not true that you will surely die; 5 because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” source
I got a new Bible today. A new Study Bible and I’m in love again.
I opened it and I read the verses given above. Allow me to share my notes with you.
Not True.
How would she know what that meant?
Your eyes will be opened, he said.
Here’s what I hear him saying to Eve (Havah).
Your eyes are closed.
When you believe GOD your eyes are closed. You cannot see. You do not know.
He is still saying it today. Moreover, so are his followers. Have you not heard them?
The evil one went on speaking. As I see it he said:
But, if you eat what HE told you not to eat THEN you will be like HIM. HE does not want you to be like HIM.
(WHAT A LIE!)
HE wants to keep all that knowledge to HIMSELF. HE is holding out on you. (See Ps. 84:11)
How many times have we heard those lies?
Be like GOD, knowing good and evil.
Until the evil one, she knew no evil!!
Can you imagine? SHE KNEW NO EVIL!
And there he stood: EVIL.
There he stood taunting her to know him instead of GOD.
Telling her that GOD knew both good and evil and she didn’t. BUT wait.
Wait she could know evil – all she had to do was disobey GOD.
And that is all we have to do to become well acquainted with evil, just disobey GOD.
It comes no naturally, doesn’t it?
Satan made evil look more appealing to Eve than obedience than goodness, than purity, than health, than GOD HIMSELF.
Satan has not changed.
And until we believe JESUS, we remain unchanged as well.
BUT wait:
4 But God is so rich in mercy and loves us with such intense love 5 that, even when we were dead because of our acts of disobedience, he brought us to life along with the Messiah — it is by grace that you have been delivered. 6 That is, God raised us up with the Messiah Yeshua and seated us with him in heaven, 7 in order to exhibit in the ages to come how infinitely rich is his grace, how great is his kindness toward us who are united with the Messiah Yeshua. 8 For you have been delivered by grace through trusting, and even this is not your accomplishment but God’s gift. 9 You were not delivered by your own actions; therefore no one should boast. 10 For we are of God’s making, created in union with the Messiah Yeshua for a life of good actions already prepared by God for us to do. source Ephesians 2
The White Stone 