(Pro) 7:1-3, 5 CJB “My son, keep my words, store up my commands with you. Obey my commands, and live; guard my teaching like the pupil of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. so that they can keep you from unknown women, from loose women with their seductive talk.”
Solomon gives his son a simple instruction:
Keep God’s words.
Store up His commands.
Guard His teaching.
Write it on your heart.
Why?
Because something else is always trying to capture it.
God’s Word Keeps Us in God’s Ways
Proverbs 7 warns about sexual immorality, but the greater danger is idolatry—allowing something we desire to seduce our hearts away from faithfulness to God.
But the principle reaches much further.
When we stray from reading, studying, applying, and obeying God’s Word, we become increasingly vulnerable to the desires of our flesh.
We compromise with the world.
We fear men more than God.
We begin pleasing ourselves rather than pleasing Him.
Eventually, something other than God captures our affection and allegiance.
That is idolatry.
We don’t usually wake up one morning and decide to abandon God.
We drift.
And one of God’s primary protections against that drift is His Word.
Jesus Is the Living Word
This makes Scripture even more precious.
John identifies Jesus as the Word who was with God and was God—the One through whom all things were made.
Paul tells us that in Christ all things hold together.
The written Word points us to the Living Word.
Jesus didn’t merely teach obedience to God’s Word.
He perfectly obeyed His Father.
Where Adam failed, Christ obeyed.
Where Israel failed, Christ remained faithful.
Where you and I continually fall short, Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Father’s will.
His perfect obedience qualified Him to offer Himself as the spotless sacrifice for our sins.
We don’t obey Scripture to earn salvation.
We obey because through faith in Christ we have been saved and belong to Him.
That’s an important distinction.
Grace doesn’t eliminate obedience.
Grace produces obedient people.
Hide God’s Word in Your Heart
God’s Word cannot merely be something we hear on Sunday.
Solomon says:
Keep it.
Store it.
Guard it.
Bind it.
Write it on your heart.
That requires intentionality.
Spend time in Scripture every day.
Talk about it in your home.
Discuss it with your brothers.
Share it with your neighbor.
Most importantly—
Do what it says.
Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples, “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
Biblical discipleship isn’t merely knowing what Jesus said.
It is doing what Jesus said.
We Naturally Drift Away From God
Our natural inclination isn’t toward obedience.
It’s rebellion.
We naturally want to please ourselves.
We easily begin fearing people.
We quickly absorb the thinking of the world around us.
That’s why our minds must continually be renewed by God’s truth.
Apart from Scripture, we drift toward idolatry.
But we have been born again to live differently.
To please God.
To fear God above men.
To increasingly conform our minds, desires, and wills to His.
And the Holy Spirit uses the Word He inspired to accomplish that transformation in us.
Men, Get Into the Word
Don’t make daily Scripture intake complicated.
Open the Bible.
Read it.
Understand it.
Believe it.
Remember it.
Obey it.
Then share it with someone else.
God’s Word keeps us in God’s ways.
The question isn’t simply:
“Did I read my Bible today?”
The better question is:
“What did God say—and am I going to obey Him?”
That’s the normal Christian life.
Run Today’s Play
Ask, where am I most vulnerable to drifting from God’s ways because I’m not allowing God’s Word to govern my thinking?
Then, before allowing the world into your mind, spend intentional time filling it with God’s Word.
Finally, identify one thing God commands in today’s reading and deliberately obey it.
Men, don’t just read the Word. Store it in your heart, fill your mind with it, and obey it with your life. God’s Word keeps us in God’s ways.
