Proverbs 4:26 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Proverbs 4:26

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That means that not only must a Christian have objectives but he must be a person of great thoughtfulness. He does not stumble along; he thinks about everything. This is related to what we were seeing earlier. We are not to be fickle and changeable. Someone comes into your study and wants you to go gallivanting off on some wild goose chase. You do not give an immediate reply, you think about it, because you think about everything. Why the person who does everything on the spur of the moment is either a fool or incredibly arrogant – he has got such an astonishing trust in his intuitive judgment. This is true even of some Christians, sad to say. They seem to think their minds are capable of arriving at the right conclusion in half a second flat! No, says the word of God. Wisdom has got to have somebody who thinks about everything. Obviously there are extremes. A perfectly simple request does not need two or three days' thought, but everything must be thought about and considered.

Application

Nobody can get a 'Yes' out of me in a split second. Unless of course it is something I happen to have thought about before. But everything must be thought about. That is an absolute rule of life for a Christian. If I do not know where I am going and I never think about anything, how in the world can wisdom come into such a muddle? It is hopeless. Most of our problems, according to old Matthew Henry, arise from the fact that we say 'Yes' much too quickly. I am not referring now to courtship or areas like that, but of the ordinary incidents of life. Why have we had no time to do any of the things we wanted to do in the past two or three weeks? Probably because we said 'Yes' to crazy or time-wasting proposals much too quickly, without thinking about it. A ready 'Yes' can rob you of a whole year's spare time before you know about it. So a Christian thinks. A few seconds' thought, weighing up everything.

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Proverbs 4:26 Commentary and Bible Study