Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.

8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:

10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

MEMORY VERSE: Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.—Psalm 37:3-5

CENTRAL THOUGHT: An important part of being a good steward is trusting God, as the Source and Giver of all that we have, to direct in the right path and supply whatever we need.

WORD DEFINITIONS

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust”: “Assured resting of the mind on the integrity, veracity, justice, friendship, or other sound principle of another person; confidence; reliance” (Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary).

Proverbs 3:6 “Acknowledge him”: know Him; own Him; discover him. Set Him before you; have Him always in view. “He shall”: He, Himself. “Direct”: make it plain; straight, even. He will remove all obstacles.

Proverbs 3:9 “Thy substance”: capital. The Septuagint has “thy just labors.” “First-fruits”: the first or best. “Increase”: revenue. “The injunctions…oppose all selfish use of God’s temporal gifts, and lead to the thought that, in obeying them, we are only giving back to God what are his own. ‘The silver and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts’ (Haggai 2:28)” (Pulpit Commentary).

Proverbs 3:10 “Thy presses”: vats into which the newly pressed juice flowed. “Burst out”:  overflow; abound.
Matthew 6:25 “Thought”: have the mind pulled apart or divided by cares and worries; over-anxious. “The temper against which our Lord warns His disciples is not that of foresight, which merely provides for the future, but the allowing ourselves to be harassed and vexed with its uncertainties” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers). “God gave the life and the body; will He not give the smaller gifts of food and clothing?” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges).

Matthew 6:27 “Stature”: height; an oftener meaning in Scripture is “age.” If this is the meaning here, He is saying that a man, by anxious thought, cannot add even a small amount to the length of his life.

Matthew 6:32 “Gentiles”: heathen nations of the world. “I never realised how true the statement of Jesus is till I read the Vedic Hymns, the prayer book and song book of the Indian Aryans. With the exception of a few hymns to Varuna, in which sin is confessed and pardon begged, most hymns, especially those to Indra, contain prayers only for material goods: cows, horses, green pastures, good harvests” (Expositor’s Greek Testament).

Matthew 6:34 “Evil”: trouble or sorrow.

Psalm 37:3 “Verily thou shalt be fed”: “Heb. thou shalt be fed (i.e. every way provided for) in truth, i.e. truly or assuredly; or with or by faith, as this word signifies, i. e. by thy trusting in the Lord; thou shalt live by thy faith, as is said, Habakkuk 2:4” (Matthew Poole’s Commentary).

Psalm 37:5 “Commit thy way”: Roll thy way upon Jehovah. Probably a metaphor taken from the way a camel lies down and shifts his load off of his back. “He shall bring it to pass”: He shall do it, or He shall work for thee.

LESSON BACKGROUND

In chapters 1 through 9 of Proverbs, a “master is represented as instructing his scholar, giving him admonitions, directions, cautions, and excitements to the study of wisdom” (Clarke’s Commentary). Our lesson contains admonitions from chapter 3. Here Solomon begins by an entreaty to not forget God’s laws, but to “write them upon the table of thine heart.” The complete admonition begins with this entreaty and ends with the promise of abundance for those who trust God, lean on Him for direction, own Him as Lord of all and Giver of all, and yield back to Him the best of all with which God has entrusted him.

The part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7) where Jesus forbade anxious care is similarly given in Luke 12 following the parable of the rich fool, where He warned against covetousness. In the reading in Matthew 6, Jesus had just been teaching about prayer and had reminded the listeners about their Heavenly Father who knows “what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” He repeats that truth in verse 32. In the example of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are also reminded of our true Source. The whole admonition continually points our hearts back to Him and His daily care for us. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Psalm 37, generally attributed to David, opens with the command, “Fret not!” It is certainly a human tendency to fret when we see others in the world prospering and the children of God suffering losses. Psalm 73 tells how the prophet Asaph almost slipped from his faith in God by being envious at the prosperity of the wicked. His deliverance was to go into the sanctuary of the Lord; then he understood the end of the wicked man. “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever,” he concluded. So our trust must be anchored in God, who is our portion. We can trust Him to provide; all we have comes from Him.

—Angela Gellenbeck

DISCUSSION:

1. What are the instructions in Proverbs 3:5-10, and what are the promises?
2. What is the true meaning of the command, “Take no thought”? Does this mean we can’t plan for the future?
3. What is meant by “stature” in Matthew 25:27?
4. What is meant by “commit thy way”?
5. What should be the basis for all our thoughts about finances and business?

LIFE APPLICATION

When we realize we are just stewards, that God has entrusted us with so many good things in abundance, and has fed us and cared for us so tenderly; when we focus on His goodness and bountifulness and praise and thank Him for the many gifts in our lives, we are then in a good position to trust Him to care for us in the future. We find it much easier to rely on the One to whom we are so indebted. We believe Him when He says, “I will never leave you. I will never fail or forsake you.”

We also have more faith to pray about everything. Instead of fretting or worrying, we are encouraged to take large and small burdens to the Lord. We go ahead and work and plan as wise stewards should, yet the bondage, fear, and anxiety are gone. We trust His promises that as we give freely, He will supply our needs.

Let us rely on the promise that as we seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, He will add the necessary things of life to us. Having the true riches of His kingdom satisfies the longings of the soul! We will find our longings for the temporal things of this world diminishing as we increase the treasures of His kingdom in our hearts.

—Angela Gellenbeck

REFLECTIONS

C. W. Naylor, a man who suffered 41 years of extreme physical infirmity, wrote: “Hath a mortal yet been found who hath trusted Him in vain? Search the whole broad space of earth around, and search it once again.” – Evening Light Songs #334, verse 3.

Another songwriter, Louisa Stead, wrote: “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!”

“How fitting that a missionary should write this hymn about faith and trust. Louisa M. R. Stead was born about 1850 in Dover, England, and became a Christian at age nine. She felt a burden to become a missionary in her teenage years. When she was 21 or so, she immigrated to the United States and attended a revival meeting in Urbana, Ohio. There, the Lord deeply impressed her with a ringing missionary call.

“She made plans to go to China, but her hopes were dashed when her health proved too frail for the climate there. Shortly afterward, she married a man named Stead. But sometime around 1879 or 1880, Mr. Stead drowned off the coast of Long Island. Some accounts say that he saved a boy who was drowning, and other accounts say both Mr. Stead and the boy perished. Other records suggest it was his own four-year-old daughter, Lily, that he saved. In any event, the family’s beach-side picnic ended in tragedy for Louisa.

“Shortly afterward, taking little Lily, Louisa went to South Africa as a missionary. … Louisa was left with no means of support. She and her daughter experienced dire poverty. One morning, when she had neither funds nor food for the day, she opened the front door and found that someone had left food and money on her doorstep. That day she wrote this hymn, ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.’”

—Adapted from “Then Sings My Soul,” by Robert J. Morgan and “The Complete Book of Hymns,” by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen

—Harlan Sorrell