FBC Daily Devotional – April 1, 2021

Well, this is Maundy Thursday.

Tomorrow, Good Friday, day of the Lord's crucifixion and leading up to

Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, when our Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week, the

Lord's Day.

So, on this particular day, this evening, we're going to have an evening service,

a Maundy Thursday service, and it'll meet at 7 o 'clock, and so what we do is we

spend some time reading the scriptures.

We read the account of the night of Jesus' betrayal,

his time at the table with the disciples.

We commemorate the Lord's table together.

We reflect on the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal

of Judas and turning Jesus over to the authorities.

Then follow him to that so -called trial, first in the

courtyard of the high priest, and then before Pilate, before finally ending the evening

with the crucifixion.

It's kind of a sober, somber service, but it's a needful one.

It's needful because it highlights our need of the Savior who did what he did for us,

but then it also prepares us for the joy that comes in the morning,

resurrection morning, in just a couple of days.

So, if you can make it tonight at 7 o 'clock, I hope you'll do so.

I encourage you to do so.

So, full disclosure here, I made some kind of a goof.

Somehow, I ended up copying the scripture reading

for yesterday, the end of one quarter.

Yesterday was March 31st, and at the time when I made up the scripture reading schedule that I

did January, February, and March, and then at the beginning of March, middle of March, I made

up the schedule for April through September.

When I made up the schedule for April, somehow I ended up putting down for April 1st, today,

the same readings as I had yesterday.

I don't know how I did that, but I could say something about it.

It must be one of those things that comes with being past, well, into your sixth decade or something

like that.

I don't know.

Whatever the case.

So, yesterday and today, you read Matthew 28 and as well Proverbs

9, 9, and 10.

So, yesterday, I zeroed in on Matthew 28.

So, what I want to do today is zero in on Proverbs 9, 9, and 10.

And no, this is not an April Fool's joke, okay?

I thought about sharing some of the best April Fool's jokes I'd ever heard, but you can find those on your own.

So, I'll let you Google that and discover your own.

But instead, let me focus on Proverbs 9, 9, and 10.

I'll read it and then make a few comments.

Verse 9 says, Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser.

Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

Then verse 10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

So, what's foundational to that wise man, so that when he receives

information and instruction, he can be wiser?

What's foundational is the fear of the Lord.

And verse 10 goes on to say,.

And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

What's foundational to that man whom you're wanting to teach things, for him to

increase in learning, the just man?

How will he really increase in learning?

He will be just and have as a foundation a knowledge of the Holy

One.

So, the fear of the Lord, the knowledge of the Holy One, there's a parallelism there.

The beginning of wisdom and understanding, there's some parallelism there.

And so, the point that the writer of Proverbs is making is that if you really want to

increase productively in learning and wisdom, the

foundation of it all will be a fear of the Lord and a knowledge

of the Lord, a knowledge of the Holy One, a knowledge of God.

And here, I think, is the idea.

Without that foundation, oh, you can certainly gain all kinds of information,

and that information may help you to succeed, as they say, in the world's eyes, in the

world's view of definition of success.

But in reality, all of that increasing in knowledge, that

gaining of information, it doesn't really produce

anything helpful in terms of eternity, in terms of

everlasting life, in terms of one's relationship with God.

It's not going to make you any more godly if you don't already have a foundation of

knowing God.

It's not going to.

Enhance,.

If I can use it this way, it's not going to enhance your standing with God in the least bit.

You can be the most educated and have your head filled with more information than anybody else on the planet.

God isn't going to be impressed by that.

The beginning of it all, the foundation of it all, must be the fear of the Lord.

It must be a knowledge of the Holy One.

So, I mean, think about it even in our own culture.

Think about our own culture.

Just step back a minute and don't think about this on an individual level.

Think about it on a think about it on the culture -wide level.

We in our world and in our Western culture are just absolutely inundated with

information, aren't we?

Knowledge is available like it has never been available in history.

We have more, we have more available at our

fingertips in one of these little devices than our grandparents, our

parents, and grandparents had in the largest libraries in the largest city.

We have more available to us right here in this little device.

That information is just exponentially expounding

and expanding in our world.

And yet, look at our culture.

It's fraying.

It is decaying.

It is it is descending at a rapid, rapid rate.

There is more foolish application of knowledge today than there has

ever been in history.

We have become so smart, haven't we?

We've become so intelligent that we think that we think we

know better about matters like gender than the Creator,

who really only created two.

And so, with our great knowledge and our great information, we can take a child and we

can pump them full of drugs and we can perform surgeries on them and we, in our

great, wonderful, wise, smart intelligence, can turn them into a gender that

they're not, really.

Aren't we smart?

No.

Without the foundation of the knowledge of the Holy and the fear of the Lord,

all of the increase in accumulation of knowledge will just leave us all

the more foolish in our application of what we learn.

God help us.

God help us to know Him.

God help us to fear Him.

I trust, indeed, you do.

I'm assuming that you wouldn't be paying a bit of attention to what's going on in these few minutes

on these devotionals if you didn't already have a foundation laid of a fear of the Lord

and a knowledge of the Holy One.

I hope that you can build on that, even through these few minutes together.

All right.

Well, let's pray and ask God to truly increase our wisdom as we learn of Him.

Father, give us that fear of You.

Give us a knowledge of You that we can build upon and that we can increase in

true knowledge and we can increase in biblical, godly wisdom,

that we might live the way You designed us to live in this world that You have

created.

This we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, have a good rest of your Thursday.

And again, I hope you can join us for the Maundy Thursday service tonight at 7 o 'clock.

If not in person, then perhaps by video.

I'm still toying with whether or not we'll be able to pull that off.

But check in tonight at 7 o 'clock on the church website and see if

that video is running.

So, well, have a good day.

God bless.