9 Honor the LORD with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
11 My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
13 Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
14 for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
15 She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called blessed.
(ESV)
STOP! Think a little 🤔 What is God saying to you?
- What is the writer saying?
- How do I apply this to my life?
To honour God with your wealth is to recognise that it all belongs to God in the first place and that He has allowed you to receive whatever you have. If you honour Him by giving back a portion to Him and being generous with what He has entrusted you with, then you will find that you have more than enough. This is not some magic formula for wealth. This is a principle that applies whether God chooses to bless you with a little or a lot.
Discipline is always for your benefit. Discipline helps correct you when you stray from the right way. If you recognise discipline for what it is, God gently pointing you back to the right way, then you will not despise it, but embrace it. When you yield quickly to discipline then it won’t last long, because it doesn’t need to.
The rest of this passage is another reminder about the enormous blessing of true wisdom. To have wisdom from God is better than to gain much silver and gold and far more precious than jewels. In fact nothing you desire can compare with wisdom. That’s quiet a statement. That means that it is better to give up on any of your dreams in order to pursue wisdom. Or, prioritise wisdom over your dreams and God will make sure your dreams align perfectly with His will. Note carefully that all the things most people long for and do all kinds of things to obtain are listed here as the result of holding fast to wisdom: long life, riches, honour, pleasantness, peace, abundant life (the tree of life represents the source of life) and blessing.
Wisdom is much more important that earthly riches and often we don’t act like it is and we’d rather have earthly pleasures that God’s wisdom.
The first verse stoof out to me because it shows that the material things we do have are from God and we should be giving back to God