Apply

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

APPLY

Prov 23:12

12 Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.

NIV

Although both instruction and knowledge are desirable to have, the key word here is apply. With so many opportunities to attend institutions of instruction or knowledge they might seem to be the end of the means, rather than mean to the end. What good is instruction if we do not apply it to our lives? What good in knowledge if we do not use it or apply it to our lives? But the point of applying both has to do with what kind of instruction and knowledge is being spoken of here. We might be tempted to think in the natural or worldly sense. We know attending school and attaining degrees in various fields of study is a result of instruction and we certainly need all the knowledge we can get to practice our particular area of study in which we are degreed. However the heart issue is in the forefront here and that can only mean the instruction which we are to apply is that of the Lord.

Job 22:21-22

21 "Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. 22 Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart.

NIV

We are to apply the instruction of the Lord to our hearts. It is a good thing to know the word of God. It is a marvelous ability to be able to quote a verse and include chapter and verse. But we have to apply that verse to our hearts and open our ears to its knowledge for our lives. In using the principle of hermeneutics we might be tempted to see some scriptures as simply history, which is for those in the time it was written, and not for us today.  But that principle serves to give us more knowledge about the meaning of that truth for our lives and how we might apply it to our heart. We must always remember God is always present, he is not past tense and therefore his word is also always presence tense, which means it was written for all mankind, every tribe, every nation, in every time in our linear view. So we must apply all the truth of God to our lives. This is more than just having knowledge of his word. His knowledge is considered the greatest wisdom we can attain. We learn about who God is. This is the knowledge we are to seek. We learn about him, but more importantly we learn who he is. Then knowing him we accept his instruction for our lives, but more importantly we apply his instruction to our heart. Then it becomes our life. Jesus tells us he and the Father are one.

John 10:30

30 I and the Father are on."

NIV

In his prayer to the Father Jesus, prays that we also would be one as he and the Father are one so that we might bring glory to the Father. But also that we have the glory of God. 

John 17:20-23

20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one : 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

NIV

We also see that we have been given glory so that the world may know we are of God. This is the result of our applying his instruction to our hearts. This is a result of accepting his knowledge, his wisdom given to us through the power of the Spirit. Yet all of it is useless unless we apply it to our hearts. Yet more importantly we are to apply our hearts to his instruction and knowledge. That is we are to make it the central theme of our heart. We are to focus our heart in his instruction, his knowledge, not of the things of this world. The Lord tells us that where our treasure is there also is our heart. So then if we consider anything in this world as important or of value, as a treasure, than our heart is not being applied to his instruction, but rather to the world. The greatest treasure in our lives should be God, his instructions, his knowledge and thus our heart should be applied in him.